驾驭传播与公关 | Lulu Cheng Meservey（Substack，动视暴雪）

我常说找到受众的文化敏感带。意思是人们有自己在意或不在意的事物，你无法改变这点。试图改变一个人的世界观或热情是极其困难的。相对容易的是调整你想表达的内容，使其契合他们的世界观或兴趣点。但并非总能找到契合点。

I often say to find your audience's cultural erogenous zones. So what it means is people have things that they either care about or don't, and you're not gonna change that. So it's a huge lift to try to change someone's worldview or their passions. It's a light lift to take the thing you wanna talk about and just shape it into to fit into their worldview or their passions. There's not always a fit.

有些人天生就不是你的目标受众，你应该明白这点并避免浪费时间。但如果你的核心受众关心X，而你提供的是Y，那么你的任务就是构建某种接口或桥梁，将X与Y连接起来。这不是靠简单传递信息就能实现的，也不是'建好就会有人来'那么简单。这非常困难。除非你拥有超凡天赋——我一生中从未见过这种程度——能创造出如此强大的信息和故事，让原本毫不关心的人突然将其视为自己的热情所在。

There's gonna be people who are just not your natural audience, and you should know that and not waste your time. But if your natural audience cares about x and you're offering y, then it's your job to create sort of the API, right, or to create the bridge from x to y. It's not with messaging, it's not build it and they will come. It is so hard. And you'd have to be superhumanly gifted to the extent that I can't recall seeing in my entire life, where you create a message and a story so powerful that someone who didn't care at all before suddenly makes that their passion.

更简单的方法是理解他们的热情所在，然后说服他们：既然关心这个，就应该因为这种关联性而关心你的事物。

It's so much easier to take what they're passionate about and understand it and then convince them that if they care about that, then they should care about your thing because of this connection.

欢迎收听Lenny的播客，在这里我采访世界级产品领导者和增长专家，学习他们打造当今最成功产品的宝贵经验。今天的嘉宾是Lulu Mazurvi。我在她担任Substack传播主管时结识她，她以敢于冒险和大胆表态闻名，因此为Substack和她代表的其他公司赢得了大量关注。Lulu绝对是我合作过最具创新精神和有趣的传播人士。她现任动视暴雪企业事务执行副总裁兼首席传播官，并撰写我认为最优秀的PR与传播策略通讯《FLAC》。

Welcome to Lenny's podcast where I interview world class product leaders and growth experts to learn from their hard won experiences building and growing today's most successful products. Today, my guest is Lulu Mazurvi. I met Lulu while she was head of comms at Substack, where she was infamous for taking big risks and bold stands, and as a result, creating a lot of attention for Substack and other companies she's represented. Lulu is definitely the most innovative and interesting comms person I've worked with. She 's currently executive vice president of corporate affairs and chief communications officer at Activation Blizzard, and she writes what I'd say is the best newsletter on PR and comm strategy, a newsletter called FLAC.

在我们的对话中，我们将深入探讨如何让你的观点广泛传播、文化敏感带、直接触达受众相比依赖传统媒体日益增长的重要性、传播中冒险的重要性等话题。Lulu见解深刻，我本可以继续探讨数小时。在赞助商简短插播后，请欣赏与Lulu Mazurvi的这期节目。本期由AssemblyAI赞助——如果你想在音视频产品中构建AI功能，AssemblyAI能帮助你轻松实现大规模语音转录和理解。

In our conversation, we get tactical about how to make your ideas spread, cultural erogenous zones, the growing importance of going direct versus relying on traditional media, the importance of taking risks in your comms, and much more. Lulu is so insightful, I could have continued to explore the subject for hours. Enjoy this episode with Lulu Mazurvi after a short word from our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by AssemblyAI. If you're looking to build AI powered features in your audio and video products, then you need to know about AssemblyAI, which makes it easy to transcribe and understand speech at scale.

AssemblyAI的亮点在于，你可以通过简单API访问顶级研究实验室的最新AI突破。他们最近推出了市场上最大的语音识别模型ConformerOne，实现了最先进的准确率。所有AssemblyAI模型都通过API提供，可直接投入生产使用。我认识的许多产品经理都在考虑或已经开始构建AI应用，而AssemblyAI是音频用例最快的AI实现方式。现在正是体验AssemblyAI的好时机，他们新推出的ConformerOne模型让为客户提供最高准确率的转录服务变得更容易，就像Spotify、CallRail和Ryder所做的那样。

What I love about AssemblyAI is you can use their simple API to access the latest AI breakthroughs from top tier research labs. They recently launched ConformerOne, the largest trained speech recognition model on the market, which achieves state of the art accuracy. All of AssemblyAI's models, are accessed through their API, are production ready. So many PMs I know are considering or already building with AI, and AssemblyAI is the fastest way to build with AI for audio use cases. Now is the time to check out AssemblyAI with their new ConformerOne model available today, which makes it even easier to bring the highest accuracy transcription to your customers, just like Spotify, CallRail, and Ryder do for theirs.

访问assemblyai.com/lenny免费试用API，通过无代码平台开始测试他们的模型。网址是assemblyai.com/lenny。本期节目由public.com赞助——我们想介绍他们新推出的国债账户，现金年化收益达4.8%，高于高收益储蓄账户，同时仍享有美国政府的全额信用担保。

Visit assemblyai.com/lenny to try their API for free and start testing their models with their no code playground. That's assemblyai.com/lenny. This episode is brought to you by public.com. We want to tell you about their new treasury accounts, which earn a 4.8% yield on your cash. That is higher than a high yield savings account while still being backed by the full faith and credit of the US government.

国债收益率正处于15年来的高点，但购买美国国债却异常复杂。以往你必须去银行或操作陈旧的政府网站，至少过去是这样。现在你可以像操作银行账户一样灵活地将现金转入美国国债，随时支取资金，甚至在国库券到期前就能动用。没有持有期限，没有结算日，只是一个安全存放现金并获取稳定收益的地方。

Treasury yields are at a fifteen year high, but buying US Treasuries is super complicated. You have to go to a bank or navigate an ancient government website, or at least that was the case. Now you can move your cash into US Treasuries with the flexibility of a bank account. You can access your cash whenever you want, even before your treasury bills hit maturity. There are no hold periods, no settlement days, just a safe place to park your cash and earn a reliable yield.

Public平台会在国库券到期时自动帮你再投资，你无需任何操作就能持续获得收益增长。你可以将国债与股票、ETF、加密货币及其他另类资产统一管理。一站式完成所有投资，享受4.8%的收益率——这比高收益储蓄账户的利率更高，只需开通国债账户@public.comslashLenny。露露，欢迎来到播客节目。

Public will reinvest your treasury bills at maturity, so you don't have to do anything to continue growing your yield. And you can manage your treasuries alongside stocks, ETFs, crypto, and any alternative assets. Do all your investing in one place and earn 4.8%, a higher yield than a high yield savings account, only with a treasury account @public.comslashLenny. Lulu, welcome to the podcast.

谢谢你，莱尼。很高兴来到这里。

Thank you, Lenny. Great to be here.

我非常期待能聊聊传播与公关这个话题。从没见过哪个创始人或产品负责人不想更好地传播理念、推广产品，而你这方面非常出色。我们会讨论你在这个领域的一些实践。但首先，或许可以泛泛地谈谈——你总结过哪些有助于理念传播的经验？

I am really excited to chat all things comms and PR. I've never met a founder or product leader who doesn't wanna get better at spreading ideas and getting their product out there, and you're very good at this. We're gonna talk about some of the things you've done in the space. But just to start, maybe just broadly, I'm curious to hear just, like, what have you learned about what helps an idea spread?

要让理念传播开来有几种方法。核心原则是必须让它令人难忘，并让人们自发愿意传播。人们不愿意传播的内容包括为企业做宣传，而愿意传播的内容是能给他人带来欢乐——想逗人发笑，

So there's a few ways to make the idea spread. The overall principle is you have to make it memorable and you have to make people want to say it of their own volition. And so what doesn't make them wanna say it is doing a favor for a corporation. What doesn't make them wanna say it is they wanna bring joy to somebody else. Wanna make somebody laugh.

