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fromtheringapron · 6 years

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WWF Royal Rumble 1999

Date: January 24, 1999.

Location: The Arrowhead Pond in Anaheim, California.

Attendance: 14,816.

Commentary: Michael Cole & Jerry Lawler. Shane McMahon joined commentary for match 4.

Results:

1. Big Boss Man defeated Road Dogg.

2. WWF Intercontinental Championship Match: Ken Shamrock (champion) defeated Billy Gunn.

3. WWF European Championship Match: X-Pac (champion) defeated Gangrel.

4. Strap Match for the WWF Women’s Championship: Sable (champion) defeated Luna Vachon (with Shane McMahon).

5. I Quit Match for the WWF Championship: The Rock defeated Mankind (champion) to win the title.

6. Royal Rumble Match: Vince McMahon won the match by lastly eliminating Steve Austin. Other participants included (in order of appearance): Golga, Droz, Edge, Gillberg, Steve Blackman, Dan Severn, Tiger Ali Singh, The Blue Meanie, Mabel, Road Dogg, Gangrel, Kurrgan, Al Snow, Goldust, The Godfather, Kane, Ken Shamrock, Billy Gunn, Test, Big Boss Man, Triple H, Val Venis, X-Pac, Mark Henry, Jeff Jarrett, D’Lo Brown, Owen Hart, and Chyna.

Analysis

The 1999 edition of the Royal Rumble may be one of the most memorable in the history of the event. Let me clarify, mind you, that memorable doesn’t necessarily mean great, as this show is far from it. But few capture the spirit of the Attitude Era quite like this one, for better or worse. The WWF is reaching enormous heights in popularity thanks to its brand of crash TV. The fans in the arenas are submerging under a tidal wave of crass, neon signage. The matches are constantly booked with run-ins and outside interference. Storylines move have more twists and turns than a Mario Kart course. When the product isn’t serious and gritty, it’s campy and oversexed. Everything has the vague feeling of a nu-metal concert. Sure, the era’s success carried on into the early 2000s, but you can’t deny the time period in which this show takes place is smack dab in the middle of the Attitude Era vortex.

And you really can’t acknowledge this time period without mentioning Vince Russo, the man responsible for turning the WWF into a barrage of Jerry Springer theatrics and all the bad taste that comes along with it. Under Russo’s watch, every member of the roster is given a storyline It’s wonderful to learn that, say, Steve Blackman and Dan Severn are feuding or that the J.O.B. Squad and The Brood are feuding. It should be noted, however, that this doesn’t mean every member of the roster is given a good storyline because it’s still Russo at the end of day and there’s going to be content that’s varying degrees of problematic. Still, giving everyone something to do is a great idea and certainly one of the hallmarks of the Attitude Era that WWE should implement today.

On the other hand, one thing is they should not implement today is basically try to stuff an entire episode of Raw into the Royal Rumble match, which is what happens here. As I explained in my ranking of the Rumbles, the match isn’t boring. There’s just so much going on that there isn’t really a lull but, amidst all of that, the actual Rumble feels like the least important thing. Sure, there’s all the intrigue of Austin vs. McMahon at its zenith, but it’s a story so big that it can’t help but overshadow considerable portions of the match. Plus, it leaves the winner options pretty limited. Either Austin wins for the third year in a row, a logical choice but wouldn’t fly in an era that would deliver swerves just to avoid the predictability, or McMahon wins, which everyone would know to be a ruse the instant it happens. Literally anyone else winning would seem out-of-the-blue.

The Royal Rumble undercard, no matter how good it may be, always feels like something to pass the time until we get to the main attraction. This show isn’t an exception to the rule, but it does feature one of the most legitimately brutal contests of its era: the I Quit match between The Rock and Mankind. We, 20 years later, know so much more about the dangers of unprotected chair spots but the late ‘90s was a much different time where wrestlers were upping the ante on risky high spots just to pop a crowd or a TV rating, much to the detriment of their own health. It’s weird how there’s a spot where Mankind gets thrown into an electrical circuit board and people kinda forget about that now. The real spot of the match is Mick Foley is shedding years off his career, and possibly life, by taking a series of legit, unplanned chair shots to the head. It’s hard to watch now, but it’s the rare occasion where an undercard Rumble match may be more remembered than the Rumble itself.

