Adam Fairhead
Things I know at 35, that I wish I knew at 15:
Adam Fairhead
Behind each new growing digital product is:
Doesn’t matter who it is.
And it’s a lot of work to get right.
That’s why it’s key to love on your favourite creators.
They’re probably working harder than you think.
Adam Fairhead
Kids turn things into toys.
Forget about toys designed to be played with in a particular way.
I’m talking about cardboard. Sticky tape. Sticks. The good stuff.
Play doesn’t come just from being told what to do, or how to play. Nope. Play comes from ignoring the rules and doing something else.
Sticks become swords. Beds become trampolines. Pillows become… things to bash each other with.
What’s missing in most digital products nowadays is the opportunity to play.
Not to do...
Adam Fairhead
Other people want you do hurry up.
They want you to make it cheaper, shorter, and something a little more convenient for their near-term goals.
They want you to do more for less, pump their bags, and then get out of their way so they can do the same to the next shmuck.
Your people are not like these people.
Your people want you to take your time and do it right. They want you to use the right ingredients,...
Adam Fairhead
People are more savvy now.
Your $4997 course that promises untold riches? They’ve fallen for it once and they won’t do it again. They learned to spot the signs of a snake oil salesman, which they now avoid at all costs.
Your $20k service that guarantees an outcome, terms and conditions apply? They know that those terms and conditions are voided if you lift a finger, or grow a mustache. They’re not buying it anymore.
Your $7 ebook that reveals...
Adam Fairhead
Do you see the trends?
Are they automatically better than what you’re doing?
If everyone’s making carousels, it doesn’t mean it beats animation, or writing, or video. It’s just popular because it’s an easy way of taking up more scroll real-estate with your words.
If everyone’s making short-form content, it doesn’t mean it beats long-form content. It’s a great gateway to long-form content if you have it. And even if you have neither, huge profiles do just fine with writing...
Adam Fairhead
Have you failed much lately?
Your favourite creators have. The dishonest ones will tell you they have the magic touch. The honest ones will tell you they failed at basically everything until some things finally worked.
Your favourite brands have. Some of them sweep failures under the rug. Most of them don’t even need to, as they’re easily forgotten. Getting the market’s attention is hard, so hiding things is rarely an issue.
Your favourite products the first attempts. Authors have...
Adam Fairhead
I noticed a disturbing fear.
A lot of agencies and professional service providers would never dream of letting clients talk to each other.
Why, you ask?
Because most of them have mile-long lists of unhappy clients who didn’t get quite what they wanted, or were badly handled, or deserved their money back due to broken promises but never got a dime.
And the small number of providers who don’t have this problem are afraid they’ll out themselves as small-timers when...
Adam Fairhead
Some digital product owners just get it.
Others need a little warming up.
“Gamification”, for those others, sounds like a risky divergence into turning their product into a video game and alienating new and existing customers.
That’s not it.
The act of incentivising people with an itch to keep returning and deriving maximum advantage from your work, is not the same as wrecking your product. Quite the opposite.
The best thing to do is start small.
Start building incentives that...
Adam Fairhead
Businesses don’t experiment much.
They think they do, but not really.
Game developer Ankama’s hit game Dofus is pay-to-play. To increase reach they produced a french anime and made a free-to-play game to accompany it. Pay-to-play, free-to-play, cartoons. Then they wanted to reach a mobile audience and offered a retro Dofus experience to touch devices as another free-to-play experience. That’s three different takes on the same content, each differing in offer, each inviting new players into their world in a...
Adam Fairhead
How often do you talk with customers and peers?
As in, really talk to them.
Not that polite twaddle that they call ‘networking’. Real talk.
For years, I ran a “Tea with Adam” slot in my calendar where studio clients would get an hour with me to shoot the breeze over a cup of tea. No agenda. If we talked about their business, we talked about their business. If they wanted to chat about flying or politics or NFTs or...
Adam Fairhead
The best things in my life came to me when I broke the ‘rules’.
I met my wife while doing business in the metaverse in 2007. The metaverse was a new-fangled thing, and meeting people online was unusual. And yet here we are.
I started a creative studio in 2009 without having a clue how to run a creative studio (and the internet was not the infinite repository of advice on such things like it is today). I started by...
Adam Fairhead
People are bored.
Market-defining products are afraid to make things fun.
Spot the opportunity…!
