The Difference American Startups Founders Make, Obvious Lie Marketing, The Better Trap, Pirate Snacks & More
Christopher Lochhead ????????????
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Thanks for reading.
Welcome to The Different Newsletter.
Musings for entrepreneurs, marketing leaders, and creators with a different mind.
From Christopher Lochhead.
Sponsored by Bad Tuna Industries.
You should read our real newsletter, not this one.
(And, if this is you’re first time here. I hope someone warned you. And please. Pretty please. With whisky on top. Get out of the passing lane.)
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America Needs Legendary Startup Founders & VCs
Venture capital investment U.S. startups accounts for 0.8% of GDP.
Revenue produced by vc-backed startup founders is 21% of U.S. GDP.
Revenue produced by vc-backed startup founders is 21% of U.S. GDP.
Revenue produced by vc-backed startup founders is 21% of U.S. GDP.
Revenue produced by vc-backed startup founders is 21% of U.S. GDP.
Revenue produced by vc-backed startup founders is 21% of U.S. GDP.
The ratio of revenue generated to investment is approximately 105:1 (21% / 0.2%).
There has never been a group of people that ever produce a result like this.
(Everything is the way that it is, because someone like you changed the way that it was.)
Startup founders (with VCs) are the largest entrepreneurial value creators in history.
(But wait… there’s more)
IPOs: Between 1980 and 2020, over a third (39%) of all IPOs were venture-backed founders.
R&D investment: Venture-backed companies account for 44% of total R&D spend in public markets, despite making up only a fifth of those markets.
Tech employment is projected to grow 11% from 2019 to 2029, faster than the average for all occupations.
Venture capital-backed companies are responsible for 11% of private sector jobs in the United States.
The combined market cap of all companies on Nasdaq and the NYSE is about $54 trillion U.S.
30-40% of this market cap comes from startup founders in America and backed by American VCs.
40% of $54 trillion is $21.6 trillion.
$21.6 fucking trillion in value created by startup founders.
Now.
Imagine if those founders and those VCs never summoned the courage, never had the dream, and never produced those legendary outcomes.
Were would you and I be?
Where would America be?
Where would the free world be?
Now consider this. What if all that value, was created in another country?
What if all of that value was created by people who hate the west, capitalism, entrepreneurship and democracy?
Vladimir Putin in 2017:
“Whoever becomes the leader in AI will become the ruler of the world.”
America and the free world need exponential new value creating people more now, than ever.
(Data verified with Perplexity.AI, Google, & OpenAI)
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(No) Surprise: Hustle Porn Stars Are Assholes
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Is LinkedIn A Dating Site Now?
According to the NY Times interest in "Women Peak at 18 While Men Peak at 50".
I'm a man in my 50s.
I must be in my prime dating years.
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Maybe that's why LI is becoming a dating site?
Maybe match makers are on LI looking to shake 50 yr old married dudes loose?
Regardless, my wife is not impressed.
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Americans Like To Switch Up Presidents Evenly, But Not Lately…
Over the last 30 years:
This period has seen a relatively balanced distribution of power between the two major parties, with a slight edge to Democratic presidencies.
The 30-year span had six presidents, evenly split.
But.
Over the last 15 years (2009-2024):
Democratic presidents have held office for 11 years.
Republicans 4.
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The California Homeless Industrial Complex Wins / Humans Lose
A state audit found the California government extracted $24 billion from tax payers over the 5 years and gave it to the Homeless Industrial complex.
Results you ask?
The homeless problem got worse.
The homeless population grew 40% from 2018 to 2022.
(Imagine a CEO who invested $24 billion, lost it all and went into massive dept. That CEO would be way fired.)
As of 2023, there were over 170,000 unhoused people in California, representing about 30% of the total U.S. homeless population.
The number of unsheltered individuals in California rose by 6% in 2023 alone, reaching over 180,000 people.
What if we just gave people the money?
$24,000,000,000 ÷ 180,000 = $133,333.33
If the $24 billion spent on homelessness over the 5-year period from 2018 to 2023 were divided equally among the 180,000 homeless individuals…
Each person would have received $133,333.33.
Instead.
The state "has not established a consistent method for gathering information on homelessness programs’ costs and outcomes.”
(Imagine a board meeting with a CEO or CFO who said they had no good way of knowing what they spent and what result they got from a $24 billion dollar fucking investment. That just happened in California.)
The state wants more money for the Homeless Industrial Complex.
With zero investigation into “where’s the money Lebowski”?
These people who claim to care about the homeless, can not expect us to believe they actually care about the human beings on the street.
If they cared they’d have produced results for them.
They’d know exactly where the $24 billion went, what worked, what didn’t and where they can improve.
Just like every CEO knows about her business.
If they cared about people experiencing homelessness, they’d stop new money into the system until a complete inquiry is done.
But businesses need customers.
And, the California Homeless Industrial Complex is a mega business.
If they solved (or even reduced) homelessness, the Homeless Industrial Complex would shrink, or God forbid go away.
Throwing homeless advocates out of work. In business this is called a perverse incentive.
(Getting paid to produce a negative result.)
Maybe.
Just maybe.
This perverse incentive is a factor (how ever small) in why a $24 billion investment creates 40% growth in misery to monetize?