As a whole, Royal Rumble 1999 isn’t the most satisfying Attitude Era show, but it does gives you a good taste of an extremely popular time in wrestling history. Just don’t try to consume the whole thing all at once. For every good idea in the era, there’s a bunch that don’t work, and like Mick Foley on that January night, the WWF doesn’t seem to know when to call it quits.

My Random Notes

Of course, this show’s coverage on the documentary Beyond the Mat is a huge reason why it’s so memorable. Does it get any more real than watching Mick Foley take all those chair shots as his children look on in terror?

This show immediately got me thinking about the WWF Attitude game I had for the Game Boy Color, which I rage quit several times because I never knew how to pin an opponent or get up off the mat.

I had the privilege of watching this show live on pay-per-view and I was so pissed that Mr. McMahon won the Rumble that I swore off wrestling, which only lasted like two seconds because it didn’t stop me from watching WrestleMania XV. Whoops!

Ugh. I also wanted Gangrel to win the European championship so badly and he got so close on that botched pinfall. I was such a mark for him. Heck, I’m still a mark for him.

Oh, and looking back now, I wish Luna Vachon was women’s champ at some point. It’s actually next-level sad that storyline never came full-circle.

Kudos to the dudes in the front row bopping along to the Oddities and The Brood entrance theme. I bet they were delightful at, I’m assuming, the several Korn concerts they attended back in the day.

Imagine being so pathetic that you actually find the time to make a sign that merely says “Sable is Old!” and then wave said sign just so it can be seen in front of a live pay-per-view audience. Some fan was that pathetic on this particular January evening. I mean, wow.

I can’t just not mention the amazing Mr. McMahon training montages leading up to this show. I still quote the whole “I HATE AUSTIN!” thing pretty often.

Terri Runnels accompanies D’Lo Brown to the ring by, um, performing an interpretive dance?!?

You know what? Kane’s character development throughout 1999 is amazing to watch. They did such a good job of making him a more relatable, human character. Easily one of the best parts of the Rumble is when he wrecks shit and receives a major pop for it. For someone whose character is so prone to jokes and truly execrable storylines, it’s great to remember all the times when he’s been, excuse the pun, fire.

On Chyna entering the Rumble: This seems like a fairly minor step forward now in the time of the all-women’s Royal Rumble but for as much as Chyna is thrown in the discussion of trailblazers in the Women’s Revolution, she’s still pretty much on her own level. Sure, there’s all the talk of her as the first woman to do this and that, and rightly so, but nobody has quite thrown up a middle finger to the whole concept of gender quite like Chyna did. No wonder she’s a queer icon.

#royal rumble #attitude era #mick foley #the rock

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anewenfartist · 7 years

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Writing Critique for the ENF-Sports Contest

Writing Critique

The following are judge comments on the writing submissions (for people who wrote, and agreed they’d like to see the critique on their work from the judges). The critique isn’t meant to reveal what judge placed you in what spot. The comments and submissions will be in no particular order. Judges were not required to provide comments, but they were allowed to if they felt they wanted to share their thoughts with the contestants.

Even if it’s not your entry, I encourage any artists to look at this critique and consider it. Reading critique of someone else’s work could give you good insight what to do with your own art too!

If your stuff isn’t listed here, but you want it to be, let me know. I can edit your stuff in.

There is an exception to the writing comments. IGankMid did a great job of organizing their thoughts, but some tie into other critiques. Sorry if there were writers who didn’t want this public, but this one has to be posted as a whole. So everything from Gank will be here:

sta.sh/015aopok87ht

princebuffoon.deviantart.com/a…

- The start's nervousness and build up is great with such nice little details and observations as she prepares. As it continues, it's clear word choice is definitely a strong suit of yours, fantastic vocabulary and ability to paint little moments. There are some grammatical errors here and there, though very few, and probably not as noticeable to a reader who isn't scouring it critically. The buildup continues to be great, my heart racing along with the stories character. I'm of course left wondering 'why' she entered of course, but that seems to be less and less important as you're so wrapped up in the events. A fantastic entry!

