Category: English

The best way to learn something?

Practice what other people preach. I decided to get my hands dirty with SEO and so I wrote a blog post about romantic birthday gifts for her on the KnickerMail blog. (Thank you Jacqueline, Brigitte, Andra, Marge, Kadi, Gertrud, Suzu, Helen, Katja, Kersten, Kate and Kelly for replying!) Normally you’d want to create the content as quickly and cheaply as possible, but I wanted to go through the whole cycle from keyword research to submissions to article sites once to get really intimate with that area of SEO. Physical, even.

Always go for the better anecdote

Was chatting to comedian Danny Buckler today, after a great Komeediklubi show last night. He told a story from about eight years ago. He and Russell Brand were sitting in a comedy club, waiting to go on stage. Danny had had a few drinks and Mr Brand, far from being the superstar he is today, was fresh out of rehab and a bit shaky.

They were having a nice relaxed chat when both saw a true hottie sitting in the audience. Danny brought up a new subject: See that girl there? Just look at her face! Look at these [insert name of a then famous actress] face lines! I could never be with someone like her. Russel went quiet. Then almost shouted back: What the f#*c did you just say? This is nonsense! You should always go with the better anecdote!

Anyone can say things like I could never be with that girl. It’s super easy to say, as most of us know too well. The better anecdote in this instance would have meant leaping into the audience, saying something silly, rushing out to get a bouquet of flowers and proposing to her – whatever. The worst possible result would have been not being with the hottie and having a better anecdote. Better case scenario – yup, you guessed it.

And yes, this does apply to almost everything in life.

I’ve always thought Russel Brand is a bit of a cunt. Today I realized there’s also some Kant about him. Pun intended, thankyouverymuch.

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Kitebeach review – I liked Bulabog beach on Boracay, the Philippines

I really really liked kiteboarding at Bulabog beach on Boracay. It has a lot speaking for it: shape that gives you both freeridable chop, near-perfect flat for those fast runs and nice waves behind the reef. There are bigger and more beautiful beaches out there but none with three different ‘terrains’ on one small beach like this. It was just awesome. It also has the infrastructure you need on the beach: a couple of cafes and bars, kitesurfing shops to store your gear or rent sizes you are missing, beach boys that help to rig, launch or pack your kites and, last and perhaps least, hot spectators that give you the motivation to jump a meter higher and work on your smooth transitions or grabs.

bulabog.JPG
It has two problems, however. First, Boracay directs the sewage straight into the sea on the Bulabog side of the island which makes water near shore dirty, and I mean getting a rash kind of dirty. Secondly, there are lots of kiteshops which means there are lots of students, so area close to the beach tends to get crowded. As such I wouldn’t recommend Boracay to beginners that spend a lot of time in the water near shore. But if you’re intermediate or an advanced kiter, you can leave the crowds behind and either hit the surf further out or go around the small peninsula to kite at the south end of the beach. The water will be cleaner there as well. You can also ride to the island just south of Boracay to kite on Union beach which supposedly is even better for wave riding – as it’s a bit of a trip one shouldn’t do the ‘commute’ alone so unfortunately I didn’t end up going. Next time, then.

There’s many things to be said about Boracay itself. There’s a lot not to like there. Because Mother Nature has been very generous when shaping the White beach and because of easy access to the island it can be very touristy and crowded. In fact, on my first two days on Boracay I almost hated the place: hotels crammed densely on the beach, beaches full of people, shit techno-pop thumping from bars, inflated prices. Then two things happened: first we learned where the most crowded and noisy places so we could safely ignore them. And we discovered the southern tip of the White beach which is charmingly underdeveloped, and as such much quieter. It’s the kind of place where you can just sink in a chair, read a book or watch the sunset.

So all in all Boracay is a bit of smorgasbord that has some really awesome bits and a couple of things to watch out for. What comes to Bulabog beach then like with a certain nocturnal activity, sometimes you have to get dirty to have fun.

Tips: stay on Bulabog or the south end of the White beach, leave your kites with Jojo at the Timog kite shop (look out for Airush flags) and always always ask not to add sugar when you’re ordering one of the delicious mango shakes.

When discounts don’t work

70485702.JPGToday I took a bunch of clothes I hadn’t worn for a while to the Tallinn re-use centre. It’s a fine social enterprise that accepts clothes and other items in reasonable condition, sells them or gives them to the people in need of clothes and uses profits from sales to educate school kids to reuse and recycle. After handing over an armful of T-shirts, jeans and sweaters the girl at the counter thanked me and handed over a thank you card. I took a quick look at the card before handing it back (to be used again, you know) and what got me thinking was that the card featured a small discount off my next purchase. I reckon that while the people buying stuff from the centre may be very price sensitive the people taking their stuff there are most probably not. What I think they could have done instead:

  • Taken my email address to engage me with newsletters in the future.
  • Taken my email address to send me information where the clothes I donated ended up, making my contribution more tangible.
  • Allowed me to pick a free book from the selection of donated books
  • Nothing. (In addition to the smiling thank you I got anyway). Promos may work wonders but they’re a hindrance if price sensitivity is near-zero.

    • Any other examples where discounts don’t work? 20% off your next wedding and 2-for-1 funerals come to mind.

    Who on Earth would pay 39 pounds to send someone a pair of knickers?

