Underpants Gnomes

[Dien Rice]

Originally Posted by Bigmack

I started reading a book this weekend, Level Up Your Life by Steve Kamb. it's a very good book so far. He tells a story in it about an episode of South Park that I had never seen. There are Underpants Gnomes in the episode. They steal underpants at night. When asked why they do it they always reply, "That's Phase I" Phase III is Profit. When you ask them about Phase II, it is always represented by a large question mark. So they just keep collecting underpants hoping some day they will get to Phase III, Profits. My wife and I got a huge laugh out of this and we both realized we have been collecting underpants for a long time hoping one day to get to Phase III but never sure about how to accomplish Phase II.

Hi Bigmack,

That's hilarious!

The thing is... That's so true of so many "tech" companies!

Phase I... Get eyeballs / users
Phase II... {Mumble mumble}
Phase III... Profit!

This basically describes Yahoo, Google, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. etc.

Sometimes it works out (e.g. Google), sometimes it don't (e.g. MySpace)!

Thanks for sharing that... I loved it!

It's still as true now of many tech "startups" as it was back then...

Best wishes,

Dien