想显得有趣，或是想展现自我身份的某部分。因此要让理念更易传播，你可以把它变成笑话，转化成人们会复述的金句；可以使用类比；可以不断重复某个口号，比如「快速行动打破陈规」、

They wanna appear interesting or they wanna project some part of their identity. And so a few things that you can do with an idea to make it spread better, you can make it into a joke. So you can turn it into a line that people will repeat. You can use an analogy. You can take something and just say it over and over, move fast and break things.

「不作恶」、「打造人们真正需要的东西」；还可以创造生动的心理图像。我经常用「把药片藏在奶酪里」这个心理图像，这个我们稍后可以详谈，它关乎如何打造令人印象深刻的故事。

Don't be evil, build something people want. You can create a mental image that is very colorful. So I have a mental image for people that I use a lot, which is put the pill in some cheese. And we can talk about it later. It's about how to craft a story that will that will stick.

但当我建议把药片藏在奶酪里时，人们往往会记住这个说法，因为它更容易被复述。最后一点是运用故事。用轶事代替形容词，因为形容词太主观了，对人们毫无意义。而故事则能让他们在餐桌上反复讲述。

But when I say put the pill in cheese, people tend to remember that and it's more easily repeatable. And then the last thing is use a story. Use an anecdote instead of using adjectives because adjectives are so subjective. They're meaningless to people. So if you give them a story, that's something they can repeat over the dinner table.

你能否举例说明刚才提到的框架？比如你谈到的类比或'把药片藏在奶酪里'——我猜这是指给狗喂药时的做法。

Do you have any examples of the of the frameworks you just shared? So you talked about maybe having an analogy or putting the pill in the cheese, which I think is referring to when you feed a dog a pill.

没错。

Yeah.

你想把药片藏在奶酪里。能想到这方面实际应用的故事或案例吗？无论是你自己做的还是见过的其他公司案例？

You wanna hide the pill in the cheese. Is there any stories or examples that come to mind of this in action, either something you've done or other companies you've seen?

有个反面教材是'活页夹里的女人'。还记得米特·罗姆尼说这句话时，它像野火般迅速传播开来。因为你能想象那个活页夹的画面，这形成了滑稽的心理意象，引发了无数调侃。

One example, not for the better, is binders of women. You remember when Mitt Romney said binders of women, and it just absolutely caught on like wildfire. And it's because you could picture the binder. It's a hilarious mental image. You make lots of jokes about it.

这种非常具体又反常的措辞极具传播性，天然适合被做成梗图。虽然他们并不希望这种情况发生——这算是个警示，这类表达也可能适得其反。但确实是个典型案例。

It's a very specific unusual phrasing that is very repeatable. And it's so it lends itself so much to memeing. So it's not something that they wanted to have happen, which is, I guess, a word of caution. This can backfire on you as well. But that's an example.

我提过'快速行动，打破陈规'、'软件正在吞噬世界'、'是时候建设了'。这些短句把普通词汇以反常顺序组合，特别是经过多次重复后，就会变得极具记忆点。

I mentioned move fast and break things. Software is eating the world. It's time to build. Those are these short phrases that take normal words and put them in an unusual order. And then especially if you repeat them a few times, they're they just become very sticky.

这些事后听起来很聪明睿智。关于如何想出像'快速行动打破常规'这样能广泛传播的酷炫口号，你有什么建议吗？创始人该如何着手？

These things sound really smart and wise after the fact. Do you have any advice on just how to come like, so we're talking about coming up with a cool phrase that'll spread of how to do that. I don't know. What have you seen work for, like, coming up with move fast and break things? How would a founder approach that?

你要让它简单到二年级学生都能理解。要尽量减少接收者的认知负担，让他们无需额外思考就能立刻在脑海中形成画面。如果要开玩笑，必须是个能让人秒懂的笑话，或是广为人知的梗。不要搞成需要解释才能懂的内部笑话。

You wanna make it something that a second grader could understand. Like, you wanna minimize the cognitive burden on the recipient. So it should be something where they're not having to expend any extra energy understanding the thing where it immediately paints a picture. Or if you were to make a joke, it has to be a joke that they immediately get, or it's a very widely understood reference. You don't want it to be this inside joke with yourself that other people might get if you explain it to them.

所以如果你要提炼公司或使命的精髓，先浓缩成一句话，再改写成能向二年级学生解释的句子，然后剔除所有陈词滥调。如果能把它变成比喻或具象化的表达，就成功90%了。

So if you were to boil down the essence of, let's say your company or your mission, get it to one sentence and then turn it into a sentence that you could explain to a second grader and then cleanse it of all cliches and common parlance. And if you can then turn that into an analogy or if you can make it into something that has imagery, then you're probably 90% of the way there.

你在推特上肯定这么干过。分享个疯狂传播的推文会很有趣。我注意到你删旧推文，这做法很聪明。

So you've definitely done this, on Twitter. It might be fun just to share a tweet or something of yours that, has done this, that has spread like crazy. I noticed you delete your old tweets, which I think is really smart.

是啊。

Yeah.

我也该这么做。虽然没找到具体例子，但记得有些推文浏览量爆炸。能分享个传播效果特别好的案例吗？

I should probably do that. So I couldn't find any examples, but I remember just being like, holy shit. It's got a bazillion views. Is there an example that comes to mind that you could share just here's something you put out that just went crazy?

其实我也有反面教材。除了成功案例，分享错误和失误也很有价值，毕竟失败比成功多得多。通常你尝试很多事，偶尔才会成功。但思考哪些行不通同样重要。

I actually have a a negative example too. I think it's useful to share my mistakes or missteps in addition to what went right because there's more mistakes and missteps than than what goes right. You know, in general, you try a bunch of things. Every once in a while, they succeed. But I think it's useful to think about what didn't land.

我印象最深的是Substack时代的事——当时我们因为审查力度不足而饱受批评，但我们坚持主张要鼓励自由表达。那时我其实在休产假，对情况不太了解，但很想站出来支持这个立场。于是我发了条长推文，阐述为何即使困难也要坚守这一原则，结果反响相当不错。

And so one of mine was when you might remember this because this was the substack era. When we were taking a lot of incoming for not censoring enough, And we took a stand that we want to encourage free expression. I was actually on maternity leave, so I was a little bit out of the loop, but I wanted to jump in there and support the cause. And so I did a thread about why we're standing by this principle even when it's hard. And the thread was pretty well received.

推文传播很广，在我们关注的群体（比如网络写作者）中获得了约三万点赞。但其中有条推文我写道'做这事并不愉快，但大海又何尝愉快过'——这是个极其晦涩的隐喻。当时我刚读完《纽约客》的书评，在原文语境里这个比喻充满诗意又动人。

It traveled a lot. I think it was 30 something thousand likes among people that we cared about, like people who write on the Internet. And then there was one tweet in the thread where I said something like doing this isn't doing this isn't pleasant, but neither for that matter is the sea. Completely esoteric reference. It was fresh in my mind because it was from a New Yorker book review where in that context, it was like poetic and evocative and beautiful.

我犯了个忌讳：把个人化的内心玩笑公之于众。这条推文在整条线索里显得格格不入，你能看到点赞数断崖式下跌，大家都一脸茫然。后来我以旁观视角再看时也发现：脱离语境后这话确实莫名其妙，更何况我又不是《纽约客》的书评人。

And I did the thing you're not supposed to do, which is take an inside joke with yourself and release it into the world. And that one tweet was sort of a dud in the middle of the thread where you could see the likes drop off precipitously, and people were like, what are you talking about? And then afterwards, I looked at it with fresh eyes. I'm like, yeah, this makes no sense whatsoever out of context. And, also, I'm not a New York, know, book reviewer.

这成了个生动的反面教材。但那个花哨的比喻反而阴差阳错吸引了注意——虽然本非我本意。嗯，这确实是个教训。

So that was a good don't. But the fact that it was such a colorful metaphor actually caught people's attention in in an accidental way. Like, I didn't mean for it to. Yeah. I guess that's a that's a don't.

这个例子够典型吗？

Does that serve as an example?

可以，我们就用这个案例。接下来还会分析其他例子。

Yeah. That'll work. And we'll go through other examples.

不过确实...

