The 411 On Turning Naysayers Into Believers

One of the best feelings an entrepreneur can experience is turning a naysayer into a convert. Well, I wasn’t a naysayer necessarily of The Information, but I will admit that I wasn’t sure it would be worth it for me to pay for a subscription. Information (no pun intended — really!) is supposed to be free, right? Well, I was wrong. Now, I won’t say that this is for everyone, but after meeting the team, talking to a few friends who did subscribe, and mulling it all over, I plunked down my credit card and signed up. In two days, I realized I was wrong. I have a peculiar reading pattern where I send all must-reads to my email, so they all get attention. Lately, my Pocket queue has just collected dust. In two day, The Information passed the test for me. I had originally assumed the publication would be about inside information about the startup world, but no — that was a bad assumption. Rather, it felt like a newsroom that was focused largely on two angles: (1) Who are the big technology players, what are their strategies, and who is making moves within those companies? and (2) How does the advent of today’s technology interplay with government and society? The best way for me to characterize the result is like a 60/30/10 split between The Economist, Fortune, and The Wall Street Journal style of writing, with the WSJ being the 10% of the equation. Most recently, a reporter for The Information profiled a big whig technology executive of one of the major tech companies, and it finally dawned on me: I needed to be aware of this person and the company, and I wouldn’t have found this information and level of analysis on any of the blogs nor any of the outdated financial or technology periodicals. The takeaway here (for me) is that there have traditionally been three big content verticals — sports, entertainment, politics. Now, we must add technology, as tech pervades society.

The larger story here, though, is about identifying, engaging with, and (hopefully) converting naysayers into believers.

So many people are trying to build cool new things (look at the rate of information flow on Product Hunt, for instance), and yet the competition for attention gets more brutal. The natural inclination is to enter into a sales pitch of sorts about why someone should try the product you built, or the product you invested in, or the product that you sourced and/or brought to Product Hunt. The incumbents usually learn to tune out these pitches. But, conversely, what about intensely engaging the naysayers? I’ve seen founders of some startups who are well-known but early monitoring threads and subtweets to find fans and the non-believers. I myself reached out to a well-known reporter who didn’t quite understand why a bunch of startups were in a space, emailed him, and he was kind to write back. Hopefully he follows through, and I’ll be watching. I’ve also noticed other reporters who berate a space but don’t engage back to learn more. Their reporting will suffer in the long-term, I’m sure of it. Anyway, the point of this all is that some naysayers hold clues for those who are creating something, and its a puzzle to figure it out. Additionally, some of the naysayers who do convert will end up being huge fans, so even on that count, it’s worth seeking them out on the chance you find someone invaluable to put into your corner. We have seen this happen with Swell (a radio pioneer in London is now one of our biggest fans) and I’ve heard other founders explain that some of their social media “whales” were groomed through this process. Not only does it feel good when it happens (endorphins!), it’s also a good strategy all around.