* * * A creative and effective combination of the main contest themes. The story is well-paced, managing to keep things constantly moving while still fully explaining the premise, and held together by a view from Six’s internal narrative. A great entry!

kinkyquill.tumblr.com/post/160…

- The grandiose start with the competitors on stage made for a good scene set up. The variety of events and characters allowed for a couple of different angles to be covered. This has the risk of some parts feeling a bit lacking in depth though. A bit of a more careful eye should also be considered for editing, some errors did seem to slip by. The characters seem a lot of fun, and it seems like a lot of stories could be told with them, as groups or even individually. Interesting risk with the ending, leaving it up to the reader.

* * * This entry was very on-theme, good job! Since there were so many characters in a relatively short story, there wasn’t much time to get invested them all. I wasn’t previously familiar with any of the characters in the inter-narrative, but their personalities came across quickly through their actions and reactions. I didn’t expect the cliffhanger ending, but it won me over.

anonenffan.deviantart.com/art/…

- The start is a bit slow and stilted, but things pick up with the clever idea of a song from her past inspiring her. The character's personality I feel were well thought out, her want to win and do better fueling herself to push herself in other risky ways. The vocabulary at points feels redundant or too reused. You do a well enough job avoiding grammar and spelling errors. The ENF was on the light side as well at the start, but you do eventually pay off that risk with some true proper conflict and worry.

* * * This story had one of the simpler settings, which allowed the character and plot to take center stage. The slow build of tension worked well, finishing strongly with an exciting conclusion. The details were well thought-out too, from “Run to Cure the Common Cold” to “Average Jill’s Gym.” Quality writing, as usual from Anon!

ldnnld.deviantart.com/art/Bare…

- A fierce rivalry of events with mischief abound is a good set up. The embarrassment aided upsets were a nice touch. Characters were a bit cliché and lacking much depth, but were still fun to see sabotaging each other. I feel some scenes could have used a bit more focus and descriptions, just to add a bit more zest. Still a fun little story with some classic pranks.

* * * This story had a nice symmetry to it. It was predictable, since you knew that one section would very likely build and reverse on the next, but I still found this structure aesthetically pleasant. The competitive spirit of both characters showed strongly, but I didn’t pick up much else about who they are. There were a few technical mistakes, but they didn’t get too much in the way of the story. (I’d suggest getting someone to proofread next time, though.)

- ewong247.deviantart.com/art/Ka…

- I found the story to be fun, good use of determination to play to get her to stay so undressed. Your descriptions were good too. The biggest crippling issue with the story though is that you at times seem to really get the wrong word put into some sentences, sometimes to the point where I wasn't sure what it should be. The story would do well from a proof read where the lines are spoken out loud I believe.

* * * This took a kernel of reality and expanded it into a whole story. Katelyn felt like a real character (although none of the background characters resonated with me particularly). There were a couple of typos (e.g. “ur was useless” instead of “it was useless”, “they naked fighterfeel” instead of I think “the naked fighter fell”?), but overall the story was still well-written.

www.asianfanfics.com/story/vie…

- I like the set up, and felt the girl's dynamic was cute. I think Eunjung gave in a bit quickly to give up her panties though, there could have been more time spent with that, to clarify it being such a big deal. Some of the dialogue feels a little stilted too. Pacing could be stronger as well I feel, but overall the story was fun. The romantic angle was also very sweet. Oh, no points were docked for this, but hosting your story on a site that won't censor it to non members is probably best in the future for contest entries. Don't want to make it tough on judges and readers to get to your content.

