20 years of sowpub. The best lessons. #1

[Dien Rice]

Originally Posted by GordonJ

During this period of review, I'll go over some of the better lessons I gleaned from my conversations with Harvey and some of the things I learned from the experience working with Ben Suarez and Harvey and with Green Tree Press. Sometimes, the negative things offer up the most positive of life experiences.

Hi Gordon,

I can't wait to soak up some of those lessons!

I still think Harvey's "toll position" teachings are some of the most important on the planet! (Though I'm also keen to learn more about Green Tree Press, and any gems from Bud Weckesser's legacy...)

You still see people making the same "toll position" mistakes...

Some friends of mine were making good money selling games as affiliates. They created a website with reviews of the games. They knew how to do SEO so Google would send lots of traffic their way...

Then, a Google update - I think it was Panda - killed their business! People - who were only coming in from Google - stopped coming. And their business stayed dead...

Who had the toll position here? Google did. So Google had the power to kill it...

If they hard started up an email list, for example, they could have built up a following of people they could contact, who could come and buy other games...

But, they never built their own toll position. So they were vulnerable to being wiped out!

People are making the same mistake with Facebook... They build a following on Facebook. But unless they also get that following to follow them off of Facebook somehow - they are also vulnerable to being killed!

If you're an "old timer" on Facebook, you may remember the game Farmville... Everyone was farming, and sending updates to all their friends. Farmville was made by Zynga. In 2011, Zynga was making $389 million in cash flow a year from Farmville and similar Facebook-based games.

But then, Facebook decided to change how they did things - and it killed Zynga's games! In 2014 and 2015, Zynga made ZERO cash flow! Now, they're starting to build back up again...

But the analysis is, who owned the toll position? You know who did? It was Facebook. They owned the platform and the traffic. That's why Facebook was able to kill Zynga's business...

$389 million cash flow wouldn't be too bad...

But, because they didn't own the toll position, they were vulnerable to getting killed...

Harvey Brody's toll position lessons still hold, more than 50 years after he came up with them!

I like to try to hammer this into my thick skull every now and then...

Best wishes,

Dien