Intro
“my dog has a stinky bum” is a great phrase, but not just because it sounds so cool. It also captures the idea of “you know, I’m not feeling too good right now.”
Asking people to think about what they think they want and then translate that into their terms (in my case, I don’t know how to make my dog smell better) really helps us understand what they want and how we can help them get it.
Possible topics: “I want my dog to smell better!” “I want my dog to do something more exciting in his life!” “I want my dog to have more fun in his life!” “I want my dog to have more interesting things to do in the evenings!”
Dogs and Bums are Funny
I’m sure you’ve heard the saying “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.” Not only is it an adage that is largely true, but it’s also a great metaphor for human psychology.
We are all familiar with this idea: if something is too big, we don’t want to look at it or even see it — we just want to get back in our car and drive away. This has a particular resonance for us because we are inherently conservative; we tend to like things that are “smaller and lighter” than what we are used to (in contrast to our counterintuitive tendency to like things that have more than one dimension).
On this front, both our family and friends have dogs. In fact, my parents own two dogs: one a greyhound and one a golden retriever. Though they have all been trained from the time they were puppies (with parental guidance) on how to stop barking and which commands mean which, there is still a strong connection between your pet and you. The bigger your dog is when you meet her or him as an adult, the more likely you are going to be impressed by how smart he or she is (and consequently spend more time with them).
In exploring how our pets affect us in this way, I came across an interesting study published by two researchers named Benjamin Libet and Laurence Steinberg at Northwestern University. They wanted to test whether people who press a button prior to seeing an event would show up earlier rather than later when asked about their decision-making process for 10 minutes before viewing it in advance of its occurrence.
The study was conducted on volunteers who were asked about their actions during three different pre-viewing periods during which they were shown either a red “go/no-go box” or green “go/no-go box” ahead of their decision. The results showed that people who were told ahead of time what they would do (and thus were anticipating their behavior) showed up earlier than those who were not told ahead of time when asked about their decisions after reviewing them beforehand (and thus were unable to anticipate their behavior). This suggests that people who anticipated using some feature before it was actually available — like dogs can do — would show up earlier rather than later when asked about their decisions afterwards. So perhaps this should be considered
Dog Bum Smell is Bad
The stinky bum is a problem which people think of as a product-market fit issue (though it’s actually not unique to dogs). But the same issue can be felt in any product, no matter how small or large it is. A product that has a smell like my dog’s bum should have an aroma as well. This is no accident: if the smell is bad then we might as well change the product.
First off, there are some things you can do to minimize that smell:
• Keep your dog away from long-lasting materials (e.g., boxes containing paper or cardboard) and avoid fragranced products (for example, perfumes).
• Use deodorant on your dog (not only will you get rid of the smell itself but also prevent other smells from being absorbed by your fur).
• Change your clothes often enough so that they dry out (and keep them away from your dog’s fur so they don’t get smelly).
In summary, do what you can to keep your dog away from things that have a strong smell and limit other smells from reaching him through his coat.
Dog Bum is Soft like a Cat’s
There is an old adage that says: “If you don’t know where the enemy is, there’s no need to attack.” I think this is a very good advice for entrepreneurs.
One of the most visible signs of your startup being in trouble is how your dog’s bum smells. You walk into your office and can smell it from far away: it’s a bad smell. And I mean really bad!
You know that smell? It’s nothing like the fresh morning air that invigorates you on a cool autumn day — this smell just makes you want to retch. You know what it reminds you of? A rotten cabbage, or some cheese (yes, even bad cheese). But this isn’t just sweat or tears or even mere curiosity; this smells like something really, really wrong with your dog!
My dog has a stinky bum. And I know exactly what that smell smells like to me because my wife has lost her sense of smell at 21 and we both have dogs with stinky bums. So if you are one of those people who thinks we should be doing something about it, here is what we can do: learn to identify the problem with our dogs’ bums and then tackle it head on – instead of hiding behind our dogs so we can avoid talk about all this stuff which does not matter as much as talking about why dogs stink and how to stop them from smelling so terrible.
We don’t need any fancy training systems or expensive analyses — all we need is just a little bit of understanding on our part and lots of help from friends who are experienced in dealing with problems like this on their own dogs’ bums before they became celebrities by creating books and feeding bowls lists… but no such things exist. Here are the few steps we have taken so far : 1) Sit next to our dogs and talk about how great their bums feel 2) Take pictures of their bums 3) Go through every picture and pick out the best ones 4) Talk about which parts of their bodies feel softer 5) Write down every detail 6) Ask them if they feel better 7) Have them try out different products 
Compare notes 9) Taste test 10) Compare notes 11) Have them go to the store 12) Talk about how much more soft their butts feel 13) Try one product 14) Compare notes 15); Talk about how much softer their butts
Dogs are Cute
A lot of the time, we can’t tell whether a dog has a stinky bum or not, but there’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to. If you have one, use it to your advantage and leave it up to your dog to decide whether it is bad or not.
This is another great way to use tools: every time you do something in your app or website that you don’t want to see on someone else’s device, update the page so that you get credit for making the change immediately instead of waiting up to 24 hours (if applicable). And if your users report that they didn’t notice the change yet — just go ahead and make a small update and make sure everyone sees it before anyone else does!
Conclusion
If you are a startup, you’ve probably wondered how to sum up your own business. That’s got to be kind of hard, right?
In this post I think I’ve come up with a way of doing it: the Pareto Principle. In it, one finds that roughly 80% of all business results are due to 20% of all actions, and only 20% of all actions are triggered by 50% of all stimuli. So if you want to know what’s truly important about your business, you need to focus on the 20%. And then figure out what to do about the remaining 80%.
This was first described in another post from 2014:
“It’s time for the Pareto Principle!” – “it is time for me to quit advertising for free on the internet!” – “it is time for me to stop writing blog posts about this and that!” – “it is time for me to stop giving interviews.” – “it is time for me to stop giving talks at conferences.” – “it is time for me not to do any more marketing until I write a book.” – “it is time for me not to give any more talks at conferences.” – “it is time for me not to submit any more stories or articles or anything else until I write a book.” (I’ve realized this means I’ll have no choice but start working on it again once my book comes out.)”
In my case, we have yet another platform (and problem) in our toolbox. And while these two issues are generally self-contained and solvable without much interaction with other platforms (so long as they don’t overlap), there’s nothing stopping us from adding third party integrations. This will allow us (for example) to offer API endpoints that other platforms can use. To integrate with Facebook Ads Manager or Instagram Campaign Manager would require additional code changes but wouldn’t change our overall approach. These integrations might even encourage us towards putting our focus where it belongs instead of just on each platform individually… which could be an added benefit!