But Yeah.

这是个很好的过渡，我本来打算稍后再说的，但现在可能是个好时机来聊聊你非常推崇的一个理念——作为传播者要敢于冒险。我觉得你有一种感觉，认为传播者通常非常保守，其实大有可为。这次尝试可能没成功，但其他时候确实奏效了。你能谈谈你这种冒险哲学吗？

That's a good segue to something I was gonna say for later, but it may be a good time to chat about is just something that you're big on is this concept of taking risks as a comms person. I think you have the sense that comms people are just very conservative and there's a big opportunity to get a little out there. And in this case, you did and maybe didn't work out. Other times you have, and it has. Could you just talk about that kind of philosophy you have around taking risks?

我认为如果你是一家初创公司，现状就是你的敌人。当你不敢冒险，通过不作为来最小化风险时——毕竟什么都不做才是规避风险的最佳方式——你就是在让现状获胜。你默认让企业最大的敌人、竞争对手和威胁获胜，因为你甚至不愿尝试竞争。所以我总是鼓励人们宁可犯主动作为的错误，也不要犯不作为的错误。

I think if you're a startup, your enemy is the status quo. And when you don't take risks, when you minimize risk by doing nothing like, the best way to minimize risk is to do nothing. You're letting the status quo win. So you're you're letting your greatest enemy and rival and threat to your business win by default because you're not even gonna try to compete. And so I always encourage people to try to make mistakes of commission rather than omission.

因为如果你主动作为犯了错，你能观察到它。你可以从中学习，立刻知道问题所在，快速调整并变得更好。而如果你犯的是不作为的错误，你就是在让现状获胜。

Because if you make a mistake of commission, you can observe it. You can learn from it. You know, right away that it's happened. You can move really quickly and adapt and become better. Whereas if you make mistakes of omission, you're letting status quo win.

你没有观察，没有学习，甚至可能没注意到机会溜走。我常用一个类比来加深印象：这就像你把钱投资于市场与只持有现金的区别。持有现金不会亏钱感觉很安全，但随着时间的推移，世界在变化，市场在增长，别人都越来越富而你实际上越来越穷。

You're not observing, you're not learning, and you're maybe not even noticing opportunities slip by. So the example that I use, again, an analogy to make it more memorable. My analogy for this is if you're investing money in the market versus if you're just sitting in cash. If you're sitting in cash, you won't lose your money and it feels safe. But over time, the world moves and the market grows and everybody else is getting richer and you're getting poorer in real terms.

而如果你进行投资，虽然会有涨跌波动，不可能天天上涨，但长期来看你会好得多。

Whereas if you make an investment, it'll go up and down. There'll be some volatility. It's not just gonna go up every day, but over the long run, you'll be much, much better off.

能举个你冒险成功的例子吗？或者你见过别人做得特别好的案例？

Is there an example of something you did that where you took a risk and it worked out, or you saw someone else do this really well?

支持言论自由的推文就是个成功的冒险。之所以说是冒险，因为这是个已经让很多人愤怒的话题——所有重要话题都会如此。对我来说也有风险，因为当时我正在休假，没有直接参与事务，状态已经有些混乱了。

The stand for free speech thread would be a risk that worked out. It was a risk because it was a topic that a lot of people were already mad about, which will happen with every topic that matters. It felt a little risky for me because I was on leave. I wasn't really in the middle of things. I was kinda addled already.

所以我至少在里面放了一个有点荒谬的东西。因此存在执行风险——我能否做好这件事？还有冒头的风险，即无中生有地制造话题。如果这出了问题让公司难堪，或者让克里斯、哈米什或吉拉吉不高兴，那会让我很沮丧，显然也是我工作的失败。这是我承担的风险，我们共同承担，而他们给予了支持。

So I I had at least one thing in there that was kinda nonsensical. So there was the execution risk of would I be able to do this well? There was also the risk of you poke your head up and make a thing where there wasn't a thing. And if that were to go wrong and embarrass the company or if that had made Chris or Hamish or Jiraj upset, that would have been upsetting to me and obviously a failure of my job. So that was a risk that I took and we took and they were supportive.

结果确实奏效了，因为最可能在Substat上写作的人通常欣赏这种立场。莱尼，你问及哪些东西有助于让人记忆深刻时，我其实还有一个例子。之前有关于海洋类比的失败案例，而我认为一个有效的例子是：我常说'要找到受众的文化敏感带'。这句话一说你就明白我的意思——'了解你受众的文化敏感带'，你立刻心领神会。

And it did work out because the the people who were most likely to write on substat generally appreciate that stance. I actually have one more for you, Lenny, when you asked about what are things that help stick in people's memory. There was the kind of fail example of the sea analogy. I think a useful example that works is I often say to find your audience's cultural erogenous zones, And it is something that you immediately know what I'm talking about. If I if I say like, know your audience's cultural erogenous zones, you know what it means.

这是个众人皆懂的简略表达，不是只有我自己懂的内部笑话。它足够独特到你会重复引用，并有望记住。这个送给你。

It's a shorthand that everybody understands. It's not an inside joke with myself. And it's something that is unusual enough praising that you're gonna repeat it and hopefully remember it. So there's one for you.

你跟我提过这个框架，我确实想深入了解。具体指什么？有没有你见过的惊艳案例，完美诠释了这种'敏感带'手法？

You told me about that framework, and I I I want I definitely wanted to hear more about it. Like, what does that mean? And is there something that you've seen someone do that just like, wow, they really nailed this erogenous zone approach?

没错。他们确实精准击中了敏感带的靶...

Yeah. Yeah. They really they really got it in the erogenous bull bull's

心。所以

eye. So

其核心在于：人们总有在意或不在意的事物，你无法改变这点。试图改变他人的世界观或热情需要巨大努力，但将你想表达的内容调整适配他们的世界观或热情则轻松得多。并非总能契合——有些人天生就不是你的目标受众，你要认清这点避免浪费时间。

what it means is people have things that they either care about or don't, and you're not gonna change that. So it's a huge lift to try to change someone's worldview or their passions. It's a light lift to take the thing you wanna talk about and just shape it into to fit into their worldview or their passions. There's not always a fit. There's gonna be people who are just not your natural audience, and you should know that and not waste your time.

但如果你的核心受众关心X，而你提供的是Y，那么你的工作就是搭建某种API，或者说在X与Y之间架起桥梁。这不是靠信息轰炸，也不是'建好了他们自然来'那么简单。这非常困难。你需要具备超凡的天赋——我这辈子都没见过谁能做到——创作出如此震撼的信息和故事，让原本毫不关心的人突然将其视为毕生追求。相比之下，顺着他们的兴趣点切入，让他们明白既然关心这个，就该因此关心你的事物——这种连接方式要容易得多。

But if your natural audience cares about x and you're offering Y, then it's your job to create sort of the API, right, or to create the bridge from X to Y. It's not with messaging, it's not build it and they will come. It is so hard. And you'd have to be superhumanly gifted to the extent that I can't recall seeing in my entire life, where you create a message and a story so powerful that someone who didn't care at all before suddenly makes that their passion. It's so much easier to take what they're passionate about and understand it and then convince them that if they care about that, then they should care about your thing because of this connection.

这让我想起另一条疯传的推文，就是你分享在推特上屏蔽的内容，比如那个顶针线和向下指的手势。感觉这完全就是人们会立刻认同的那种'对，就是这个'的瞬间。

This makes me think about one of the other tweets that I think went crazy, which is where you share the things you're muting on Twitter, where it's like the the threads thimble and the pointing down thing, and and it feels like that's exactly that where people just like, yep. This

是的，没错。我有个例子要告诉你，莱妮娅。我立刻想到的是卡玛拉·哈里斯竞选参议员时——先不管大家对作为政治人物的她有什么看法，或者是否认同她的政策——

is Yeah. Yeah. It is that. I have an example for you, Lenya. The one that my mind goes to is when Kamala Harris was running for senate, it doesn't you know, put aside what anyone thinks of Kamala Harris as a politician or if you agree with her politics.

