Seth Godin

Seth Godin

Godin in 2009
Born (1960-07-10) July 10, 1960
Mount Vernon, New York, U.S.
Alma mater Tufts University
Stanford University
Occupation Author, entrepreneur
Spouse(s) Helene Godin
Website SethGodin.com

Seth Godin (born July 10, 1960) is an American author, entrepreneur, marketer, and public speaker.

Background

Born in Mount Vernon, New York, Godin graduated from Williamsville East High School in 1978. He received degrees in computer science and philosophy from Tufts University, followed by an MBA in marketing from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.[1] From 1983 to 1986, he worked as a brand manager at Spinnaker Software.[1]

After leaving Spinnaker in 1986, he used $20,000 in savings to found Seth Godin Productions, primarily a book packaging business, out of a studio apartment in New York City.[2] In the same offices he met Mark Hurst and founded Yoyodyne. After a few years, Godin sold the book packaging business to his employees and focused his efforts on Yoyodyne, where he promoted the concept of permission marketing.

Business ventures

In 1995, Godin launched Yoyodyne, which used contests, online games, and scavenger hunts to market companies to participating users. In August, 1996, venture-capital firm Flatiron Partners invested $4 million in Yoyodyne in return for a 20% stake.[2] Over one million viewers visited the site, and the companies America Online, American Express, H&R Block, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, Sony Music, Sprint, and Volvo have used its services.[3] At Yoyodyne, Godin published Permission Marketing: Turning strangers into friends and friends into customers. In 1998, he sold Yoyodyne to Yahoo! for about $30 million[4][5] and became Yahoo's vice president of direct marketing, a position he held until 2000.[6]

In March 2006, Godin launched Squidoo, a community website that allowed users, called "lensmasters," to create pages (called "lenses") for subjects of interest.[7] The site donated 5 percent of the profits to charity, and 50 percent to the lensmasters.[8] Godin and Squidoo were profiled on CNN and in the Washington Post,[9][10] while the website was given top prize in SXSW's community/wiki category.[11] In July 2008, Squidoo was one of the 500 most visited sites in the world.[12] On August 15, 2014, he announced that Squidoo was acquired by HubPages, and stated that the aim was to relocate some of Squidoo's content to its new home at HubPages by October 1, 2014.[13]

Other projects

Godin developed the idea for ChangeThis, a website aimed at spreading ideas through PDF files.[14] In the summer of 2004, Godin hired five interns—Amit Gupta, Catherine Hickey, Noah Weiss, Phoebe Espiritu and Michelle Sriwongtong—to build and develop the website.[15] The website went live on August 14, 2004.[16] Tom Peters, Chris Anderson, and Guy Kawasaki all had manifestos featured on ChangeThis.[17] In July 2005, ChangeThis was turned over to 800-CEO-READ, a distributor of business literature in the United States.[18][19]

In December 2008, Godin announced in a blog post that he would be offering a six-month alternative MBA program at his office in Hastings on Hudson, NY.[20] 48,000 people looked at the post and 340 applied. He invited 27 applicants to his office for a group interview. They spent two hours interviewing one another. After further discussion, they and Godin together wrote down the names of their favorite candidates. Three weeks later the nine chosen applicants came to Godin's office.[21] This group graduated in July 2009.[22]

In June 2012, Godin launched a new project—an experiment in crowdfunding a published book. Instead of approaching his publisher for his next book, The Icarus Deception: Why Make Art?, Godin launched a Kickstarter campaign.[23] In the first week, he raised more than $250,000 from readers, which in turn secured him a book contract with his publisher.[24]

In October 2012, Godin started a podcast on the Earwolf network. In the weekly podcast he guides thirty entrepreneurs through a workshop exploring how they can build and run their dream business.[25]

Writing

As of April 27, 2014, Godin is the author of 17 books: Tribes and Linchpin are his two best-selling books, while Free Prize Inside was a Forbes Business Book of the Year in 2004.[26][27] Additionally, during its first two years of release, Purple Cow sold over 150,000 copies in over more than 23 print runs.[28] The Dip was a Business Week and New York Times bestseller.[29][30] In the early 1990s, he created a 10-book series for children titled Worlds of Power, which was written by various writers. Each of the book's plots is based on a video game and are written in a novelized form.[31]

In April of 2016, Godin's book, All Marketers Are Liars, was selected by Carine Alexis at Forbes as one of six essential books every marketer should have on their shelf.[32]

Blog

Godin also releases a daily blog on the Typepad platform. [33]

