(This is the next part in “How To Be (Internet) Famous”. You can catch up on the entire series here. I recommend going back to Part 1 and reading through the other posts before reading this one.)

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Last week, I mentioned I would tell you how to determine whether or not the first version of your product sucks. So that’s what we’re going to cover here.

(Sometimes the first version is also called a “Minimum Viable Product”, but I covered my issue with that term last week and won’t be using it in this series.)

Now, up until the point when teenage girls started to dominate the voting process because they allowed text messages to count, which in turn lead to a parade of boring white guys to win every year, I liked American Idol. A lot of people did.

Can I tell you the thing I liked most about the show though? It was those segments when people who thought they were amazing singers, but were actually really bad, got a chance to perform. You knew leading up to their segment that it was going to be a complete disaster, and yet when the time came for that segment, you couldn’t look away.

Those “singers” were awful. No one will dispute that. If Eli Roth ever makes another one of his torture porn movies like Hostel, you could easily replace the scenes of grisly torture with any of these American Idol “contenders” singing, and the movie wouldn’t miss a beat.

But here’s the relevant thing about those performers: They are more reflective of us than the the actual American Idol winners. Including the boring white guys. (I’m looking at you, Lee Dewyze. Crystal Bowersox should have totally won that year.)

Why do these people, who committed musical atrocities, reflect us so well? And what does this have to do with becoming (Internet) famous? Everything. Because it directly relates to why there are so many sucky products, which in turn make it *that* much harder for you or or your own product to get noticed.

Not to mention, it also explains our difficulty with determining what does, and what does not, suck. It’s hard to think you suck when your friends and family tell you otherwise.

You see, in the event you never watched American Idol, when those crappy performers were told by the judges that they bombed, the performer was always shocked. Always. Their brains, or clever editing and exquisite acting, depending on how cynical you want to be, couldn’t process that they were bad. Usually because everyone around them (friends, family, maybe co-workers) told them that they were good.

Welcome to life in the Western World. We are very good at not offending anyone with the truth, especially our friends and family. So, we all think we’re awesome, even though we’re totally not.

Everyone Around You (Probably) Sucks

There’s this annoying, and false, belief among comedians and entertainers that you either “got it” or you don’t. I don’t believe that to be true. That’s the kind of statement that comes from the entertainment industry where insecurity and fear are driving forces behind most decisions that are made.

I think if you want to be funny, you can learn, practice, and train your brain until you get there. I really do. The same is true for making an awesome product. The problem is that most of us don’t put the work in, which is why most of us suck at things we don’t have to suck at. We’re not putting in the work.

That’s that fairy godmother thing I referenced last week. A lot of us just want that magic wand waved and poof, we got what we wanted, but life isn’t like that. Life is often cruel and unfair. As Denis Leary once said, while completely ripping off Bill Hicks, “Life sucks. Get a helmet.”

The problem gets worse though when people, who decide not to put in that work, think that they can still achieve results in terms of pushing their product. And sometimes they do achieve those results! Sometimes sucky products do really well because … Yup. Life is often cruel and unfair.

Why do those sucky products do well? Usually because The Big Club is involved somehow.

What do I mean by that? Here’s a conversation that happens in Silicon Valley way more than it should:  “Is that a terrible product? Uh huh. I see. Where did you (terrible product founder) go to school? Stanford? Oh great! Here’s thirty-seven million dollars for your terrible, terrible product!”

And when those sucky products do well, this creates a situation where we see those products succeed, so we figure putting in a minimum amount of effort is enough. “That thing sucks and succeeded, so why not me?” Well, that’s wrong. Those sucky products usually have a specific reason behind their success that you can’t replicate. That means you have to use your whole ass, not half of it, if you want to not suck.`

The people around you using half their ass creates this utter deluge of bullshit that’ll waste people’s time and make them less and less receptive toward trying something new when you have something good that they want to pitch.

A classic example of this is the old running joke in Los Angeles about how everyone in LA has a script they want to pitch, but nobody wants to read it. This joke also now works equally well in San Francisco if you replace the word script with startup.

So, first things first: You have to put the work in. Let’s assume that you will going forward.

Second thing: You have to realize that in terms of your probability of success, it increases by you working hard because of the simple fact that so many people around you suck because they’re not doing the same. So, if you put the work in, you have the advantage over them.

The overall game of achieving success might be rigged against you, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to do well, or even win it.

How Do You Know If You Suck Or Not?

So how do we know, objectively, if your product sucks? There’s a three step test. If you pass the test, your product doesn’t suck.

Step 1: The Self-Test – “Do I Think My Own Product Sucks?”

Although you may not be the most reliable person to answer this question, you do need to make some effort to objectively evaluate the first version of your product. In the software world, sometimes you hear the term “dogfooding” to describe the company using its own product before letting others do so. That’s the basic idea here: Is this product something you’d use yourself if you were the intended audience?

The correct answer? It better be.

Like every question that’s posed in this series, this one has to be answered with the truth. What does your gut tell you? Do you think it sucks? If your life depended on answering that question truthfully, what would you say?

As an example: With the eight page preview I did for my comic, Liberty: The Second City Saint (which you can check out here), I don’t think it’s perfect. There are two specific things I know I need to fix.

• There are some transition panels that are missing in terms of the action that I should have included.
• I outsmarted myself when it came to Lady Claw (Rania Safar) and her character. Her behavior changes throughout those eight pages because her character behaves the way a cat does. They love you one minute, they want to bite you the next. That kind of thing. But in translating her character from the script, her cat-like personality is not explicitly indicated to the reader. So, it’s confusing watching her react to things without knowing this.

So I know, objectively, the preview comic gets the job done in terms of looking good and leaving the reader wanting more, but it has some flaws that I need to fix.

Once you’ve made your initial, and hopefully honest, assessment, take notes and plan to make those changes. But. Don’t make them yet until you have completed the rest of this test.

Step 2: The Friend-Test – “Do They Think My Product Sucks?”

IF, and this is a big if, IF you have friends and family who can provide, objective, no BS, observations on your pitch / product. This is where you’d ask them for it about your product.

Again the question: If you were the intended audience for this product, would you use it?

If you do not have friends and family who can provide honest feedback and advice on your product, you can safely skip this part of the test and move on to step three.

This is important to note: Don’t mention the flaws you’ve found in your evaluation in step one to your friends and family. After they had some time with the product and gave you their advice and suggestions, then you can share what you found.

If you tell them about the flaws you found before they look at the product and use it, you’re going to bias their opinion and make them look for those flaws.

In the case of Liberty, I’m not really close with my family, and don’t have a lot of friends, so I mostly skipped this step. When you live out of hotel rooms across America for a few years, it’s hard to maintain a relationship with anything that’s not your laptop.

Step 3: The Network-Test – “What Do Friends Of Friends And Acquaintances Think?”

Next week, I’ll give you the rant that’s currently titled “GO THE FUCK OUTSIDE” in its current draft on Google Docs. Until then, I’m going to make a quick assumption that you have some kind of network that you can tap into and ask for advice and feedback on your product.

If the people in your network like it, and you and your friends and family (objectively) like the product? Congratulations. You don’t suck.

Now make sure you fix the identified flaws before moving on to the next step.

Let’s make sure we’re on the same page here: “Network” is one of those dumb terms like “content”. It doesn’t really mean anything any more. Anyone or anything can constitute your network. What I mean here, for this specific article, are people who are one or two steps removed from you that you can be introduced to by your friends and family.

Here’s an example: I’m not a name dropper, so I won’t give you the entertainment company’s name, but for Liberty, I had a friend introduce me to someone at a comics-related entertainment company. I sent them the Liberty preview comic, and they sent the preview out to their interns to give me objective feedback on it.

So now I have feedback and suggestions coming from people who don’t know me and therefore don’t have an interest in bullshitting me. That’s the kind of thing you want to get. Not just now, but every step of the way on your journey toward (Internet) fame.

The feedback I got on the preview comic was pretty great.

People liked it. They liked the diversity of the characters (Liberty is a latina, Victory is black, and Lady Claw is Iraqi). They liked the art. And they found the story interesting and wanted to see more upon finishing the comic.

But they also had the same issues I spotted where Lady Claw (Rania Safar’s alias) changes her behavior from page to page, and the transition panels could have made it more clear as to what was going on in some parts. Now I know for sure this needs to be fixed.

Sometimes what you think is a flaw might not be. But when it’s confirmed by other people outside your circle, with no interest in BS’ing you, that’s how you know this flaw needs to be addressed. When those flaws addressed in the first version of your product, this creates the second version. The second version is what your local area is going to see.

Next week, we’ll tackle what happens when the second version of your product passes this test and then engages with its arch nemesis: The locals.

Image Credits: Denis Leary and David Cook from Wikimedia Commons. Shot from Curb Your Enthusiasm via Evan P. Cordes on Flickr