* * * Definitely a cute concept. The sports and ENF are mostly confined to the first half of the story, with the second half being more romance. My main problem was that a lot of the characters’ actions felt somehow hollow to me, not really meshing with the personalities I was seeing in their words and reactions. It might have helped me follow along if the story spent more time to highlight their motivations for all these hijinks. The hijinks themselves were fun though, and the general story structure was solid.

divides.deviantart.com/art/Ane…

- Another entry with a very unique setting, taking full advantage of the openness of the contest! High stakes game that forces players to play along with ridiculous whims is definitely a great concept as well, and it's handled in as fun of a way as the fun that the princess and such seem to have with it. Only thing I feel the story lacked was getting to know a few of the characters better or focusing on some moments more. * * * A lovely take on alien Calvinball! There was a humorous undercurrent throughout the story, with plenty of cute moments from the protagonists. There were a bunch of characters, but each of their personalities came across clearly during the short story. Congrats on a fine ENF sports story!

tyvadi.deviantart.com/art/Goob…

- I would have to say this is one of the more original sports for the contest for sure. I loved the fascination of our main girl as she is so transfixed on her petrified schoolmate. A shame to see it end in such a "To Be Continued" but that's a shame because I do want to read more, and that's a sign of a good stoy for sure. Your grammar and spelling seem to be quite well done. Yet really, it doesn't feel criminally short and unfinished, so probably your greatest flaw.

* * *

This was definitely an unexpected and unique setting, compared to the other entries. Though this judge was completely unfamiliar with slime/petrification, they were integrated in a way that didn’t unduly distract from the main contest themes. The structure and details of the story were well-crafted, and it had plenty of sports and ENF elements.

rrrrrricossssssuave.deviantart…

- The setting of course stands out as pretty original, don't see many stories like this set in ancient Greece! There are few small tense errors or missed spellings, especially as the story goes on. The contrast of the many men around her, some so intimidating as our antagonist, is a strong contrast to our ENF star, which works I think for adding to her sticking out more. Very happy to see her win as well.* * *A very interesting entry! The setting and tone both match with a sort of “ancient legend” feel, which was a different take than most on the contest themes. It made for an effective story! The core structure was simple - a hero overcoming an obstacle - but it’s a classic one! The style made the story very immersive. (I didn’t notice any big English problems, except an occasional strange tense. E.g. “Clyo has never seen a more magnificent temple” was a sudden present tense.)

http://lunagold1.deviantart.com/art/Strip-Basketball-683619069?ga_submit_new=10%3A149619

- The story's biggest problem is that it's a tad straight forward. Events followed by events without much highlighting or focusing on any subjects. The overall premise is a great set up for a story. With a bit more polish and spice added, you'd have a great tale.

* * *

I could see this working well as a script for actors - it’s dialogue-focused and has the main beats for actions. I liked that there was a surprise ending. The spelling/grammar mistakes were somewhat distracting, so I’d really recommend getting a friend to help proofread.

http://pokemorphomega.deviantart.com/art/contest-Stripshooting-680527642

- The sport is definitely a fun idea. Girls shooting and making other girl's clothes vanishing is fun. A few inconsistencies in terms of personalities and rules I felt. A few grammar mistakes like missing words cause a bit of a delay in understanding a sentence or two. The characterizations feel a bit forced and sudden without much build up too. The tonal difference between cute exposure and death is a bit stark as well.

* * *

The repeated character death really made this story hard to read for me. I had to read it at an emotional distance to get through it at all, which hampered any impact it could have had otherwise. I'm sure there's a target audience for this story, but at least for this judge, the casual killings got in the way of everything else.

http://jawolfadultishart.deviantart.com/art/Melty-Times-at-the-Pool-Contest-Entry-682799317

It's interesting to know so clearly ahead of time what will happen. Suspense surely does build, wondering when disaster will finally strike. Really enjoying some of the attention to detail you give. Your vocabulary is definitely not a weak point either. There are few grammar hiccups I noticed as I went. Especially thought your description of the suit coming apart was pretty great. A very fun short tale overall.

