Purple Cow

Purple Cow
attempt a pail imitation. The Democrats will never be able
to out-Republican the Republicans, Reebok can’t out-
Nike Nike and JetBlue didn’t try to out-American
American. You have to go where the competition is not.
The farther the better.
Does the Postal Service hire annoying people or just
train them to be that way? How many times have you told
someone about a bad experience at the Motor Vehicles
bureau? It’s not expensive, and if you’re not really and
truly a monopoly, it might be worth investing in exceptionally
nice people as a way of being remarkable.
Everyone knows that the record business is dying, that
no smart entrepreneur would start a real business trying to
make money in music. Don’t tell that to Micah Solomon,
David Glasser or Derek Sivers. Micah runs Oasis CD
Duplication, which is obsessed with making CDs for independent
musicians. One example of his remarkable
behavior: He regularly sends a sampler CD to every
important radio station in the country – and the CD only
includes music from his customers.
David Glasser and his partners run Airshow Mastering,
which creates cutting edge CD masters for Sony – and for
individual musicians as well. He does an amazing job in
helping musicians realize their dreams.
And where do both companies send these musicians
when the records are ready to be sold? To CDBaby.com,
the best record store on the web. Derek sells the work of
literally thousands of independent acts, doing it with such
success (and treating his partners with such respect) that
word of mouth is the only advertising he needs to attract
new musicians and new customers.
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