BUSINESS BLOGS
BUSINESS BLOGS
category: business
23 Mar 2008

Not a month goes by where a member of the mainstream media writes gloriously about Hugh Hefner and the American Dream. Most people touch base on the fact that the man has 7 girlfriends and 14 bunnies to entertain him… but what always gets me psyched is this, according to Marketwatch:

In the early 1950s, Hefner worked as a promotion copywriter for Esquire. When the magazine turned down his request for a $5 raise, he quit his job and decided to launch another publication geared to young men.

(…)

Playboy magazine hit newsstands in December 1953, shrewdly featuring Marilyn Monroe on its first cover. That issue sold more than 50,000 copies.

Within a few years, Playboy’s circulation topped 700,000 and then surpassed the 1 million mark, eclipsing rival Esquire along the way. Its circulation is now about 2.6 million, according to a spokeswoman. When Playboy celebrated its 25th anniversary at Tavern on the Green in New York City, Esquire’s former editor Clay Felker presented Hefner with a replica of a $5 bill.

“My face was on it,” Hefner said with a smile. “Felker told me, ‘All is forgiven. Please come home.’”

Hef was the reluctant entrepreneur but thanks to that he has managed to become his own boss now. That, to me, is the American Dream.

Incidentally, I interviewed Mr. Hefner - or Hef, as he asks everyone to call him - back when I was resident interviewer, spokesperson, and VP of Ad Sales at a men’s lifestyle online magazine that took on Playboy et al. I chased an interview with Hef for years but by virtue of being a competitor, he never granted me one… until Playboy was celebrating its 50th year anniversary and his promotional efforts made a pit-stop at our humble online magazine.

Like Hef, I asked for something (wasn’t money) at my old job, didn’t get it, had to leave to start something new. Time will tell if WatchMojo.com will overshadow my old company.

In some ways, it never will; in many ways, it already has. Unlike Hef who started a magazine, I started a video project.

Regardless, what is important when you start something, is defining success and being able to measure it.

Measures of Merit

Americans might recall Wesley Clark as a challenger for the White House in 2004. Previously, he was NATO’s Supreme Commander. He coined the concept of measures of merit, or little milestones that would allow you to measure your progress and determine if you are going in the right direction. When you start a company, generally there are no playbooks, so you have to be able to see the forest through the trees and ascertain if the steps you are taking are helping you or not.

Baby Steps

If this concept sounds familiar, it’s because it is awfully similar to What About Bob, Bill Murray’s movie where his shrink Richard Dreyfus urged him to take little, baby steps, to succeed.

In business, and in Web-based businesses where companies go from registering a URL to selling for billions in 2 years (Bebo, YouTube), time is of the essence and you cannot always bide your time… but you do need to have baby steps, or measures or merit, as well.

For me, there are countless of milestones that I laid out, like our first video, our 100th video, our 1,000th video, our first ad client, our first syndication deal, the list goes on… connecting the dots, I also recalled thinking of our interviews.

My first interview at my old job wasn’t with Hef or another big name interviewee… it was with soccer player and actor Vinnie Jones. I had no clue who he was up to 30 minutes before the interview… but by the time I hang up my mike, I had interviewed a cornucopia of newsmakers that included Hef, Joe Montana, Seal, Yoko Ono, Tony Hawk, Jenna Jameson, Usher, Wyclef Jean, Def Leppard, Depeche Mode, Tears for Fears, Avril Lavigne, Wu Tang Clan, and many others.

Content is content… admittedly, so invariably when WatchMojo.com became big enough to do interviews, I joked to our resident interviewer that our initial interviews would snowball and we would get bigger and bigger names. At my old gig, for a series of odd reasons I interviewed my share of DJs. But I never interviewed Moby (I’m not a fan or anything, but he is one of the more successful DJs, after all).

All I care about are streams, and lord knows those are going in the right direction:

This past week we interviewed Moby, for example. The interview itself really does not change anything… nor does it rank anywhere near our most popular or viewed videos… but what it represents, in terms of Baby Steps or Measures of Merit is significant.

It’s just one small step in our efforts to live the American Dream. Enjoy it… all 6 parts, here is Part 1: