What You Need to Know Today: January 14
Good afternoon, Early Risers!
Here’s what you need to know
TECH
Inside the world of re-commerce. It’s 2:30 a.m., you just got home from a late night on the town. You turn on your laptop and start browsing Amazon. “Yoga Kittens 2016 would make a great office calendar.” 1-Click and two days later, you’re opening a package you don’t remember ordering. Regrets. “UPS says last week it saw the highest volume of returns it expects to see all year, with people sending back more than 5 million gifts and impulse purchases,” says Wired. Where do all these Yoga Kittens calendars go? Not back on the shelves, surprisingly. Here’s who sells your impulse buys.
‘Uber for haircuts’ is finally here. Discover nearby barber shops, make an appointment, and pay for the service and tip in as little as three clicks with Squire.
Amazon’s fishing with dynamite. Gamers (video gamers) are a huge market in the U.S. and Amazon is testing a new way to bait them into becoming Amazon Prime subscribers. If your business runs any continuity programs, you’ll want to read this.
CAREER
4-step process for selling an app. February 6, 2015: Trevor, Great to meet you. I work for Salem Media and I read the story about your Bible App. Sounds like you have really created something that is doing very well. I would like to talk with you because we are interested in buying the app from you if you have any interest. You can check me out on LinkedIn if you want and we can set up a quick call just to say hello and see if there is anything there… This was the email Trevor McKendrick received after word got loose of his Bible app. All Trevor wanted was to create an app that could pay his rent. Instead, he built an app that turned into a 6-figure business and attracted major media buzz. Not bad. If you want to know how Trevor sold his app business, here’s his 4-step process explained.
The 9-word magic email. “The day before the cart closes send an email with subject ‘hey’ and email body, ‘Are you still interested in _____ {product name linked to sales page}?’ and sign off. Don’t add or change anything. Nothing. I know you want to. But don’t. Don’t screw with this,” says Jon Goodman. This 9-word magic email made Jon $100,000 in a product launch he ran last October. Check out Jon’s most recent article on his blog Viralnomics: The 12 Largest Bang for Your Buck Elements of a $299,962.15 Launch With No Affiliates. Warning: Jon says, “Block off your entire day because you’re going to get slammed with responses and you better be responding to each one. This [9-word magic] email is meant to do one thing: get everybody who has a question, reservation, or thought, to reach out to you. It’s magic.”
LIFESTYLE
A day in the life of a Reddit moderator. When I think of volunteer work, I think of soup kitchens, little-league sports teams, and PhD research projects. I don’t think of the 900 comment moderators filtering out my subreddits. But here’s why we should.
Oscar nominations 2016: the snubs, surprises, and surethings.
#NOWYOUKNOW
Cutest Innovation in Vegetable History
From The Washington Post
“There are so many people who honestly believe there are baby carrot farmers out there who grow these baby carrots that pop out of the ground and are perfectly convenient and smooth.”
It’s hard to overstate the ingenuity of the baby carrot, one of the simplest and yet most influential innovations in vegetable history. The little carrot sculptures (or baby cut carrots, as they’re sometimes called to clarify) not only revived a once-struggling carrot industry, but they also helped both curb waste on the farm and sell the Vitamin A-filled vegetables at the supermarkets. Read more.
Did you like today’s Daily Brief? Share it with a friend. Hit Forward on this email and tell your friends about us. We’d greatly appreciate it 🙂
Did your friend just take our advice? Get your own copy of The Daily Brief sent straight to your inbox every weekday. Click here.
Are you enjoying The Daily Brief? Drop us a line telling us what you like and want more of at daily@earlytorise.com.
Check out what you missed in the last Daily Brief here.