Call Me Maybe is a song by Canadian recording artist Carly Rae Jepsen released as the lead single from her EP in September 2011 through 604 Records. Even though the song was initially released in Canada, surely by now you’ve heard it, whether you wanted to or not. So how did it go from being launched in another country nearly a year ago, to getting stuck in your head today?

When pop singers Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez tweeted about the song with a video featuring them, Jepsen gained international attention, was signed to Schoolboy Records, and released her single in the United States. Since then the song has been covered/or parodied by the likes of President Obama, Jimmy Fallon & The Roots, and Katy Perry. Partially as a result of the virality of these videos (and subsequent free publicity) “Call Me Maybe” achieved commercial success in the United States going on to reach #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 one week in June (making her the first lead woman since Kesha to peak at that position).

So what does this have to do with you and your company? You should make a business card like this guy:

Just kidding. There are a couple things we can all learn from the success of this song:

1. If Jepsen had closely guarded her song rights with the accompanying music video and tried to forbid anyone to make a parody, she wouldn’t have achieved the level of success that she did. In terms of your company, think about opening up your API and/or sharing your knowledge and learnings with others. Sometimes tossing around ideas with other folks, or sharing assets can help form something great that you would have never stumbled upon by yourself.
2. Jepsen released her EP in Canada and that could have been the end of it, but it wasn’t. When it comes to your products or new features, dream big! Think about how you could enter into new markets.
3. It’s been about a year since the song first dropped. Which means success doesn’t always come right away. Remember that you’re in it for the long haul. You want to contribute to humanity with great products and an awesome company not just today, but tomorrow too. Be patient. Most “overnight” successes have actually spent years in the making.
4. If you need something promoted call Justin Bieber. But really, if there’s a celebrity in your industry, or even an editor or blogger that might be interested in sharing your product/company with their readership, definitely reach out to them. (I’m not talking about spamming 100 people, make sure your note is custom tailored and truly a great fit.)

So while you may not love the song, or enjoy hearing it 50 times a day on the radio, hopefully it’s taught you something!

We’re excited to announce that there’s a new way to quickly get merch to events, into your hands, and out to your fans; it’s called a Purchase Campaign.

Use a Purchase Campaign to:

• order the right merch for upcoming events like parties and trade-shows (you can even skip the suitcase haul and have it delivered to your final destination)
• sample the products you’ve created
• deck out your team
• send loyal customers a thoughtful care package

How is this magic possible, you ask? We’ve created a simple one-page interface for making and ordering products, that allows you to: use existing products, create new products, and incorporate multiple images and products.

And don’t worry if you forgot about a conference until the last minute, there’s no minimum order, so just place another.

Go on and familiarize yourself with the Purchase Campaign interface and let us know what you think!

Many advocates of the lean start up method encourage you to take little bets by shipping a product as soon as possible or at least opening it up for potential customers, regardless of finalized (or any) design. From there you’re encouraged to tweak and make iterations based on your learnings. But design and user experience clearly have an impact on the way people will appreciate (or not) your product.

From the start, design should be considered an integral part of the product and thus should be an ongoing piece of the conversation– not something slapped on at the end. I like to point to the example of the iPod. Steve Jobs obsessed not only over the design of the product, but even its packaging down to the smallest detail (so much so that he has a patent out for the packaging of the Nano), before letting it go out of the door. Sure there were other portable music players, but the iPod was able to beat them out with its designed intuitiveness (and perhaps a massive advertising budget played into it as well).

The point is though, that people do judge a book by its cover. Design is the essence of what makes some companies and their products great. So as long as you understand what your company’s strengths and core values are, little tests might be OK for you– just make sure it’s the right kind of “little” test.

Every single thing you do in life, every new skill, new concept, new whatever, you’ll never be the best, at least at first. You’re never going to be the fastest runner on day one. You’ll never know the most about business the day you graduate. You’ll never have the best blog, ground breaking book, any of it. You’re never going to have any of it, until, all of a sudden, you do.

Starting out, everywhere you look, someone is going to be better at what you want to do. Someone will have done nearly everything you can think of better than you thought of it. This realization can be horrible. Why even try if there are so many people already doing what you want to do? And doing an amazing job at it?

Take this blog for example. This is one of the reasons it took so long for me to start blogging. Everywhere I looked, someone wrote what I was going to write, better than me. Not a single thing I’ve written has been earth shattering, new, or really that amazingly insightful. Non of my posts are even written all that well either. And if you do some simple searches you’ll find entrepreneurs with way more experience, with a much better writing style, who’ve written more in-depth articles about everything I’ve written about. I haven’t copied anyone, this is all from my own experience but that doesn’t change that they’re out there.

So why do it? Why attempt something, anything, when there are hundreds or thousands of people already doing it?

Because that’s the only way to ever be the best, to learn. You have to get through the crap first, you have to be a nobody first. You can’t skip this step. You can’t go from nothing to everything in one step. This is where you have to live for yourself. No one cares about you while you’re wading through the crap, while you’re a nobody. It’s all on you. This stage is also extremely uncomfortable. You’re learning the ropes, you’re the underdog with no credibility.

But this also sheds light on a huge opportunity. It gives you a way to tell if you’re improving your life, a way to tell if you’re moving forward. If you can never be the best until you go through the crap all you have to do is ask yourself a simple question. How much crap am I going through right now? How uncomfortable do I feel every day? How much am I putting myself out there, regardless of the response.

This can also be a really exciting time if you let it be. Once you’re the expert the learning curve dies out. You know 90% of what’s out there, the new revelations don’t come very often. But this crap stage. Every day is something new. Every day you’ve improved, you’ve done something exciting, it’s exhilarating, if you let it be.