Often, opportunity is hidden in plain sight.
We don’t miss it because we couldn’t see it.
We miss it because we weren’t brave enough.
Seize the opportunity.
Adam Fairhead
If you want to build things you & your kids’ll be proud of…
…there are a few things that you need to remember.
It’s supposed to be hard. It being hard is the point; if it were easy, everyone would do it effortlessly, and it would no longer be a standout achievement you’d be proud of having pursued in the first place.
It’s supposed to take time. It taking time is the point; if building it (and everything that’s involved...
Adam Fairhead
Sometimes you just can’t find the staff.
Not because you’re not trying.
Not because you’re being an unnecessary stickler for perfection.
Not because you don’t know where to look.
And not because you don’t have the budget.
But because you have a specific, rare intersection of skills that enable you to see around corners that others can’t.
And because of that, you have a unique opportunity to bring to market all manner of unique advantage that others just can’t see,...
Adam Fairhead
After consulting for folks from places like Cisco, Asana, Wrangler etc… I learned something.
Everyone is trying to work out how to forge deeper relationships with their audience.
Everyone, across all sizes.
My first pieces of advice are usually:
Care more about your people: If you’re able to shift from “how can I make people want this” to “how can I make what people want”, everything changes. No more R&D departments in dark rooms. Lots more phone calls with customers,...
Adam Fairhead
Most people aren’t great teachers.
Most people aren’t great students.
A great teacher creates great students: the invitation to possibility, to what could be, the permission to fail forward and have fun doing it, is as captivating to participate in as it is rare to find in the wild.
But terrible students can wear down a great teacher. Perpetual exposure to a lack of care for how much they care can suck the life out of the fragile but magical...
Adam Fairhead
When AI is writing tweets on behalf of others, who are you following anymore?
When VAs are commenting and DMing on behalf of others, is there any conversation left?
When influencers are entirely GPT-3 powered, from the photos and reels to the thoughts in the captions, who is there left for us to listen to?
When personalised emails are written entirely by machines, what becomes of our instincts to reciprocate?
When it’s all automated away, what remains of our ability...
Adam Fairhead
Because I’ve written a daily blog 1,887 days in a row…
…I can’t stop.
Because I don’t want to break the streak!
Discipline sounds boring…
But it turned creating into a game.
It’s a game now.
And games are fun.
Having trouble creating content, sharing your ideas, or building you product?
Make it fun, so you can’t stop, by committing to the discipline of showing up every day.
Then you, too, will not be able to stop.
Adam Fairhead
When I started my creator journey, Twitter didn’t exist.
Now:
There has never been a better time to create ❤️
Adam Fairhead
I started a metaverse wearables brand in 2006:
But! It was fun. It sold 100s of items daily. It paid us well.
And I met my wife in the process of running that venture!
Follow your curiosity.
It could change your life.
Adam Fairhead
To go fast, hustle it up.
To go far, calm it down.
Adam Fairhead
Perhaps you’ve heard this one:
“We need to hustle more and grow”
“Dig deep, burn the midnight oil, then you’ll succeed”
Nope!
Hustle is short:
But life is long:
Progress favours the calm.
Adam Fairhead
I used to think I was a bad storyteller.
“Stories are for babies”, I thought.
Then we had a baby boy.
Now I talk about singing clouds, poop dragons, and more on-demand.
The storytelling muscle is strong. And now I see opportunities for story everywhere I look. For brands, businesses, products, content, advertising, everywhere.
Moral of the story: Creativity follows commitment!
Maybe you have an area you wish you’d like to develop. Perhaps you wish the creative energy would strike...
Adam Fairhead
Before short-termism, brands valued:
Now they value:
Patient, long-term brands win in the end.
Adam Fairhead
Nothing grows a brand like edutainment
Adam Fairhead
Creators always have a lot to do.
Most skip personal growth on heavy days because:
But skipping it causes:
To grow, make it #1 on the to-do list.
Adam Fairhead
When I was 4, I was convinced I’d never learn to read.
I told my Mum in the supermarket that I’d never be able to read the cereal boxes. So I learned to draw all the brand mascots instead.
My journey as a creator began right there.
Adversity inspires action.
The obstacle becomes the way.
I create a newsletter called GrowthCandy. Each issue shares one idea to help build and spread your work, delivered as a short comic. Fast to read. Easy to apply. Hard to forget!