    Lots of people, we hope. Here’s what happened:

    Kriss Soonik is a London-based lingerie and loungerie designer, and a good friend. Last year around the Valentine’s day she noticed that many people chose a different delivery address when buying knickers from her online store. It’s cute to send knickers via mail, she thought. If this was a service one would call it KnickerMail. She registered the domain and filed this idea under the label ‘One day’ in her mental cabinet.

    That day arrived a couple of months later when yours truly had quit his job at Skype with a view to create cool startups. I could watch pictures of girls in sexy lingerie and call it work, I thought and teamed up with Kriss to take care of the web and marketing side of the site.

    So please welcome and be gentle to KnickerMail. It won’t cure malaria or become the next semi-semantic communications platform for the Y-generation but it’s a rather sexy way to say hello, wouldn’t you agree?

    For some reason my friendly neighbourhood blogging engine doesn’t allow adding images to this post. Maybe it thinks it’s too raunchy for readers of this blog, which it is not. So go see for yourself, or even better, try sending KnickerMail. Next up: a post describing the bootstrapping money-saving crowd-sourcing approach of creating the site.

    Written by Comments Off on Who on Earth would pay 39 pounds to send someone a pair of knickers? Posted in English, Startups

    Komeediklubi. Boy, that was fun

    For those of you that weren’t there – the premiere night of Komeediklubi stand-up comedy club was great fun. I’m not sure whether it was more fun for the audience, for the acts or yours truly; in that sense it was almost a competition in having fun. (Luckily there were no losers in that competition.)


    As a marketer I was pleasantly surprised about the apparent effortlessness of selling out a week ahead of the event. I wrote a blog post, a funny (I think) description of the event and created a Facebook page. Then a couple of people shared the link, added people to the event and retweeted and voila! all the tickets were gone. Probably a combination of unmet demand, novelty factor, a product I believed in, good friends (thank you!) and the fact that on some level marketing had started years earlier. Over the years I’ve invited tens and tens of people along to gigs in London and spoken about going to many more. It’s just that at that point I didn’t know inviting people along would turn out to be marketing for an event I will organise myself.

    Some of you know that I had been thinking about the standup gig since February. At first I couldn’t decide on the venue all the way from London. Then I couldn’t find a date that would work for all parties. Then summer started. Then it was almost Christmas time where people have so much to do anyway. All this time I just didn’t want to get this done bad enough, one of the reasons being that there is a notable level of risk but not that all much money. And then I thought of Tallinn animal shelter that I really wanted to say thanks to, that I should donate all profits to them and my perspective changed. Risks remained the same but the payoff was not a bit of money but a good feeling inside. Zero pounds was suddenly more motivating than some hundreds of pounds. Never before had I felt so clearly first hand (first head? first heart?) the difference between doing something for a reason and doing something for a reward.

    Before this gets too sentimental – hope to see everyone there at the next event some time in January; new dates will be announced on the Komeediklubi Facebook page.

    Stand up, Tallinn

    komeediklubi-night-colorS.pngThere’s three things I miss about places like London and San Francisco: hummus, smoothies and stand-up comedy. While you can make the first two in the comfort of your kitchen you can’t really use your food processor to make people laugh. (Unless you’re a really bad cook.) Luckily there’s Jan Uuspõld with his shows and a couple of months ago Comedy Estonia popped up but this is far from enough. As I’m spending a bit more time in Tallinn these days it only made sense to add my little contribution. And so I’m very happy to present the first night of Komeediklubi, to take place on Wednesday November 24th in Von Krahl theatre. Komeediklubi badly translates to ‘Comet club’, just so you know.

    When I’ve invited people along to stand-up shows in London I’ve sometimes been nervous whether others will enjoy the gig. I tend not to see the same acts over and over again and there is a bit of hit and miss when going to see new names. I have the same nervousness multiplied by ten because I’m inviting so many more people this time but at least the lineup is pretty awesome.

    JOHN_GORDILLO.jpgI saw John Gordillo back in February and almost immediately contacted him to ask whether he’d theoretically be interested in a gig in Estonia. The fact he agreed shows what a great sense of humour he has. John’s material is a bit more intellectual if not philosophical compared to the stand-up average (if such a thing exists) and at the same time he manages to be funny as hell. He’s killed it at the Fringe, worked with Eddie Izard, he has a Wikipedia page and whatnot but at the end of the day what matters is that he can make you think and laugh at the same time. Also, John insisted on arriving early so he could acclimatise and write some jokes about the place.

    erich_mcelroy.jpgErich McElroy is an American turned Brit that I saw MC’ing in the Comedy Cafe a couple of months back and I thought to myself: this guy is much funnier than the acts. He’s likeable and his style of comedy is almost well-wishing, yet sharp. Erich manages to take the best of both American and British stand-up and blend them into a positive stream of humour which I think will go down well in Tallinn.

    brett-goldstein-2008-april.jpgAnd last but not least there’s Brett Goldstein who probably has the most ‘classic’ style of the trio. His bio illustrates this well: originally an actor, he turned to stand up because he was bored of depressing people through plays. “If I could depress them through the medium of laughter…” he thought, “that would be something…”. Brett’s first question after we had agreed on gig details was whether things like swearing and sex were off limits in Estonia. I might have created a monster but I replied It would be rude not to swear and not to talk about sex

    So there you go, it should be a fun night. If enough people will turn up and the event will turn a profit, this will be donated to the Tallinn animal shelter. They helped to find a new home for Snoopy the german shepherd last summer and this is my way to say thank you to them.

    If you decide to come, I warmly recommend to book ahead, tickets for Komeediklubi are available through Ticketpro.