Stealing Is The Best Way To Sell Something On Kickstarter, And Other Facts
Welcome to What We Learned This Week, a digest of the most curiously important facts from the past few days. This week: The lucrative world of Kickstarter ripoffs, an insanely popular $100 lightbulb and the word that ruins all apologies.
The Best Kickstarters Steal
In the old days, being first to market with something was everything. The pet rock. Lego. Beanbag chairs. GI Joe. All successful and popular because they got on store shelves first.
The internet, specifically Kickstarter, has changed how this works. Now, all one needs to do is be the first to post their clever idea, gadget or knickknack can post their idea on Kickstarter. The Pebble smartwatch. The Oculus Rift. The Coolest Cooler. All ideas that took off before the public could even get their hands on them.
This era of Earnest Kickstarter — a meritocracy where the best ideas always win out — is coming to a close. CNBC's Zac Guzman tracked down one 24-year-old entrepreneur, "Jack," who recently gamed the Kickstarter hype train to the tune of some $345,000.
You see, Jack monitors the web for "viral" product ideas — those Kickstarter campaigns, Facebook videos and other Pinterest hacks we all know and love. Once he finds an unreleased product with enough hype, he checks Alibaba to see if a knockoff is available for bulk purchase (there almost always is), then works with the manufacturer to rebrand the product as he sees fit.
Jack might not have been first to market with the ideas behind the CozyBag or the Stress Cube, but he was the first to sell it.
[CNBC]
Silicon Valley's Most Popular Lightbulb Costs $100
Lightbulbs are thought of as a binary product. They're either on or off. Working or burnt out. Soothing or harsh. For the past century or so, this hasn't been a problem for the lightbulb industry. But as energy standards push the long-lasting, inexpensive LED as the bulb of choice for many consumers, the industry is starting to sweat a little. How do you convince someone to buy more bulbs when the ones they have are still perfectly fine five years in?
The industry's savior, BuzzFeed's Joe Bernstein reports, just might be a $100 lightbulb: Ketra. Their secret is not their bulb — which touts industry-leading technology that allows it to be adjusted infinitely, monitored automatically, and controlled remotely — but their ability to sell the idea that light does not need to be binary. That light can be an aesthetic choice, something that changes with the day and your mood and the climate and the event — like the music you play or the art you display.
It just so happens that Ketra just has the product to help you realize their vision for what lighting should be. And it just so happens to cost $100 a bulb. What a bright idea.
[BuzzFeed]
If You're Going To Apologize, Don't Say 'But'
Saying you're sorry is not easy. It involves swallowing your pride, admitting you're wrong and submitting yourself to the will of the aggrieved. As an adult, it's probably one of the hardest things to do, since you don't have your parents marching you over to Jimmy Mills' house and forcing you to apologize for calling him a "fart muncher."
One thing your parents probably didn't teach out about apologizing, New York Magazine's Cari Romm points out, is how to do it properly. Where we go wrong is trying to explain or justify why we did something wrong, rather than accepting full responsibility.
So when you say you're sorry, don't say "but." Trying to explain yourself only comes off as you trying to avoid responsibility for your actions. Just say you're sorry, acknowledge what you did was wrong and promise (earnestly please!) to not repeat the same mistake again. Now, was that so hard?
Maybe The Idea Of Willpower Is Bad?
Plenty has been written over the debunking of modern psychology's bedrock principle of ego depletion. As much as we want to believe, there doesn't seem to be any evidence that humans have a capacity for willpower.
The alternative, however, seems to be an escapist fantasy: that our decisions and behaviors are wholly shaped by the environment around us. This sort of determinist thinking might lead some to think: Well, fuck it.
But as psychiatrist Cark Erik Fisher writes in Nautilus, just because self-control is an illusion doesn't mean we can't change. Maybe, instead of feeling like we need to "resist" temptation, we should identify just what is fueling those behaviors — stress, probably — and find out how to adjust them. A ship can adjust it's sails, but it can't pretend the wind doesn't exist or sail directly into it.
[Nautilus]
Previously on What We Learned This Week
The Best Chicken Nugget Is At Wendy's
For more Internet distillations like this, check out our back catalog of Digg Roundups. And for more stuff from Digg, check out our Originals archive.