* * *

A pretty simple ENF story, with a typical setup/reveal/aftermath structure. I couldn’t really get a feel for who Amanda was as a character, apart from a bit at the end when interacting with her friend. I liked the content of the two descriptive paragraphs: the one starting with “Her lungs burned” and the one starting with “The judge raises a hand.” However the first few words weren’t very representative of the paragraphs’ contents, so they would have been easy to accidentally skim over if I weren’t in contest-judging-read-every-word-mode. It might have helped to split them up into two or three paragraphs, to let the reader know which beats are important. (Erotica readers can be impatient, so you have to guide them!)

http://disc.yourwebapps.com/discussion.cgi?disc=58894;article=58654;title=The%20ASN%20Story%20Board

You have some really good atmosphere to the story, that's for sure. Nice angle part way through as well with using commentary as an alternate way to narrate the story partway through to change it up for a bit. Good job capturing the excitement and action too. The main flaw I'd say is the story could have focused more on some ENF themes. So a bit of a miss with the theme since so many other types of emotions take over the story, and ENF was supposed to be a big deal of course.

* * *

- Cool world-building! Kate has a good character arc over the course of the story, which is the main strength of this entry. (I didn’t connect very much with Maria or the other background characters while reading, but maybe others did.) The sci-fi setting was a cool backdrop for a “dangerous racing” story.

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nathandgibsca · 8 years

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Today, We Are Fools. Happily. (Or why we built and are finally launching Airstory.)

There’s something foolish about venturing into seemingly new territory.

Today, we’re launching Airstory.

We’re venturing into the land of Software.

To some people, it will look like a copywriter is trying her hand at SaaS. And all the head-patting that comes with that. Oh, Lord, why don’t we just stick to our knitting? Because, to paraphrase the great Vanilla Ice:

If there’s a problem, yo, I’ll solve it – especially where writing and marketing are involved

Airstory is a natural extension of Copy Hackers.

It aims to solve the problem Copy Hackers aims to solve. Just with a different how.

While Copy Hackers teaches you to write copy that converts, Airstory helps you write it. It’s a drag-and-drop document builder. It is to documents what LeadPages and Unbounce are to landing pages.

Drag and drop your deliverable together, like so:

So what’s the problem with the document platform – or writing software – you’re using today?

Honestly, what isn’t wrong with it?

You do so much of your day-to-day work in a document. But none of the writing tools that are ubiquitous in businesses worldwide actually help you fill the page.

There are solutions to help you do all sorts of stuff around the page: find keyword phrases (Moz), plan your content (Trello, CoSchedule) and find reference material (Buzzsumo, DeepDyve).

And once the page is filled, you can invite people to collaborate with you on it (Google Docs, Dropbox Paper), design it (Vellum, Venngage), publish it (WordPress, Medium), promote it (Facebook, Twitter, Edgar, Mailchimp, Drip, ConvertKit), test it (Optimizely, VWO) and measure it (Ahrefs, GA). I’m only just scratching the surface. Marketing tools are everywhere, in every color, shape and size.

But how do you go from blank page… to filling page… to filled page?

How do you execute on the idea?

That’s the ginormous gap Airstory fills.

The Actually-Write-the-Thing Gap.

We Built Airstory Because We Needed It, and So Did the People We Interviewed

Almost two years ago now, I interviewed a content pro named Ginny, who was writing content for HubSpot. She walked me through her decidedly convoluted (said with love) process for going from idea to ready-for-review, something she had to do every day because her publishing schedule demanded a daily share-worthy post.

Her process had a lot in common with the decidedly convoluted (said with love) processes of the teams we interviewed at Moz, Unbounce and a half-dozen other fave tech companies. They all:

Relied on gathering multiple pieces of information from other sources

Involved private, concentrated writing time

Had an outlining process, whether light or intense

Required team input, reviews and approvals

Not a single process was linear. You don’t just sit down, open a document, start writing and keep going until you don’t stop. Sure, there’s a cool app for that if you’re a novelist. But writing for work isn’t about stream of consciousness or losing yourself in a scene. The process is more like this:

Get an idea or get assigned an idea

Go off and think about it

Open a document

Stare at it

Jot down whatever you can, just to feel like you’re making progress

Find yourself editing the thing you jotted down

Go off and think about it

Paste something from the web onto your doc

Repeat steps 7 and 8 indefinitely or until a few hours before the deadline

Copy, paste, copy, paste

Stitch together all the stuff you’ve thrown onto the page

Copy, paste, copy, paste

Write

Edit

Get coffee

Smooth off the rough edges

Revise your hook / headline

Invite someone or several people to review your work

Rethink everything you wrote the second you know it’s in someone else’s hands

Does that blinking cursor on the blank page help you with anything other than Step 3?

Does it care that the above 19-step process is extraordinarily painful, clunky and outdated?

Worst of all, that process is just for writing a piece of content, like an ebook or blog post.

What about when it’s time to write a series of sales emails?

Once again, it’s you vs the page. But now you’ve got the added burden of getting inside your reader’s head and nudging them to the point that they convert. Not easy.

I know how it feels, of course. I’ve spent nearly 15 years struggling through that pain in an environment where writing is supposed to come easily to me because, after all, it’s my job. But it’s a fatiguing process.

That’s why we made Airstory.

Because, frankly, fuck starting from scratch. It’s 2017. I don’t do anything on my own. The next car I buy is gonna self-drive and plug into my wall. Groceries arrive at my doorstep with recipe cards attached to them. Why should I try to write a job description or a contract or a long-form sales page on my own? Why should I settle for a glorified typewriter?

I shouldn’t. And you shouldn’t, either.

You can check out Airstory here and you should check it out if you’re in marketing or content creation. We’re also on Product Hunt today.

We’ve been working on Airstory for nearly 2.5 years, or half the life of Copy Hackers. Crazy, right?

The reasons we shouldn’t be doing this include:

People think their writing software is fine because people think writing should be hard

Everyone’s already using a writing tool

People look at Airstory and go, “What do I do?” because they’ve never thought about actually having help putting their ideas on the page

We make a great, low-stress living with Copy Hackers – why complicate things?

But the reasons we do it are much, much bigger than those.

They’re much harder to shake.

And we’re not alone. Not at all.

Nearly two years ago, I sat in a small group with Nathan Barry and a few awesome folks. We were at Microconf. At the time, the email marketing platform ConvertKit wasn’t quite the name it is today. It was struggling to find its place, which I don’t think Nathan (its founder and CEO) will mind me saying. But actually let me clarify: from the outside, it looked like ConvertKit was struggling to find its place. That certainly wasn’t the feeling among Team ConvertKit. They knew they were onto something.

I vividly remember one thing Nathan said in that huddle.

And my memory is absolute shit, so what he said had serious sticking power.

Someone asked Nathan if he was going to relaunch his books or get a new course out.

He said no.

“I’m going all-in on ConvertKit.”

All in.

You can read Nathan’s revenue breakdowns in his 2015 review and 2016 review, but let me give you the short version: at the time he told our little group he was done with his old business – the business that was a sure-thing, from a revenue-generation perspective – ConvertKit was making about $10,000 MRR.

He could have made twice as much just staying the course with his course business.

And he would only have had to pay his salary – not his and a handful of employees’.

It wasn’t about the money. Because it isn’t about the money.

I think the reason – or one of the reasons – a lot of us get offended by those Facebook video ads where some “online coach” is walking through his huge garage of Lamborghinis and flashing his gold watch is this: it reduces the whole entrepreneurial experience down to the money you make. And the stuff you buy with the money you make.

Most of us are here for other reasons.

Bear with me while I launch into the “why we’re entrepreneurs” paragraph of this post…

We’re entrepreneurs because we love building things and growing things. And part of growing things is, of course, having the things you grow bear fruit. And that usually looks like money. But the goal isn’t to cash out. The goal isn’t to harvest. It’s to see the fruit for the seeds (to wring this analogy dry, with my apologies) and to replant. Keep building. Keep growing.