重点在于：当时参选时，她举了个例子说明K-12教育关注度不足。这不是个吸引眼球的话题，只有妈妈们会关心。而人们对国防和国家安全却非常关注。于是她说，吸引他们注意的方法是告诉关心国家安全的人：'你知道参军需要具备十年级阅读水平吗？'

Doesn't matter. When she was running for senate, she had this example where not enough people care about K through 12 education. It's not a sexy topic and only like moms care about it. Whereas people cared a lot and still do about national defense, national security. And so she said the way to get their attention is you go to people who care about national security and you tell them, did you know that in order to enlist for the army, you have to have a tenth grade reading level?

因为如果阅读能力低于这个水平，你就看不懂陆军野战手册。所以如果关心国防未来和维持常备军，就必须关心中学阶段的阅读标准。这就是个完美案例。事实上它让我印象深刻，多年后还在跟你复述。

Because below that, if you, if you can't read at that level, you're not gonna be able to read the army field manual. And so if you care about the future of national defense and being able to maintain a standing army, you need to care about middle grade reading standards. So that's a perfect example. And in fact, it stuck with me such that many years later, I'm still repeating it to you.

我觉得你教授的内容对弱势方对抗行业巨头也很有帮助，能让他们脱颖而出。比如Substack就是个好例子，你在很多方面帮助它登上了世界舞台。对于想获得关注的初创公司和弱势企业，你觉得什么方法最有效？

Something else that I think what you teach helps with is underdogs kinda coming up against incumbent companies, giving them a chance to stand out. Like, Substack, I think, is a good example where you just, like, helped elevate Substack on the world stage in a lot of ways. What have you found works best for underdog startups and companies trying to get attention?

首先必须承认自己是弱势方，不能照搬通用电气1980年代那套玩法。承认这点就意味着明白：你无法参与那些需要更多资源、更深人脉、体制支持，或能借势主流叙事的游戏。作为初创公司，你本质上就是要颠覆现状、另辟蹊径，对吧？

First, you have to acknowledge that you're the underdog, and you're not gonna use the GE playbook from the nineteen eighties or whatever. So acknowledging that means knowing that you're not gonna play the game that requires you to have more resources, more and deeper relationships and institutional backings, and to be able to draft off of the current narrative. So all of those things that are gonna be not in your favor. If you're a startup, for example, by definition, you're trying to disrupt something and trying to do something differently. Right?

你正在挑战现状。既然如此，就不能指望政府或主流媒体来支持你的事业。因此你必须选择一种不需要大量资金或人力、不依赖机构背书和人脉的方法。这意味着要建立自己的传播渠道——从创业第一天就可以着手，甚至在成立公司前就能开始布局。

You're you're fighting the status quo. And if that's the case, then you can't rely on maybe the government, maybe mainstream media to support what you're doing. And so you should assume that you wanna go with an approach that doesn't require a lot of money or people that doesn't require that institutional backing and those, those relationships. That means building your own distribution, which you can do starting from day one. You can start doing that before you even have the company.

这需要把你的故事讲好，赢得人心。首先，要让故事契合目标受众的文化认知；其次，要找到社会中的影响力中心，比如能帮你传播的关键意见领袖。因为你不可能第一天就打电话让《纽约时报》刊登你想要的故事，所以必须找出这些影响力节点及其运作方式。

It means taking your, your story and winning hearts and minds. Number one, by making it a story that you shape to fit people's cultural around, around the zones of, of your audience. And number two, by finding the centers of gravity in society, like the influencers that are gonna help spread it for you. Cause you're not gonna on day one, call up the New York times and get them to print the story that you want them to. So you need to figure out who are the influencers and the way to do that.

我就此打住，否则会越说越深。具体方法是以同心圆方式推进——有位将军说过：遇到问题时，我以办公桌为圆心画同心圆来思考；要传播信息时，也从办公桌开始向外辐射。所以首先必须明确自己的核心信息，并提炼得足够精炼。

I'll I'll cut off the rabbit hole after this, because you can just go deeper and deeper. But the way to do that is in concentric circles. There's a general who said, if there's a problem, I look forward in concentric circles going back to my own desk. If you wanna spread something, you go out in concentric circles starting from your own desk. So you need to get first really clear with yourself about what your message is and just get really crisp with it.

这很难做到，因为你掌握的信息太多了。脑海中上千个事实中，你只能精选一到三个。然后下一圈是你的联合创始人、高管和员工，接着是投资人、核心用户，依此向外扩展——必须严格遵循这个顺序。

This is hard to do because you know too much. So out of the thousand facts in your head, you're gonna have to pick just between one and three. And then the next circle is gonna be your co founders, your executives, your employees. You go to your investors, you go to your power users, and you go out from there. And it has to be in that sequence.

但一旦理顺这个顺序，明确目标人群及其文化敏感点后，你就能精准设计信息内容、选择传播渠道、锁定目标受众。这样就能高效推进，避免做无用功。

But once you get the sequence right and you identify who the people are and you know who your audience is, and then you're able to hone in on what their cultural erogenous zones are, Then you're able to craft the message, have the the delivery mechanisms, and then know your target. And then you're off. But you just need to do that exercise upfront so you don't have a lot of wasted motion.

我非常喜欢这个同心圆理论，之前从未听说过。为了让概念更具体，您能否分享个典型案例来说明？

I really like this concentric circle framework. I haven't heard this before. Is there just to make it a little more real, is there something that you could share, something that comes to mind that kind of illustrates that?

我们经常讨论Substack——虽然现在我已不是员工，不便多言。但Substack创始人做得特别好的，就是按同心圆方式发布产品更新。像你这样的核心用户（比如Lenny）总会比新加入的作家更早获知消息，这正是因为他们把你视为产品的重要节点。

Well, you and I have talked a lot about Substack. So I'm speaking out of term now that I'm not you know, I don't have the employee badge. But something that I thought the Substack founders have always done so well is propagate product updates out in concentric circles. So there's a lot of things where you're gonna know about it. Like you, Lenny, will know about it more than a new writer who just joined because you're sort of a power user of the product and they would want you.

那么现在他们想确保你热爱这件事，感到前进的动力，甚至可能对这件事有些投入感。比如，你近一年来一直在向人们推荐它。没人要求你这么做，我们也没为此付钱给你。你这么做是因为早期就参与其中，公司确保了你喜欢它。

We then now they would wanna make sure that you love the thing and that you feel onward and that you feel maybe even a little bit invested in the thing. Like, you've been telling people about recommendations for nearly a year. No one asked you to do that. We didn't pay you to do that. You've done it because you were brought on board early and it was something that the company made sure that you liked.

然后你成为向外扩散的下一环，将它传播给你更外围的圈子。

And then you became the next circle out that spread it to your next circle out.

这很有趣，因为我没想过这是一种有意的传播策略。感觉与核心用户交流、获取反馈会产生这种有趣的二阶效应——他们觉得自己是内部人士，想要分享谈论，告诉朋友Substack正在做的这个很酷的东西。

It's interesting because I didn't think of it as an intentional, strategy to get news out. And it feels like there's a synergy with just talking to your power users, getting feedback from your power users leads to this interesting second order effect where they also wanna they feel like they're on the inside of something and wanna share it and maybe talk about it and tell friends about, Substack's working in this cool thing.

是的，没错。

Yeah. Yeah.

所以挺酷的

So kind of a cool

是的。莱尼，你早期问过如何让信息传播，我说要给人们传播的动力。你的动机是喜欢帮助他人，喜欢回馈并帮助其他作者和播客主，而且你真心享受这件事。

yeah. Well, early on, Lenny, you asked about how do you get a message to spread. And I said, you give people incentives to wanna spread it. So your incentive was you like helping others. You know, you like paying it for it and helping other writers and podcasters, and you genuinely enjoy the thing.

我认为这对你自己的项目也有价值——你能展示社会认同，证明很多人喜欢这个正在成长的事物。如果当初是'莱尼能帮我们发条推吗？'你可能做一次就停了，不会自发持续做下去。

And I think there's some value to your own project that you get to show social proof that a lot of people like this thing and it's growing. And that's what you got. If it had been like, Hey, Lenny, can you do us a favor and tweet this thing? Get peeps. You might've done it, but you would've done it once and stopped, and it wouldn't have been something that you organically keep, keep doing.