In May 2009, Godin's Seth's Blog was ranked in the AdAge Power 150 as the number 1 marketing blog out of the 976 tracked. [34]

Bibliography

Personal life

Godin and his wife Helene live in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, US with their two sons.[35]

References

  1. 1 2 Rivera, Jeff (August 25, 2010). "So What Do You Do, Seth Godin, Author and Marketing Guru?". Mediabistro. Retrieved October 21, 2014.
  2. 1 2 Kuntz, Mary (September 9, 1998). "Entrepreneur Profiles: Point, Click--And Here's The Pitch: Yoyodyne uses prizes to get you to read those online ads". BusinessWeek. Retrieved December 20, 2014.
  3. ↑ Yahoo! to Acquire Yoyodyne Earthweb News. October 12, 1998.
  4. ↑ Junnarkar, Sandeep. "Yahoo to buy Yoyodyne". CNET News. Retrieved 19 December 2013.
  5. ↑ Yahoo Acquiring Yoyodyne Wired.com. October 12, 1998.
  6. ↑ "Speaker: Seth Godin". Business Week's "Ultimate Entrepreneur for the Information Age". Special Libraries Association. June 18, 2008. Archived from the original on July 4, 2008. Retrieved December 20, 2014.
  7. ↑ Eric Enge Interviews Seth Godin on Stone Temple Consulting. June 20, 2007
  8. ↑ Clear Blogging: How People Blogging Are Changing the World and How You Can Join Them. Springer. 2007. p. 290. ISBN 978-1590596913.
  9. ↑ Wong, Grace Make Money with Squidoo CNN. February 10, 2006
  10. ↑ Squidoo Washington Post. January 8, 2006.
  11. ↑ Squidoo Honored at 10th SXSW Interactive Web Awards on Viget Labs. March 14, 2007
  12. ↑ Traffic Details: Squidoo.com on Alexa.com. Retrieved July 18, 2008
  13. ↑ "Seth Godin’s Squidoo Acquired by HubPages". SearchEngineWatch. August 19, 2014.
  14. ↑ ChangeThis
  15. ↑ ChangeThis FAQ ChangeThis.
  16. ↑ ChangeThis Is Now Live Seth Godin's Blog. August 14, 2004.
  17. ↑ Whatever Happened to ChangeThis? Seth Godin's Blog. "We featured authors as diverse as Tom Peters, Amnesty International, Chris Anderson, Hugh Macleod, George Lakoff and Guy Kawasaki."
  18. ↑ ChangeThis Returns on 800-CEO-Blog. July 1, 2005
  19. ↑ Progressive "ChangeThis" Under New Stewardship on bnet. September 12, 2005
  20. ↑ If you could change your life... blog post by Seth Godin
  21. ↑ The Apprentices Forbes magazine. April 27, 2009
  22. ↑ "Graduation Day".
  23. ↑ This Might Work . . . Godin Blog June 18, 2012
  24. ↑ Author Godin Draws Readers "Giving Readers a Say," Wall Street Journal, June 24, 2012
  25. ↑ Seth Godin's Startup School
  26. ↑ Jerod Morris (25 April 2014). "The Best of Seth Godin on Copyblogger". Copyblogger. Copyblogger. Retrieved 27 April 2014.
  27. ↑ "Forbes.com Business Book of the Year". Forbes. Retrieved 2014-01-20."
  28. ↑ Hogan, Ron (2005-05-16). "How to Succeed in Business (Books)". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved 2014-01-20."...reports that the two-year-old title has more than 150,000 copies in print after 23 printings"
  29. ↑ Business Week Bestseller List: October 8th, 2007
  30. ↑ New York Times Bestseller List: June 8th 2007
  31. ↑ People (magazine), July 30, 1990, "Worlds of Power" series review by Ralph Novak
  32. ↑ Alexis, Carine (2016-04-09). "6 Essential Books Every Marketer Should Have On Their Shelf". Forbes. Retrieved 2016-05-04.
  33. ↑ "Seth Godin - The Art of Noticing and Then Creating". On Being with Krista Tippett. Retrieved September 3, 2015.
  34. ↑ Todd Andrlik; Charlie Moran. "AdAge Power 150: A Daily Ranking of Marketing Blogs". Advertising Age Magazine (Crain Communications). Retrieved May 12, 2009. #1: Seth's blog (as of access date: exact number tracked and their rankings are updated daily)
  35. ↑ Seth Godin on Stepping Up and Making it Happen

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