Seth W. Godin is an American author and former
dot com business executive.
Background
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.
He then met
Mark Hurst
Mark Hurst (born December 13, 1972) is a journalist, author, broadcaster, game designer, and Internet entrepreneur. He founded the GEL ("Good Experience Live") tech conference, and hosts a weekly technology-focused radio program, ''Techtonic'', o ...
and founded Yoyodyne (named in jest after the fictional
Yoyodyne in ''
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension
''The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension'', often shortened to ''Buckaroo Banzai'', is a 1984 American science fiction film produced and directed by W. D. Richter and written by Earl Mac Rauch. It stars Peter Weller in the ti ...
''). 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
Permission marketing is a type of advertising in which the people who are supposed to see the ads can choose whether or not to get them. This marketing type is becoming quite popular in digital marketing these days. Seth Godin first introduced t ...
.
Business ventures
Yoyodyne, launched in 1995, used contests, online games, and scavenger hunts to market companies to participating users. In August 1996,
Flatiron Partners invested $4 million in Yoyodyne in return for a 20% stake.
At Yoyodyne, Godin published ''Permission Marketing: Turning strangers into friends and friends into customers''. In 1998, he sold Yoyodyne to
Yahoo!
Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Manage ...
for about $30 million
[Yahoo Acquiring Yoyodyne]
'' Wired.com''. October 12, 1998. and became Yahoo's vice president of direct marketing.
In March 2006, Godin launched
Squidoo
Squidoo was a revenue-sharing article-writing site. Articles were called "lenses". In 2010, the site consisted of 1.5 million lenses . On August 15, 2014, founder Seth Godin announced that HubPages had acquired Squidoo.
History
Development st ...
. In July 2008, Squidoo was one of the 500 most visited sites in the world. By 2014, it was no longer considered financially viable and was sold to
HubPages
HubPages is an American online publishing platform developed by Paul Edmondson and was launched in 2006. Hubpages acquired its main competitor, Squidoo, in 2014. In 2018 Seattle-based content company "TheMaven, Inc." acquired Hubpages. Hubpages w ...
.
Writing
Godin is the author of many books. ''Free Prize Inside'' was a ''
Forbes
''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also r ...
'' Business Book of the Year in 2004,
["] while ''
Purple Cow'' sold over 150,000 copies in more than 23 print runs in its first two years.
["...reports that the two-year-old title has more than 150,000 copies in print after 23 printings"] ''
The Dip
''The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick)'' (2007) is the tenth published book by former dot com executive Seth Godin. It is a 76 page book that illustrates the concept of "the dip"—a temporary setback that ca ...
'' was a ''
Business Week'' and ''
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' bestseller; ''Business Week'' also named ''Linchpin'' among its "20 of the best books by the most influential thinkers in business" on November 13, 2015.
In June 2013, Godin raised more than $250,000 from readers with a
Kickstarter campaign, which in turn secured him a book contract with his publisher for his book "The Icarus Deception."
Godin was inducted into the American Marketing Association's Marketing Hall of Fame in 2018.
Godin has a chapter giving advice in
Tim Ferriss
Timothy Ferriss (born July 20, 1977) is an American entrepreneur, investor, author, podcaster, and lifestyle guru. He became well-known through his ''4-Hour'' self-help book series—including ''The 4-Hour Work Week'', ''The 4-Hour Body'', and '' ...
' book ''
Tools of Titans
''Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers'' (2016) is a self-help book by Timothy Ferriss, an American writer, educational activist, and entrepreneur. He interviewed more than 100 "wor ...
''.
Blog
Seth Godin's blog was named by ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...
'' among its 25 best blogs of 2009.
Bibliography
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Viral marketing
Viral marketing is a business strategy that uses existing social networks to promote a product mainly on various social media platforms. Its name refers to how consumers spread information about a product with other people, much in the same way tha ...
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Personal life
Godin and his wife Helene live in
Hastings-on-Hudson, New York
Hastings-on-Hudson is a village in Westchester County located in the southwestern part of the town of Greenburgh in the state of New York, United States. It is located on the eastern bank of the Hudson River, approximately north of midtown Manh ...
, with their two sons.
Seth Godin on Stepping Up and Making it Happen
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References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Godin, Seth
Living people
American male bloggers
American bloggers
American business theorists
Advertising theorists
Marketing people
Marketing theorists
American marketing people
People from Hastings-on-Hudson, New York
Writers from Mount Vernon, New York
Stanford Graduate School of Business alumni
Tufts University alumni
Tufts University School of Engineering alumni
Year of birth missing (living people)