为了让这个概念更具体，我试着帮助人们理解这个同心圆理论。以Substack为例，它的同心圆会有哪几层？中心可能是核心作者，那么接下来的几层会是什么？

To make this even more real, I'm trying to, help people understand this concentric circle idea. So for Substack, as an example, what would be, like, the the few layers of the concentric circle? Like, on the middle would be maybe the power writers. What would be, like, the next couple layers?

中心几乎总是公司员工。然后根据公司类型而定。在这里就是核心作者们，包括许多早期作者，比如经常被提及的Bill Bishop。

It's the employees at the middle, almost always. And then it is depending on the company. So here, it would be the the power writers. It's you a lot of the original writers. Bill Bishop comes up a lot.

他可以说是Substack的第一号人物，总是很有影响力。然后是快速成长的新锐作者、具有影响力的写作者，以及关注媒体与写作行业的特定媒体成员。

He was like sub stacker number one. He's always really meaningful. And then it's, like fast growing writers. It is writer influencers. Are certain members of the media that cover media and writing.

这些群体都非常重要。接着是投资者，他们需要保持紧密联系。但如果是其他类型的公司，可能依次是员工、董事会、机构投资者、政府监管机构，最后才是用户——具体取决于每个群体对你未来的影响力。我建议用同心圆方式而非随机接触这些群体，因为这是控制信息传播的关键。每个外层都会认为内层掌握更多信息，从而跟随内层的引导。

And so they matter a lot. And then investors, are in there just to keep close to the fold. But if you're a different kind of company that might be employees, board, institutional investors, government regulators, then users, just depending on how much power each group has to influence your future. And the way and the reason I say go out in concentric circles as opposed to just hit each of these groups kinda haphazardly is that's your way to control the message. Because each circle is going to assume that the inner circle knows better than them, and they're gonna follow the lead of the inner circle.

举个例子，假设我们有个叫'Lenny和Lulu'的DTC初创公司。

So an example is if you and I have a company, Lenny and Lulu, this is like a DTC, startup.

这名字真棒。确实。

That's a great name. Yeah.

没错。嗯。我们应该这么做。

It is. Yeah. Yeah. We should do it.

我们应该这么做。

We should do this.

如果我们拥有一家公司，试图向世界传达我们的新闻产品有效这一信息——它确实是革命性的，就像我们的基因是最优秀的基因。如果员工们不这么说，人们就会看着员工们说：他们肯定更清楚，毕竟他们比我们更接近核心。

If we had a company and we were trying to put out a message to the world that our news thing works. It's really revolutionary. Like, our genes are the best genes. If employees are not saying that, then people are gonna look at employees and say, well, they would know. They're closer to this than we are.

所以如果他们都不兴奋，我们又怎么会兴奋？这会破坏我们试图完成的一切。我的意思是，你无法跳过这个循环。

So if they're not excited, then why would we be excited? And so that undermines everything that we're trying to do. You can't skip a circle is my point.

非常有趣。我猜想他们与员工越亲近，你花在他们身上的时间就越多，他们本质上也就越亲密。而且他们的观点和分享的内容也更有力，因为他们更接近实际发生的情况。

Super interesting. And I imagine the closer they are to the employees, the more time you spend with them and the more, like, innately they're closer. And also their perspective and what they share is more powerful because they're closer to, like, what's happening.

而如果出了问题，他们能造成的破坏就越大。从光谱来看，如果他们不完全认同、不是有效的传播者，到他们只是态度冷淡、不确定是否相信，再到他们彻底脱离支持阵营与你对立——现在他们开始主动反驳你说的每句话，甚至试图摧毁公司。这种情况确实可能发生，对吧？

And if it goes wrong, the more damage they can do. If they so on the spectrum, it's if they are not totally on board and they're not an effective messenger versus they're just lukewarm and they're not really sure they believe it, all the way to they actively fell off the bandwagon and you lost them. And now they're out there proactively contradicting everything you say, or even trying to destroy the company. That can happen. Right?

比如，如果一位早期员工感到不满（这很容易发生，可能仅仅因为沟通失误），你向他们推销某个愿景，但现在要么愿景改变了，要么是你传达有误，他们会觉得这是诱骗手段。他们会非常愤怒，于是你就制造了一个极具可信度、与你拥有相同社交和职业圈层、并试图毁掉你的人。

If if an early employee, for example, feels disgruntled, which is easy to do, and it's easy to do through a comms mistake. If you sell them on one thing and here's a vision and now either that's changed or you miscommunicated it, they feel like there's a bait and switch. They're gonna be really mad. And now you've created someone who is incredibly credible and has the same social and professional circle as you and is trying to ruin you.

这个观点太精辟了。对于那些可能正试图在内部推进这件事的人，他们会想：'太好了，我们必须为初创公司建立这些圈层'。你建议他们怎么做？是否需要列个清单，比如'这是我们的核心圈'？

That's such a good point. For someone that's trying to do this maybe internally, they're like, oh, cool. We gotta create these circles for our startup. What do you recommend they do? Do they, like, make a list of, like, here's our inner circle.

这可能是下一圈的人群。

Here's maybe the next circle of people.

对。你拿出你的单页谷歌文档。我觉得大多数公司问题都能用一页谷歌文档解决。所以你打开你的单页谷歌文档，列出你的受众群体，大概停在五六个左右。因为超过这个数，就完全是第一世界问题了。

Yeah. You take out your one page Google doc. I feel like most comps problems can be solved with a one page Google doc. So you go to your one page Google Doc and you take your audiences, you list them, probably stop at, like, five or six. Because past that, it's, like, way, way first world problem.

比如，光是争取这五六个核心圈层就够你忙的了。然后你要给他们排序，根据他们对你成功的影响力大小，以及其他群体对他们的信任度来排序。这样你就有了从内到外的圈层划分。接着针对每个群体，思考他们在乎什么？那就是他们的文化敏感带。

Like, you you'll have more than enough work to win over the five or six inner circles. And then you have to rank them and you rank them by how much they're able to influence your success and how much credibility other groups assign them. So then you have like your inner to outer circles. And then for each of them, you would think about what do they care about? That's their cultural erogenous zones.

他们的知识获取渠道是什么？他们会听播客吗？如果是，听哪些？他们会参加线下会议吗？他们所有的新闻都来自Reddit吗？

And where do they reside intellectually? So do they listen to podcasts? If so, which ones? Do they go to in person conferences? Are they getting all of their news from Reddit?

如果是，他们关注哪些新闻版块？一旦你梳理清楚这些，你就明确了目标人群、最能引起他们共鸣的观点信息，以及实际触达他们的方式。

If so, which subreddits are they on news? And once you map that out, then, again, you have the people you're trying to reach, the ideas and messages that resonate the most with them, and then the ways to actually reach them.

这正在变成一个我们可以直接套用的实用模板。

This is a this is becoming like a real template we can we can start using.

没错。

Yeah.

在性敏感区域的范畴中，这个语境下人们有哪些典型的性敏感区例子？

In the bucket of erogenous zones, what are some examples of erogenous zones for people in this context?

我们去年讨论过关于表达自由的立场。许多人关注第一修正案对新闻自由和表达自由的保护，但没多少人在意记者对Substack的负面评价。确实有几次我们不得不公开反驳记者对Substack不公正或不实的指责，显然我和团队的潜在动机是为公司正名，证明这些指控不属实。

We've talked about the the pre expression stand from last year. A lot of people care about First Amendment protecting press freedoms and pre expression. Not a lot of people care that a journalist said something mean about Substack. And so there were a few times when we did have to push back publicly against a journalist saying something mean and unfair or untrue about Substack. So obviously my and our ulterior motives is to vindicate the company and show people that this isn't true.

但如果我们仅仅这么做，可能只有少数死忠粉会在意。确实有人非常关心Substack，但远不及那些重视自由表达权利、或是渴望在较少约束下建立自媒体平台的人来得深切。

But if we had just done that, nobody would've cared, or maybe a few diehards would've cared. There are people who care deeply about Substack, but not as many people and not as deeply as the people who care about their ability to express themselves freely or their right to build their own media platform without too many controls.