That Nathan Barry was going all-in on a risky thing was hugely inspiring for me.

He’ll never know how inspiring.

Even when he reads this, he won’t know.

I’ve made really great money at Copy Hackers. But my wardrobe doesn’t show it and my garage doesn’t show it and my non-existent watch collection certainly doesn’t show it. I don’t see a future where I’m launching and relaunching courses. That’s a perfectly good living and life. But it’s not MY life. Not forever.

I still want to teach.

And I still intend to teach.

But the problem with teaching and only teaching is that it’s so rare to see someone actually execute on what you teach them. Teaching can be frustrating. That Airstory will help people put into practice what I teach means I can keep doing what I love (i.e., teaching, writing, marketing) and also see people get better results.

And here’s why I’m in a better position than ever to commit to Airstory’s growth:

Because This Isn’t Our First Product or Startup

I totally get the purists out there.

Those fine folks that believe the only real founders are tech founders.

I’m not a developer. But neither was Steve Jobs. And if you roll your eyes at that, fine, I would too. So here are a handful of other non-technical cofounders / founders to quash the purists’ concerns:

Tim Westergren of Pandora

Tim Chen of NerdWallet

Nirav Tolia of Nextdoor

Jessica Scorpio of GetAround

Sean Rad of Tinder

Micheal Dell of Dell

Brian Chesky of AirBnB

Walker Williams of Teespring

So programming chops are not a requirement.

But perhaps experience is. Perhaps. If so, I got you.

We’ve gone to market with two different products before this one:

2008, Realtor Rating Site: Our first product idea came to us while Lance and I were lounging on Kaanapali Beach in Maui nearly 10 years ago (back when vacations were common things for us). We both had great jobs in marketing at tech giant Intuit, yet we got this crazy idea to start a realtor rating site. We engaged a coworker named Steven Luke as our technical co-founder, and together we made What-Customers-Say.com. We launched and immediately got on the local and national news in Canada, which was pretty crazy but press releases actually worked at the time and you could call a journalist because newspapers still had those. When the realtor association got their backs up, the Canadian government ordered us to shut down. For real. I haven’t liked realtors since.

2010, Book Rating Site: The three of us – Steven, Lance and yours truly – launched Page 99 Test, a site where you would read page 99 of a book and then state if you would or would not turn the page to keep reading. (Book nerds in the room will be familiar with the page 99 test, even if you’ve never read Ford Madox Ford.) We got instant media coverage – damn, we’ve been lucky with that stuff – including an article on The Guardian and an interview with the New Yorker, which never made it to print. But Page 99 Test was a marketplace. And marketplaces are hard business. And we were all very well-employed and well-compensated by Intuit. So we gradually stopped working on Page 99 Test. And that little hobby site fizzled.

In the years since, Steven and I have emailed back and forth with ideas.

And Lance and I have worked on – then shut down – other ideas.

But it wasn’t until last winter that the stars, at last, aligned.

I Fooled Around and Fell in Love

For the first 1.5 years of Airstory, I was partnered with someone who’s no longer involved in Airstory.

We’ll call him Jim. Because that is his name.

Like all partnerships that fail, things started out great with Jim. Warm feelings. Excitement. Possibilities. Naturally, I made all the mistakes they tell you not to make. Naturally, I kept telling myself they weren’t really mistakes – those rules didn’t apply to me, and I was, of course, the exception.

It wasn’t a problem, I told myself, that Jim and I had never worked together.

It wasn’t a problem that we lived on opposite sides of the continent in two different countries and had never met or been on video Skype together.

The bad things that happen to people in these situations happened to us. I won’t get into them because I can offer nothing to the conversation that hasn’t already been told in a thousand cautionary tales; suffice it to say, I fucked up and he did too. Communication problems. Vision problems. Planning problems. Execution problems. Yup, all the problems. And the impending doom of financial problems: Jim was going to commit to Airstory full time in January 2016, and I was going to pay him a salary so he could.

I talked to my friend Amy Hoy about it. She used expletives.

I talked to my friends in a mastermind-type-thing. They told me to get out while I could.

