

What Every Entrepreneur Could Learn from Justin Bieber - thankuz
http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/01/what-every-entrepreneur-could-learn-from-justin-bieber/

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larrik
I don't know what was worse:

1) An article with "Justin Bieber" in the title hits HN, or

2) I click on it, or

3) I read the whole thing, or

4) It was actually worth reading.

Not bad Mark Suster... not bad at all.

~~~
arkitaip
This is actually an old link baiting title formula. What x can learn from y
where x usually is outlandish or unusual in relation to y.

~~~
wisty
First 2 sentences: "I know what you’re thinking – link bait title, right?
Wrong."

Refuge in audacity.

It's still a good article - be talented, work hard, get mentors, build an
audience and engage with them.

Like all business articles, it's not really hard facts. It's sloppy stories,
that helps you learn through osmosis.

You learn from stories, because you feel emotion, and they trigger the part of
your brain that says "I can do that too!" (not totally scientific
explanation). They aren't about hard facts though.

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endlessvoid94
I really dislike the idea of "talent". "You have to be talented." "It all
starts from talent."

I've seen people with seemingly NO talent for music or coding or whatever turn
themselves into virtuosos because they WANTED it. It seems like saying "You
need talent" is a way to tell people that "it's okay that you're not trying,
because you might not be talented in this area". And that's bullshit.

~~~
kemayo
I have artist friends who get really annoyed when they hear people say "I
wanted to draw but I just don't have any talent for it, not like you". They
feel like it's totally dismissing the years of obsessive practice they've put
into it to make it /seem/ effortless.

Natural talent counts for something, but it's not going to make you a success.
I saw "result = talent * effort" mentioned on the last HN post about this, and
I thought it was pretty accurate.

~~~
neutronicus
I had an ex with natural talent for art. She never went anywhere with it (took
the safe route and became a nurse instead), but she was just plain better at
art than other people, with considerably less effort.

~~~
kemayo
Some people certainly do have a natural talent for something. However, this
rarely means that they're good enough to succeed at that thing without working
on it. I.e. if your ex wanted to make a living as an artist she'd still likely
have had to go to school / practice extensively before being good enough that
people would have bought her stuff.

Also, and I don't know whether this is the case with your ex, it's entirely
possible that she was better at art because she'd been idly drawing over the
years. I've certainly known people who wouldn't call themselves artists whose
default idle activity is to sketch away on a piece of paper. They're vastly
better than me, because they've been practicing in a low-key way for years.

Natural talent just gives you a head start on others. Someone willing to put
in more effort than you can still be better than you.

I suppose this may break down around the limits of a field, especially one
rooted in physical activity. E.g. Michael Phelps seems to be nearly perfectly
physically adapted for swimming. If he never practiced then he'd be easily
outswum by anyone half-decent... but by putting in massive effort training he
reaches a point where he's practically unbeatable.

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jhuckestein
I would have loved to see Bieber succeed without any help. With phenomenons
like him I'm never sure if it's really them or if it's the puppeteers being
smart (in this case Usher and his record label).

The internet seems to have the power to bring anyone to superstardom, but most
of the time that happens accidentally or is done clumsily. What if a talented
programmer with a knack for marketing took a few years off to learn how to
act, sing and dance (and to get few plastic surgeries ;)) and then promoted
themselves on the internet? Next time I find myself without anything to do for
a few years I'll make sure to try that :) And I'm only half-kidding.

Please excuse me now, we're going on a company excursion to see this movie.

~~~
jarin
Masi Oka (Hiro on Heroes and Max on Hawaii Five-O, formerly a visual effects
programmer at ILM) is an example of a programmer who taught himself how to act
and became a successful actor, but he didn't self-promote on the Internet. He
did it the hard way (commercials, guest roles, pilots, etc).

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henrikschroder
I think the most interesting part of the Bieber story is that he gives away
all his music for free. He started on YouTube, so all his music is on YouTube.
Sure, if you want it in a different format you'll have to buy a CD or go to
the iTunes store, but if you just want to listen to it, it's free.

...and then he makes up for it by selling concerts and merchandise and now
this movie, and he seems to be doing just fine.

But this business model is extremely disruptive, this is the exact opposite of
what the recording industry wants and preaches. They want people to keep
paying for the music again and again, and stop people from sharing.

I hope that the 1.3 billion views on YouTube can make more artists reconsider,
and start giving away their music for free, and move to a business model that
doesn't rely on copyright.

<http://www.youtube.com/user/JustinBieberVEVO>

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hanifvirani
This has to be the best article I have read on TechCrunch in a while. There is
no way I would have ever considered watching a Justin Bieber movie, but I feel
like doing so after reading this.

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wazoox
Once again the famous selection bias... For one Justin Bieber -- whose story
so perfectly fit the good ol' American dream it isn't even funny, we've all
seen 4564398 movies with this plot already, but I digress --, for one Bieber
how many talented, hard working people who didn't success?

What about giving some friggin' facts for a change, instead of same old tired,
rehashed, syrupy story not even good enough for Cosmopolitan magazine?

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6ren
At first, it looks like twitter, youtube etc are disrupting incumbent
publishers, but then you see they are being co-opted as just another talent-
scouting venue.

It's sad for social media, but impressive of publishers. Looks like they still
have something to offer.

~~~
forensic
Why is it sad for social media?

Seems like a social media success story to me.

Also, there's a big difference between a publisher and a coach or agent or
manager or assistant or tutor.

~~~
6ren
He's signed to Island Records (I have to admit I just assumed his was signed
to a major label, because of how he is presented, and I looked it up just now:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Bieber>).

It would be cool if social media replaced published. "Co-opted" is a technical
term in disruption, meaning that the incumbents absorb the new approach
instead of being replaced (i.e. disrupted) by them. At one time, there was a
lot of talk about "disintermediation", where publishers and other middlemen
between producer and consumer would disappear. That hasn't happened. The
closest is iTunes and amazon, which disrupted retailers.

Although there is a long-tail, where it presumably is happening, it seems that
we still need filters. Even more so, people often want whatever everybody else
wants, just because they want it. They want to fit in, conform, be part of
something greater than themselves, rather than _be_ themselves. This is
possibly (I have no idea) most true of Mr. Biebers' primary demographic, tween
girls. This popularity for its own sake is where centralized music publishers
are strongest, and disintermediated serving of the long-tail is weakest.

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redsparrow
We can have some fun taking the Justin Bieber-is-a-startup metaphor a little
too far. Like... he better hope that Microsoft doesn't acquire him for his
intellectual property and then kill him off...

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scrrr
Interestingly Bieber's movie has a rottentomatoes.com rating of 65% and an
imdb rating of 1.1.

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malcolmp
It seems like Mark Suster is trying to get a tax deduction on his Justin
Bieber fan gear!

The message is: be super talented, be lucky, work your butt off, and then
you're set. Pretty superficial article -- I am disappointed by the lack of
irony...

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dimitri_w
I tried hard to resist commenting on this subject but obviously not hard
enough. It's kind of a funny thing to read but nevertheless I stick to my
opinion that Justing Bieber is the product of someone else. But this one
succeeded in creating a new product for a new market. Still I hope that with
enough effort I can succeed without having a 70s hairstyle, a choirboy's
voice, or a busy childhood.