你早先的描述让我想起你刚才说的——这个概念能点燃人们的热情。在你列出的这些人当中，究竟是什么让他们热血沸腾？这确实很有意思。所以核心理念是：要创建这份涵盖不同圈层、逐渐远离员工社交圈的名单。

The way you described it earlier came back to me as you were talking, which is this idea that it lights people up. Like, what lights people up within this list of people that you're making? So that's that's really interesting. Okay. So the idea is create this list of people across circles further and further away from your employees.

思考什么能激发他们的热情，他们的思想原点在哪里，然后探究他们的精神栖息地——他们在听什么？读什么？

Think about what lights them up, what are their origin of zones intellectually, and then think about where they spend their time intellectually. What are they listening to? What are they reading?

没错，就是这样。虽然不简单，但非常精妙。你知道的，这很难。

Yeah. That's it. Amazing. It's very It's not easy. You know, it's hard.

执行过程中每天都要做出艰难的策略抉择，但原理其实很简单。

You have to make very difficult tactical decisions every day when you're doing that, but it is simple.

是的，看起来挺简单的。好的，这很棒。我们还没讨论过的另一个框架，你有关于想法传播的数学公式吗？

Yeah. It seems pretty easy. Okay. This is great. Another framework that we haven't talked about yet, do you have this kind of math formula for how ideas spread?

这让你想起什么了吗？对，好的，我们来深入探讨一下。

Does that ring a bell? Yeah. Okay. Let's get into that.

是的，我认为尽可能地为沟通带来纪律性很有用，因为你实际上只是在测量氛围。你知道，在OKR、数据和指标的世界里，很难判断你的沟通是否正确。所以我认为，只要能建立一个框架，都是有帮助的。这个框架有点像为特定目的设计的沟通数学公式。

Yeah. I think it's useful to try to bring as much discipline as possible to comms because you're really just measuring vibes. And it's hard you know, world of OKRs and data and metrics, it's hard to know if you're doing the right thing with comms. And so I think whenever you're able to establish a framework, it's useful. So this one is kind of a mathematical formula of comms for a purpose.

它假设你有一个商业目标——是商业目标而非沟通目标，不是说要获得多少曝光或走红之类的。比如，我们要将收入增长X%，或者要在这个用户群体中实现某种渗透。有了商业目标后，你需要特定人群采取特定行动来实现它。例如，需要特定数量的某类人群购买这些运动鞋，才能达成收入目标。这样你就明确了目标人群及其需要采取的行动。

It assumes that you have a business goal And as a business goal, not communications goal, it's not like get this many impressions or go viral or blah. It is, you know, we're gonna grow our revenue by X, or we're going to make this kind of penetration into this user base. When you have your business goal, you're gonna need certain people to do certain things for that goal to come true. So for example, you're going to need this type of person in this quantity to buy these sneakers in order for you to meet your revenue goal. So now you know who the people are and the action they need to take.

下一步是他们需要相信什么才会采取行动？他们需要相信现在脚不舒服，相信脚变得更舒适是可能的，并且这对生活有积极影响，还要相信这项新运动鞋技术是真实的。他们需要相信这些。然后就是他们在知识层面处于什么位置？即如何将信息传递给他们？

The next step is what do they need to believe in order to take that action? So they need to believe that their feet are not comfortable now and that it's possible for their feet to be more comfortable and that'll have a positive effect on their life and that this new sneaker technology is real. So they need to believe these things. Then it's where do they reside intellectually? Like, how do you deliver that message to them?

也就是他们听谁的？关注哪些账号？听什么播客？参加什么活动？读什么报纸等等。掌握了这些后，你就能得出等式：我们需要通过这些媒介向这些人传递这个信息，才能促使他们采取这个行动，完成这个号召性动作。

And that's the who do they listen to? Which accounts do they follow? Which podcast do they or what what trips do they take? What newspapers, etcetera. And when you have that, then you have the equation of we need to deliver this message to these people through these mediums in order to get them to do this thing, you know, with this call to action.

这样一来，你至少能确保沟通是在推进和完成某些事情，而不是对着空气说话。

And that way, you know that you're at least pushing forward and getting something done with your comms as opposed to just saying words into the

我想你提到过类似的概念，比如在某些区域存在压力和力，这是属于这个框架的一部分吗？还是说那是一个不同的框架？

I think you had something like there's, like, pressure and force in areas that part of this, or is that a different framework?

不同的框架。

Different framework.

哦，好的。明白了。

Oh, okay. Cool.

哦，是的。

Oh, yeah.

我们来谈谈这个吧。好的。我们来讨论一下这个

Let's talk about okay. Okay. Let's talk about this

其他框架体系，Lenny。

other framework frameworks, Lenny.

我喜欢这样。这正是这个播客的全部意义所在。

I love it. This is what this podcast is all about.

好的。

Okay.

我们开始吧。

Let's do it.

这对早期初创公司尤其有用，或者任何试图精简高效的人——也就是处于劣势的人。正如我们之前讨论的，如果你减小表面积，那么在相同作用力下，你能施加更大压强。压强等于作用力除以表面积。这虽然是物理学的基本公式，但也适用于传播领域——当你缩小受众范围，不再试图用所有内容取悦所有人，而是精准定位对话对象，将信息打磨成能直击他们文化原点的利箭时，你就能用相同的精力、成本或时间产生更大影响。就像施加了更大压强。我认为这存在一个连续光谱：一端是超精准定位。

This is a useful one for early stage startups especially or anybody who's just trying to be lean and efficient, which is anyone who's an underdog, like we talked about earlier, that if you decrease the surface area, then with the same amount of force, you can apply more pressure. So the amount of pressure is the force divided by the surface area. This this is sort of a basic equation from physics, but it's also true of communications, which is if you decrease the surface area and don't try to appeal to everybody with everything and you're targeting exactly whom you're talking to and you are sharpening your message to a point to get them in the bull's eye of the cultural origin zone, then you're able to, with the same amount of effort or expense or time, you're able to make more of an impact. You're able to apply more pressure. So I think of it as there's a continuum between you can either hyper target.

这个连续光谱的极端是成为某个人的终身伴侣——相当于超精准定位。另一端则是试图吸引所有人。你覆盖了更多人群，但信息强度和传播方式都更弱。就像说‘世界和平是美好的’这种话。

So the the extreme of the continuum is you are becoming the life partner of one person. That's like the ultra hyper targeting. And then the other end of the spectrum is you're appealing to everybody. You're appealing to a larger number of people, but with a weaker message and in a weaker way. So you could say like world peace is good.

几乎没人会反对这种观点，但它既不会深入人心，对人们也缺乏实际意义。所以你必须在这个光谱上选择自己的位置。对大多数初创公司，我会选择偏向少数人那端——选定你的死忠群体，培养他们并建立深厚有意义的关系。实现方式就是减小表面积，施加更大压强。

Nobody disagrees with that practically, but also it doesn't stick and it's not meaningful to them. So you have to choose where you're gonna be along that continuum. And for most startups, I would choose towards the fewer people end of it where you choose who's gonna be your diehards, and then you foster them and create really deep, meaningful relationships with them. And the way to do that is to decrease the surface area and apply more pressure.

感觉你在Substack就是这么做的，当时专注于网络写作者这个群体。能说说这是否就是你当时的思路？‘Substack就是我们的精准领域，我们要集中传递目标信息’

It feels like you did that with Substack where it was focused on, like, people writing online or or or yeah. I guess, tell me, is that how you thought about it, Substack, here's our little focused area, and we'll focus target message to

这正是目标所在。其实这就是我开始花时间在推特上的原因，虽然是个自我折磨的过程——哈米什不喜欢推特模式，我也不喜欢。

that. That was the goal. And that's actually why I started spending time on Twitter. It was a very self loathing exercise. Like, Hamish doesn't like the Twitter model nor do I.