But I was so far into it.

(I know, I know – sunk cost fallacy. I live in the world of persuasion, but that doesn’t mean I can outsmart it.)

By October of 2015, when our partnership started to unravel big-time, Jim and I had already:

Conducted nearly a dozen jobs-to-be-done interviews with bloggers and marketers

Conducted dozens of interviews with traditional writers, editors and literary agents

Spent more than a year building Airstory

Spent thousands on UX and UI design

Spent thousands on the development of an iPhone app

Done several rounds of beta testing

Invested 500+ days of time and energy

Gleaned extremely valuable insights into how to make a solid product a great one

So yes, the sunk costs were real.

I started thinking about ending things. Not Airstory. The partnership. Jim was going to cost me the equivalent of $200,000 CAD / yr once he went full-time, and I had good reason to believe that, as soon as I had him on payroll, I’d only be further tangling myself in a relationship that was ill-fated at best.

But I believed in Airstory. For all the reasons above and more.

So I did what any reasonable person would do: I looked into how to get out.

I emailed Steven Luke out of the blue. I asked him – very bluntly – how much it would take to get him to leave his extremely cushy, high-paying job as a full-stack staff-level engineer at Intuit and work with me full-time on a little SaaS project, which I then pitched to him. He wanted to build something great – it wasn’t about money for him.

I summoned the courage to break up with Jim.

He kept all the code. I kept the name.

In February 2016, Steven became Airstory’s cofounder and my business partner.

His reason for joining: “I want to wow people.”

Our Goal: To Wow You with Usefulness

Over the course of the last 365 days, we have built from scratch everything about Airstory except the idea, the name and the research.

We hired a design agency to redo the Airstory UI. That… failed. We persuaded our favorite UI designer Jane Portman to reinvent the UI. That succeeded. We hired our go-to graphic designer Lesley Pocklington to visually realize our brand. That succeeded. Lance suddenly became available, and now we had a full-time product pro on staff. That succeeded, too.

We did a demo of a first-draft of Airstory for my copywriter mastermind. That failed.

We tried to get a beta ready to coincide with my interview on the Entrepreneur on Fire podcast in July. That failed.

We sent fun mailers to marketers we love at companies we love. Those failed.

We’ve seen 1600+ beta users in Airstory over the last 3 months. Based on what we’re seeing in the data and hearing in interviews… we’re succeeding there. We’re succeeding with the Airstory product. We’re starting to wow some people.

There will be countless people for whom Airstory is not the right solution.

If you spend fewer than 2 hours a day in a document, stick with your current solution. If you don’t write longer content ever, stick with your current solution. If you don’t rely on templates, frameworks, formulas and/or research to make your writing kick-ass, stick with your current solution.

For everyone else, there’s Airstory.

It’s live today.

So you can use it starting today, with a free project for life >

And if you can’t imagine needing to fix what’s broken in your writing tool, I’ll leave you with this Stewart Butterfield quote, which Lance added to the Airstory project where I’m writing this:

We know that we have built something which is genuinely useful: almost any team which adopts Slack as their central application for communication would be significantly better off than they were before. That means we have something people want.

However, almost all of them have no idea that they want Slack. How could they? They’ve never heard of it. And only a vanishingly small number will have imagined it on their own. They think they want something different (if they think they want anything at all). They definitely are not looking for Slack. (But then no-one was looking for Post-it notes or GUIs either.)

Just as much as our job is to build something genuinely useful, something which really does make people’s working lives simpler, more pleasant and more productive, our job is also to understand what people think they want and then translate the value of Slack into their terms. (Source: Medium)

We’re still 100% involved in and loving Copy Hackers.

But we’re all in on Airstory, too.

The two go hand in hand. And both, we believe, are genuinely useful to marketers like you.

~jo

The post Today, We Are Fools. Happily. (Or why we built and are finally launching Airstory.) appeared first on Copywriting For Start-ups And Marketers.

from SEO Tips https://copyhackers.com/2017/02/airstory/

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