Skip to content

Adam’s Daily Post

Join thousands of readers who read my short daily posts on edutainment, product design and running sustainable creator-led business for over 20 years. Blogging daily since 2017.

Featured in Huffington Post and Inc Magazine
Adam Fairhead Adam Fairhead
Post #2323 • April 19 2024

The answer lies in truths

Do you have a 'system'?

Everyone has a 'system'.
A 'too good to be true' offer.
An erudite triteness masked as 'intellectual property'.

Well. Not everyone.
But look at modern advertising. It feels that way!

Can reason compete with this?
The answer lies in truths:

  • People like things that give more than they ask.
  • People like enjoyable things more than boring things.
  • People like well-made things more than regurgitated trash.

Best of all?
People like those things all of the time.

But emerging trends?
Hot new social tools?
Easy-money opportunities?
People only like those things some of the time.
They do. Until they don’t.

I explore this topic in more detail in this week’s issue of The Productoon newsletter. Check it out!

Adam Fairhead Adam Fairhead
Post #2322 • April 18 2024

Don’t break it

Go all in.

But don’t forget:

Don’t believe everything you hear online.
Don’t buy into the hype on your timeline.
Don’t trust too-good-to-be-true offers.
Don’t take shortcuts, they’re bear traps.
If it’s taking a while, but it’s working, don’t break it.

Adam Fairhead Adam Fairhead
Post #2321 • April 17 2024

Be excellent

“Post 64 times a day”…

“Inbound is better than outbound”…

These ‘takes’ are missing the point.

Here’s the point:

  • You don’t pick friends based on ‘who went first’
  • You don’t connect the loudmouth or the mute
  • Everyone’s best friend was once a stranger
  • So many would-be-great-friends still are

So whether you do inbound or outbound,
Whether you post every day or not at all,
Remember what two wise men said:

“Be excellent to each other.”

Adam Fairhead Adam Fairhead
Post #2320 • April 16 2024

Napkin strategies

Social strategy:

Step 1: Do cool stuff

Step 2: Talk about it in cool ways

Step 3: Ensure it’s valuable & enjoyable

If it won’t fit into a scribble on a napkin, it’s too complex!

Adam Fairhead Adam Fairhead
Post #2319 • April 15 2024

64 times a day

“Post 64 times a day”…

“Inbound is better than outbound”…

These ‘takes’ are missing the point.

Here’s the point:

  • You don’t pick friends based on ‘who went first’
  • You don’t connect the loudmouth or the mute
  • Everyone’s best friend was once a stranger
  • So many would-be-great-friends still are

So whether you do inbound or outbound,
Whether you post every day or not at all,
Remember what two wise men said:

“Be excellent to each other.”

Adam Fairhead Adam Fairhead
Post #2318 • April 14 2024

Gardening and product design

After gardening all day…

And now I write this while everything aches (ha!)…

Some product design observations hit me while riding around cutting the lawn:

  • Everything takes longer than you think it will
  • Rushing can make the lawn shorter, but not nicer
  • Everyone has a short lawn, not everyone has a nice lawn
  • The difference between ‘short’ and ‘nice’ is patience and care
  • You can’t do everything in one go, but you can make progress
  • Ship progress, and enjoy how it looks out the window
  • Ship progress on top of progress on top of progress
  • Eventually, you’ve shipped ‘nice’
Adam Fairhead Adam Fairhead
Post #2317 • April 13 2024

Finding time for greatness

Yesterday’s newsletter issue generated a lot of positive responses.

That’s great!

One concern I hear when people are challenged to be great is this:

But that takes a long time. Everyone is moving so fast, I don’t have time.

I think that’s sad.

If you don’t ‘have time’ to be great, you certainly won’t have time to be mediocre. After all, mediocrity is a crowded space, and diffcult to win in for long.

Great work, on the other hand, does take a long time… but the competition is almost non-existent.

That affords you all the time you need.

Adam Fairhead Adam Fairhead
Post #2316 • April 12 2024

So good they’ll deplatform

This week’s issue of The Productoon newsletter dug into how we don’t need to be limited by social media platforms and their algorithms.

But to be free, we need to be great. Here’s an excerpt:

Make things so good they’ll
randomly check elsewhere for you.

Ever flick over to your favourite store or channels?
Just to see if there’s something new or interesting?
Most of us do.

Great experiences live rent-free in our minds.
Optimise for it.

Make things so good that
media covers you cross-platform anyway.

The media covers interesting and noteworthy things.
So make interesting and noteworthy things.

Then tell them about it.

Leverage smaller-by-design channels.

Email newsletters. Discord servers.
These work because you’re the moderator.
Not an algorithm trying to sift through billions of posts an hour.

Now you’re the one responsible for your people seeing the best stuff.
And you’re far better equipped to do that than Meta is.

Okay okay… so it’s clear: we have to make really great things.

What does “really great things” mean?

Here’s the formula for that in this context:

Give more than you ask + Make it enjoyable.

The more you give than you ask, and the more you make it enjoyable, the greater your results should be. Do that and extend your time horizon, and you’re golden.

Don’t entrust the health and wellbeing of your creations, projects, or business ventures with platforms and gatekeepers that don’t give a hoot about you.

The safest, smartest, and most fun thing you can do is to be bigger than the platforms.

To read the full issue, go to TheProductoon.com and subscribe!

Adam Fairhead Adam Fairhead
Post #2315 • April 11 2024

Content ABCs

3 ingredients of great content.
Which are you missing?

A) Know your audience’s tastes
B) Have great ideas for those tastes
C) Implement them

Not easy…

But at least it’s simple!

So no more researching.

Execute your ABCs + partner with those who can help.

Adam Fairhead Adam Fairhead
Post #2314 • April 10 2024

Driving and videos

What great videos & driving a car have in common:

You need these 3 things for both to work:

  1. Eyes. See what’s ahead, develop good taste

  2. Brain.
Process opportunities based on what you see

  3. Car.
Systems & teams used to act upon opportunities

No eyes? You fly blind. Who knows what’ll work.
No brain? You just copy others. No advantage.
No car? You can’t strike while the iron’s hot.

Get all 3 and enjoy the ride.

Subscribe to my newsletter

I create a weekly newsletter for creators who want to improve their product marketing and their mindset. Check it out:

Check out the Productoon newsletter