Response to my Viral Tweet

Hey all, quick reminder the deadline to apply to my accelerator is in one week. It’s highly selective, I’ve taken less than 5 of the 70+ applicants but, if you get in, the companies I’ve worked with in the last month have raised $4.8M in combined funding (including deals signed but still in due diligence).

Fundamental Attribution Error

On Monday I posted that thread ↑

Now there were many positive comments but I wanted to dive into why there is such a negative reaction and how the psychological reason for such comments is something you can leverage to help you raise money!

What is Fundamental Attribution Error?

This is the human tendency to overestimate the impact of someone’s character on their behaviour while underestimating the influence of their situation. We do the inverse when judging ourselves.

Example:

It’s the early morning of a beautiful day, you have the music playing as you drive to work.

Suddenly right as you are about to exit the highway someone cuts you off. You think "What a jerk!"

A couple hours later you are sitting at your desk when you get a call. Your wife is in labour. You rush down to the parking lot, jump in your car and drive like a maniac to get to the hospital. You are not missing the birth of your child.

See the problem?

When someone cut you off you took that action as a judgement of their character. They are a jerk. A bad person. The type of person who would cut you off in traffic.

BUT

When you did it, it was a justified response to the circumstances. You were being a good parent and rushing to get to the hospital in time to support your wife.

How Does This Apply To My Tweet?

The positive comments largely came from (1) people who know me, (2) other large Twitter accounts, and (3) highly successful people.

Why?

They know that to succeed you need to be bold. If I had said “Here is the tip that made me successful” nobody would have clicked. They understand the hook I used was not to brag but instead was a result of circumstances. I needed to say something that would grab attention so that people would read the useful information I had in the rest of the thread.

Those who criticized, the only kind of person who would say “I’m 26 & I’m a millionaire” are only arrogant people. So to them, my tweet was a reflection of my poor character. They took one tweet to decide on the type of person I am.

This is a reason the world is moving towards niche marketing. Know who your audience is and don’t be concerned about upsetting anyone else. This strategy has been highly successful for Elon Musk, Mark Cuban, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Andrew Tate, Lizzo and many more.

How can you leverage this?

1. Remember that VCs are humans and if they don’t reply to your emails or show up late this isn’t always a reflection of their character. They have personal circumstances and struggles just like you and me.

2. Humanize yourself. Be upfront and honest with VCs if you are having personal issues. If you can’t take a meeting cause your wife or kid needs you then say that. Too many founders are worried about perception so they give a BS excuse. The VC will assume the worst about you if you do that so embrace honesty.

3. Humanize your customers. When using testimonials show the emotional side, have a video, and let them talk about the impact on their life. Also, get testimonials from third parties. If you are a fitness coach for example have your client’s partner give the testimony. All of this helps to show more of the circumstances to investors/potential customers so that they look at your business within its context, giving you credit for the good and being able to understand why there is some bad.

4. Don’t be afraid of making enemies. The sad truth is that today every brand has two options:

   1. Be boring

   2. Be loved by some and hated by others

   Only #2 succeeds.

Be aware of this bias, don’t let it impact how you judge others and make sure to leverage it to ensure you are judged fairly.

Want me to help you find your company’s strategic story?

Having a strong narrative can help you raise $500,000+. Click Apply if you are a startup looking to raise in the next 12 months and want to join my accelerator program.