Ps.
I understand this is a complex issue, with tons of nuance and drivers. We’ve had experts on homelessness educate me a little on our podcast.
And even if the Homeless Industrial Complex was subconsciously just 1% motivated by self preservation, that would be $240 million to them.
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“Better” is a trap.
Anytime a company makes a comparison statement, they are falling into the “better” trap.
Words that end in -er and “most/more-than” statements imply comparison. Because in order for something to be fast-er?or smart-er?or cheap-er, something else has to exist to give it meaning.
(Every er is in reference to competitors, to the status quo.)
(Every er in your marketing makes your customer think about a competing brand)
Here are some easy-to-spot examples:
What’s really happening here is the company is making the?unconscious, unquestioned, unconsidered, undiscussed decision?to carry their brand into someone else’s category and try to convince the world that their product is “better.”
It happens all the time.
And it’s always a disaster.
领英推荐
Even the world’s most successful, most legendary marketers make this mistake.
Just look at Pepsi.
(Donkeys)
(Too harsh?)
For more than 100,000 years, Pepsi’s marketing strategy has been in comparison to the category king of soda: Coca-Cola.
Over the past 10 to 20 years, has Pepsi’s “better product” marketing strategy been working?
No.
If anything, it has further reinforced the fact that Coca-Cola is the king of the soda category.
Pepsi is venmo-ing their marketing dollars to Coke every time they make a comparison.
(Most startup founders and most marketers will spend their whole lives venmo-ing their marketing budget to the category king in their market and not know it.)
Pepsi’s market share has been falling for more than a decade—which means, despite the company spending tens of millions of dollars on Super Bowl ads, they haven’t had any meaningful impact on dethroning Coca-Cola’s leadership position.
Rather than falling into a never-ending comparison competition, category designers focus on creating a?different?future.
Better Vs. Different
The need to draw a product or feature comparison is irrelevant when you’re the category king.
(Others compare themselves to you.)
Instead of having a conversation about the past, you have a conversation with your customers and investors about the future—specifically, the future potential of the market category you’re designing.
Instead of inviting a comparison, “don’t take my word for it, listen to our customers tell you why they bought from us and not the bad guys.”
Or one of our favorites in tech.
Companies posting how Gartner ranks them.
Against their competion.
(Further reinforcing how comparable… and thus replaceable they are)
Ever see Apple do this?
Ever see Coke compare themselves to Pepsi?
Ever see OpenAI do a feature comparison with Google?
Nope.
We’ve all been taught to compete (better).
Not create (different).
Those who play better (comparison) games struggle and lose.
Those who play different (create) games, design and dominate the markets of the future. And earn 76% of the economics.
OpenAI (fastest growing startup ever) is not search 2.0.
Not a better Google.
They are different.
A new thing.
In their first revenue year, OpenAI's annualized revenue (ARR) was around $1 billion.
By late 2023, $1.6 billion.
As of June 2024, OpenAI's ARR reached $3.4 billion.
If they had competed against Google in a head on attack, do you think they’d have achieved such exponential growth?
Different works.
Ps. Aren’t you glad OpenAI is not in China, Russia or Iran.
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Obvious Lie Marketing
Did you see me on the cover of Awesome Entrepreneur Marketing Influencer Douche Bag Magazine?
No you didn’t.
But you could have.
For a small “featuring fee” of $3,500.
So, next time you see someone, or some company win an award on the cover of a magazine.
Beware.
It might be intergalactic bullshit.
Exhibit A:
(note the “certificate of recognition”)
Exhibit B:
Inc Magazine charges entrepreneurs $595 to "apply" for their list.
People who think they need fake awards to win.
Lose.
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Thanks for reading.
Shalom my Pirate friend,
Christopher Lochhead
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Here come the dis-credits.
Pirate Snacks ??
And Legal Warnings…..
You should feel zero obligation to read from this point on.
Your time would be better spent studying Spinal Tap lyrics.
This Different newsletter really ties the room together.
There are (random) strategically placed spelling, grammar and formatting mistakes in this newsletter.
If you think Wayne Grezkey is building Hockey Rinks on mars with Elon Musk and Bill Shatner to create the first inter-planetary team sport, then consider these strategic mistakes part of a secret code that unlocks Federal Government servers in Bumsquat Youdaho that reveal the open codes to the UFO communication center built under the Statue of Limitations on Ellis Island.
If you’re not a Wayne Grezkey building Hockey Rinks on mars person, the errors herein exist because Lochhead is lazy…
…and wants to write in an unfettered, real(ish) time way and an editor would slow the roll.
and an editor would certinaly make “improvements”
Substack is warning this is too long.
(a little judgy of them, no?)
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Published by Category Pirates.
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Great read, Christopher Lochhead ???? ??????????? Brimming with applicable insights topped off with fun dessert snacks. Interesting discussion of the negative power of comparators such as: er, est, (fast, faster, fastest}, more, most, etc. It's a significant concept that any comparative word structure will have a negative effect on the entity being promoted rather than on the entity that it is being compared to.
Articulating your value in simple terms to drive growth | Founder We Explain Stuff
7 个月Great article Chris. Linkedin as a dating site. Category design me thinks. ??