登录查看更多内容

Fax Club. 2025.

The DO Lectures

The Encouragement Network

发布日期: 2025年2月19日

+ 关注

What if your dumbest idea was secretly your best one?

Sometimes, the ideas we dismiss as foolish are the very ones that make us unforgettable.

The world rewards different, not just better. If you want to stand apart, you must do something so unexpected, so offbeat, that people don’t quite know what to make of it.

You’ll know you’re onto something when your idea is met with awkward silence.

?- The first thing people do when they hear an idea is compare it to something they know.

?- Oh, it’s like…

?- But when they can’t do that, they just say “interesting” in a high-pitched voice.

That’s exactly what happened this time last year when I shared my craziest idea yet…

Yup, Fax Club Was My Dumbest Idea.

It made no sense. It had no clear roadmap. And yet… it caught fire.

It started off rough. Then, something clicked. And people from all over the world got involved.

But here’s the thing?- there was never a plan for a sequel.

Then, last Friday, we all met in real life.

And after hearing what people had to say, it became clear:

There was no way we weren’t doing this again.

Their words, not mine...

Back story.

I had this dumb idea over three years ago. Everyone within the company I told had the same eye-roll response. In the end, I thought maybe they were right.

But.

Dumb ideas bob back up to the surface like a beach ball held under seawater.

That’s what happened 12 months ago, it did exactly that.

So, I wrote down all the elements.

It was hard to join. You had to go and buy a fax machine. No one has one.
It would be a high-ticket price. And it would go up each year. Guaranteed.
It was for only 100 founders. Never scale it.
It would ask one question each week.
The answer MUST be counterintuitive. They would go on our channel. The community would be electric.
No one would know each other’s names. Only the allocated number.
At the end of the year, we all meet in London for a 1 day ‘How do we launch the book in the most counterintuitive way’ workshop. Of course, we all wear our numbers on the specially made Fax Club badges. We finally get to meet each other.
There will be 100 authors. All profits shared equally. An equal share of the treasure.

As dumb as this all was, something felt nervously exciting about it.?

The bit that I loved the most was the power of learning counterintuitive thinking from other founders. A small gathering of pirates coming together to think different. Who wouldn’t want to join that club?

Maybe it wasn’t so dumb after all.

So I posted something on LinkedIn.

Just sharing that within your dumbest ideas lies some hidden gold.

I wasn’t expecting the reaction that it got.

When we launched howies, we said we had to sell 100 T-shirts for us to go ahead.

We sold 3 in the first month.

We went ahead.?

It turned out to be a smart move. But the data was not there at the start.

Fax Club feels like that.

There is something here. I can feel it.

THE. ONE. THING. I. HAVE. LEARNED. ABOUT. THE. DO. IS. THE. POWER. OF. COMMUNITY.

What does counterintuitive thinking look like?

This is the question I would be asking. And why does it matter?

Let me share some examples to kick things off.

Question.

1.?How do you create a culture in a call centre with a high turnover of people and low morale?

The belated Tony Hsieh was faced with this problem at Zappos. So, his counterintuitive thinking was after a month of training, he would devise a quit bonus.

He paid people to leave. The result was the people who stayed wanted to be there.

Morale vastly improved. It is better to get people to leave as quick as you can if they’re not into it. Because they bring the team down.

2. Can you let your customer decide the price?

In 2007, Radiohead made a counterintuitive move when they released the ‘In Rainbows’ album. They let the fans decide what the price they would pay.?

As a result, according to ComScore data, 1.2 million people visited the website in the first 29 days.

(The research I found is in dollars, but it makes the point.)

If Radiohead had sold this album through a recording company, the price of this album would be about $14.99 and Radiohead would receive about 15% of this total ($2.25).

Radiohead’s share would be even less ($1.40) if this album was sold via iTunes.?

This resulted in an average payment of $2.26 from everyone who downloaded this album. 62% people opted to download for free.

Their profit margin increased as there was no middleman.?

(Source: Nidhi Titus)

Radiohead later mentioned they had made more money through this album than all prior albums put together.

?-?This is the kind of thinking that changes things.

?- These are dumb ideas until they work.

?- Then they become maverick ideas.

The founder walks the plank when they put their dumb ideas out into the world.

It is sink or swim.

But this way of thinking is something we must learn if we want to stand out.

This is why, a year ago, I started Fax Club.

52 weeks. 52 questions. 52 world-class answers.

100 pirates.

1 book.

No guarantees. No safety net.

It could flop. It could fly.

But that’s the point—this is a real experiment.

Mavericks only.

Not for dabblers. Not for the risk-averse.

Some Questions You May Have.

When does it start? Give me the details.

7th March 2025. Friday 7.26 pm.
First question via fax.
And every Friday at the same time for 52 weeks.

When is the London Workshop??

Friday 10th March. 2026.
Cecil Sharpe House. 9.30am - 4.30pm.

What’s Required?

Every week, answer the question. Make it bold. Make it counterintuitive.
Your answer goes live on our channel.
The best responses make it into the book.
Got a killer question? You can submit those too.
Miss 3 weeks? Your fellow pirates decide if you stay or walk the plank.
No refunds. No excuses. All in, or out.

What’s the Cost of Entry?

￡444

What you get: ? A seat at the London Workshop - where ideas turn into action. ? Full-year access to the Community - your tribe of mavericks. ? An equal share of the book’s profits - because skin in the game matters.

Not just a membership. A bet on yourself.

Who is this for?

Founders who think differently.
Business owners who play the long game.
Company of ones who refuse to scale the wrong way.
Freelancers who want to charge what they’re worth.
Consultants who challenge the norm.
Agency owners who attract better clients, not just more.
Rebels who want to escape the echo chamber of sameness.
Introverts with ideas too?weird to ignore.
Optimists who know the future belongs to the bold.

Not for everyone. Just those who look at world differently.

Who this is NOT for?

Dabblers who start things but never finish.
Risk-averse rule followers. There are no guarantees here.
Cynics and armchair critics who only see the downside.

This is for people who bet on themselves. It’s not for everyone.

The Community.

This will either succeed wildly or fail spectacularly.

?If enough maverick thinkers gather around this campfire, there will be fire.

?Expect ideas that stretch your brain like never before. Expect friction. Expect breakthroughs. You won’t know what anyone does. You won’t even know their names. You’ll admire them for how they think, not what’s on their LinkedIn. By the time you finally meet in person, you’ll already know each other.

?This is one of the boldest experiments The DO Lectures has ever run.

?Those who learn together, stay together.

“For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf,?

and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.”??

- Rudyard Kipling.

Set Your Clock.

This isn’t for everyone. But if it strikes a chord, pay attention.

?? 100 spots.?No more. No exceptions. ???Doors open at 7:26 PM tonight.?First come, first faxed. ?? We’ll send a?10-minute warning. After that, you’re on your own.