我们经常谈论这个话题，而我总觉得自己在那里有点边缘化。在加入Substack之前，我有个沉寂的账号，只有几百粉丝，几乎没什么互动。我意识到我们想对话的对象是重度推特用户，无论是媒体人还是网络作家。于是我决定花时间培养受众，后来这些关注者成了某种筹码——好坏参半。虽然我认为不该用推特粉丝数衡量人，但事实是粉丝越多，记者和作家就会更重视你。

We would talk about this a lot, and I always felt a little bit fringe being on there. And then and before I worked at Substack, I had a sleepy account of a couple 100 followers that didn't do very much. And I realized that the people that we're trying to speak to are heavy Twitter users, whether it's media people or online writers. And so I decided I'm gonna spend some time and try to build an audience, and then that audience became leverage for better or worse. Like, I don't think we should measure people by their Twitter following, but the fact is that if you have more, then journalists and writers take you a bit more seriously.

所以如果我要代表公司传递信息，我觉得拥有更多关注者会让效果更好。

And so if I was gonna try to carry a message on behalf of the company, I felt like it would be more effective if I had more people.

是的，我明白。而且确实奏效了。本节目由Vanta赞助播出，帮助您简化安全合规流程以加速增长。如果您的业务在云端存储任何数据，那么您可能已被询问或即将被问及SOC2合规性。

Yeah. I know. And it worked. This episode is brought to you by Vanta, helping you streamline your security compliance to accelerate growth. If your business stores any data in the cloud, then you've likely been asked or you're gonna be asked about your SOC two compliance.

SOC2是证明贵公司采取适当安全措施保护客户数据的方式，能建立与客户及合作伙伴的信任——特别是那些有严格安全要求的对象。此外，若想进军企业市场，证明安全性至关重要。SOC2既能为您打开更大更好的交易之门，也可能让业务停滞。没有SOC2认证，很可能连谈判资格都没有。但获取SOC2报告对初创公司而言负担沉重。

SOC two is a way to prove your company is taking proper security measures to protect customer data and builds trust with customers and partners, especially those with serious security requirements. Also, if you wanna sell to the enterprise, proving security is essential. SOC two can either open the door for bigger and better deals, or it can put your business on hold. If you don't have a SOC two, there's a good chance you won't even get a seat at the table. But getting a SOC two report can be a huge burden, especially for startups.

这个过程耗时、繁琐且昂贵。Vanta应运而生。3000多家快速发展的企业使用Vanta自动化完成SOC2近90%的工作量，能将安全审计准备时间从数月缩短至数周，只需常规时间的不到三分之一。限时优惠：Lenny播客听众可享Vanta千元折扣。

It's time consuming, tedious, and expensive. Enter Vanta. Over 3,000 fast growing companies use Vanta automate up to 90% of the work involved with SOC two. Vanta can get you ready for security audits in weeks instead of months, less than a third of the time that it usually takes. For a limited time, Lenny's podcast listeners get $1,000 off Vanta.

请访问vanta.com/lenny了解详情并领取优惠。立即行动吧。回到这个公式：压强等于压力除以面积。本质上，要提高信息传播效果，你可以选择增加压力——

Just go to vanta.com/lenny. That's vanta.com/lenny to learn more and to claim your discount. Get started today. Going back to this formula, pressure equals force divided by area. Basically, to increase the effectiveness of your message, you could either increase the force.

那么在这个语境下，压力指什么？是信息投放量，还是信息的成功程度？

And what is, in this context, force? Is it, like, amount of messaging, or is it like the success of your message?

关键在于你投入了多少努力。所以，好吧。这取决于你在这个活动上花费多少，或者说你每天的时间和银行里的资金都是有限的。因此，每当你与Tums打交道时，你要么付出金钱，要么付出时间。有时你还会消耗信誉。

It's the amount of effort you put into it. So Okay. It's how much you're spending on this campaign, or you have a limited amount of hours of the day and dollars in the bank. And so anytime you're doing something with Tums, you're either paying the dollars or you're paying the time. Sometimes you're drawing down on credibility too.

要知道，你拥有一定程度的信誉，有时候你只需要说‘请相信我’。如果你专注，就能更高效地使用它。举个例子，一个简单的广告活动，与其花费一百万美元触达一百万人，不如花一百美元精准触达最重要的100人，将信息精准传递给他们。这样当他们看到广告时，不仅会点击，还会主动转发。这样的回报率要高得多。最终你可能会获得相当于一百万美元的回报，因为这些人的热情会让他们自发成为你的传播者，甚至不需要你再参与。

You know, you have a certain amount of credibility and you there are times when you just have to say, please trust me. You can spend that more efficiently if you focus. So instead of, if you just take a simple ad campaign, instead of spending a million dollars to reach a million people, maybe you spend a $100 to reach the 100 most important people and focus that message exactly to them so that when they see your ad, they're actually gonna click on it and they're actually gonna forward it. And that's a much better return. And then you might end up with a million dollars worth of return because those people were so passionate that they then became their own messengers without you even having to be involved anymore.

这个框架非常棒。再确认一下，你的建议是规模越小，就越应该缩小覆盖范围吗？

This is a really great framework. Again, is your advice that for the smaller you are, just basically reduce the area?

是的。

Yes.

而规模越大，就应该逐步扩大范围？

And the larger you are, increase that over time?

没错。如果你刚起步，先找到10个铁杆粉丝，把所有时间都花在他们身上。你不能一开始就试图赢得大众。就像我现在能想到的最贴切的比喻——先建立一个微型的垄断。无论是Substack上的成功，还是在互联网上创建任何东西，道理都一样。

Yes. If you're just starting out, get 10 diehards and just spend all your time. You can't start out and try to win over the general public. You start out by creating a tiny not the best analogy is the one I can think of right now, a tiny monopoly. So you carve out and it's the same, like succeeding on Substack or succeeding on, you know, creating anything on the internet.

对。你要选择互联网上你能完全主导的一个小角落。范围越小，你越能掌控它。然后这个小圈子里的人会成为你的忠实信徒，他们会将影响力扩散到下一个圈子。之后你就可以从那里继续扩展。

Right. You choose what is gonna be your tiny corner of the internet that you are going to just dominate entirely. And the smaller it is, the more you can dominate it. And then these people that are in it become your true believers, your your diehards, and they'll expand it out to the next circle. And then you go from there.

但如果你想同时讨好所有人，这就好比把食用色素倒进海洋里，而不是滴入杯中——效果会非常稀释。

But if you try to win over everybody at the same time, it's very, you know, food coloring in the ocean kind of thing as opposed to food coloring in a cup.

你能想到谁在这方面做得特别好的例子吗？说实话一时半会儿真难想到，但有什么案例浮现在你脑海中吗？

Is there an example that comes to mind of someone that did this really well? I don't know. I know it's hard to think of just an example off the top of your head, but does anything come to mind?

巴拉吉的《网络国家》就是个绝佳范例。这本书大获成功，但他没走传统新书巡演或《纽约时报》推荐的套路，而是另辟蹊径——用这个框架来说，他自建了分销渠道。

Balaji did this really well with his book, The Network State. That book was super successful. He didn't do a lot of the traditional book tour, New York Times stuff. You know, he went his own route, and I think that was really smart. If you're gonna put it in the setting of this framework, it's he created his own distribution channels.

他压根没打算在哈珀柯林斯的主场和其旗下作家竞争。自建渠道后，他专注服务死忠粉，通过播客精准触达这些核心受众，始终坚持不为了讨好大众而改变信息立场。

He didn't try to compete with, like, the roster of HarperCollins on their turf. And when he created his own distribution channels, he focuses on who are the diehards and the true fans. And these are people that he fosters. He goes on podcasts that reach these people. He said he doesn't deviate from messaging to try to appeal to everybody.

总有人会讨厌他，但他完全接受。他绝不稀释自我特质去迎合那些永远看他不顺眼的人——虽然企业常犯这种错误。你越想平息众怒，真正的粉丝就越失望，因为让你与众特色的东西变得平庸了。巴拉吉深谙培育铁杆粉丝之道。

There are people who just will never like that guy and he is totally fine with it. So he's not watering down who he is to appeal to people who will never like him, which it's tempting for companies to do. You hate when people are mad at you. So you try to appeal to them and then your true fans lose their passion because the thing that made you so special has now gone milquetoast. So Balaji fosters his true fans.

新书发布时，这些粉丝自发把他推上亚马逊榜首。你肯定见过全网刷屏的推文，据我所知他没花一分钱营销，纯粹靠分享给对的人，而他们渴望展示自己对这本书的热爱。

And then when the book launched, they propelled him to the top of the Amazon list because they were out there evangelizing, proselytizing. You probably saw all these tweets about his book. He didn't pay anybody, as far as I know. He didn't pay anybody to do that. He just shared it with the people, and they wanted to show that they were into this.

这个案例太棒了。创始人常担心聚焦太窄会限制市场规模，但根据你的经验，是否往往实际情况比他们想象的更广阔？或者说先专注再扩张才是正确路径？

That's a great example. I know that founders often worry focusing too narrowly limits their market, and it's never gonna grow into anything large. In your experience, do you find that that's just often not true, that there's often a much bigger opportunity than they think? And or is that just a good way to start and then you expand from there?

两者都是。我的意思是，如果你在网上写作或做线上业务，分母就是整个互联网的规模。你不需要占据80%的份额，哪怕只获得0.01%的流量，就已经是门很棒的生意了。然后你可以在此基础上继续发展。

It's both. I mean, the denominator, if you're writing online or doing something online, the denominator is the size of the internet. You don't need to capture 80 of it. If you capture 0.01% of it, that is a great business. And then you can go from there.

就像一旦你赢得了初始用户，就可以决定下一步方向。要知道世界很大，现在一切都数字化了，分母如此庞大，以至于我根本不会过分关注分子。但确实，如果你一开始就试图吸引太多人，就不得不把内容稀释到毫无特色——莱尼你也写过这个观点对吧？

Like once you've won that, then you can decide to go from there. And, you know, the world is a big place. So now that everything's digital, the denominator is so large that I wouldn't worry too much about the numerator. But it is also true that if you start off trying to appeal to too many people, you have to water down your stuff so much that you'll never stand out. And you've written about this Lenny, right?

关于如何制造病毒式传播、如何引人注目。其中关键就是要与众不同。如果你试图迎合50万人的平均口味，就永远无法做到出类拔萃。

With how to, how to be viral, how to be noticed. And one of the things is be remarkable. And you can't be remarkable if you're trying to appeal to so many people that you have to become the average of five that you know, 500,000 people's tastes.

这是个很好的思考角度。当你的产品推广遇冷、无人问津时，我觉得这可能就是原因之一——你的目标范围太宽泛了，对吧？

This is a good way to think about, I think, when something's not working, when you're, you know, you're trying to get a bunch of attention for your product and it's not no one cares. Feels like this is one reason. It's just you're going too wide. Right?

是的，我认为这大概是最常见的原因。

Yeah. I think that's probably the most common reason.

或许可以思考下如何诊断传播失效的原因。这个问题可能有点大，但除了范围太广，还有哪些可能导致你的内容无人问津？

Is there maybe just thinking about diagnosing why your comms may not be working. This may be too big of a question, but just, like, what other explanations could there be for why no one cares about what you're trying to put out?

因为你用企业身份而不是个人身份在发声。这是另一个超级常见的错误——让自己像没有面孔的企业那样说话，仅仅因为觉得'正规公司就该这样'。

You're doing it as a corporation instead of a person. This is another super common mistake. It's like, you're you're letting yourself speak like a faceless corporation because it feels like that's what you should do now. Like, okay. Now you're a real company, and now you gotta do real company stuff.

这意味着你必须以C公司的名义发布法令。但你没有这样做，而且这行不通，因为人们不信任机构。人们不喜欢公司，至少对公司没有热情。人们关心的是人，信任和喜欢的是人。所以有种想要扮演高管角色的感觉，但这并不奏效。

That means you have to issue decrees on behalf of the c corp. And you don't, and it doesn't work because people don't trust institutions. People don't like corporations or at least are not passionate about them. People care about people and trust and like people. And so there's a sense of wanting to cosplay an executive, and it doesn't it doesn't work.

这无法引起共鸣。一个很好的例子是Flexport的Ryan Peterson。他的公司即使规模变得很大，他也从未成为那种千篇一律的企业高管。他一直保持个人特色。有很多很多人正是因为Ryan是个有趣的人，才对Flexport产生了兴趣。

It doesn't resonate. A good example of this would be Ryan Peterson at Plexport. His company, even after it got huge, he never became the generic corporate chief. He always was a person. And there are people, many, many people who became interested in Flexport because Ryan's an interesting guy.

并不是说他们对物流、货运和航运有热情，而是他做的事情很有趣。于是他成了让人们对他公司产生兴趣的'人性化入门毒品'。

And it's not like they had a passion for logistics and freight and shipping, but he's doing it something interesting. And then he became the human gateway drug for people to become interested in his company.

没错。他那个关于港口的疯狂推文病毒式传播，就是个很好的例子。

Yeah. Absolutely. He he had that crazy viral tweet about the the ports, and that's a really good example.

是啊。

Yeah.

老兄，我本来想往不同方向讨论，不过也许我们可以谈谈这个直接行动的理念。

Man, I I was gonna go in a different direction, but maybe we go to this idea of going direct.

嗯。

Yeah.

你是忠实粉丝，Balaji对此也极为热衷，说到他，就不得不提直接沟通的重要性。能否谈谈这具体指什么？为何在当下如此重要？

You're a big fan, and Balaji is a really big fan of this too, speaking of him, of just this the importance of going direct. So maybe just talk about what does that mean and why is that important these days?

Balaji在直接沟通方面比我更激进。他认为

Well, Balaji is more go direct than me. Like, he thinks that

我

I'm

在这方面比较温和，因为我认为与媒体互动仍有其价值，这只是另一种工具。他主张纯粹、未经修饰的直接沟通。但我认为，无论何时何地，直接渠道都应是战略的一部分——无论是作为全部手段还是辅助手段，没有直接渠道是绝对不行的。那么具体该如何操作？人们总说'直接沟通'，这到底意味着什么？

soft in this area because I think that there's still a place for engaging with media and that it's just another tool. He's for just, like, straight up go direct undistilled. But I I think that for everybody, 100% of the time, you want going direct to be a part of what you're doing, whether it's all you're doing, whether you're doing something else, you can't not have a direct channel. So what that actually looks like, and people say this all the time, go direct. What does that actually look like to go direct?

这意味着创始人或高管必须以第一人称（单数或复数）真诚发声，展现人性化一面——你会看到他们犯错，看到他们示弱，他们必须成为社区代言人。若缺乏这些，即便拥有推特或Substack等平台，只要未与个人真实连接，就不算真正意义上的直接渠道。因为当另一端是企业实体时，就不存在直接连接。

It means that the founder or executive for some very senior person has to be speaking from themselves. First person, maybe first person, plural, and speaking in a human voice authentically, you see them make mistakes. You see them be vulnerable and they have to become an ambassador to the community. If you don't have that, then you don't have a direct channel. Even if you have a Twitter or a sub stack or whatever, it's not direct if not connected to a person, because if the other side of it is corporation, there's no direct connection.

第二点是尽早建立自己的受众群体。这可以与媒体合作同步进行，但最终要聚焦能量、减少创业公司的接触面。我不建议同时运营Instagram、推特、领英、YouTube和TikTok，而应选择发言人最擅长的平台。如果发言人由CEO担任（这是不错的默认选择），就要发挥其最自然的沟通优势。

And then the second thing is start building your own audience as soon as possible. You can do this alongside engaging with the media or doing traditional things to the point of focusing your energy and decreasing the surface area for startups. I would not recommend trying to do an Instagram, a Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and TikTok. I would choose the thing that that person is the best at. So if your spokesman is gonna be your CEO, which is a good default, they're gonna have a dominant communication style where they're the best, at being themselves.

这很关键，因为若所有内容都由他人代笔，观众是能察觉的。有些CEO擅长长文写作，有些精于视频表达，有些在音频或播客中更出色，还有些更适合短内容创作。

And that's important because if somebody else is ghostwriting all their stuff, it shows. So some CEOs are better at writing long form. Some CEOs are better at doing videos. Some do better with audio or podcasts. Some are better with short form.

埃隆·马斯克在推特上的沟通方式，简直就是为推特而生的。你根本想象不出他

Like, the way that Elon Musk communicates on Twitter, he's, like, born to do Twitter, I guess. Like, you can't picture him

是啊。

Yeah.

写长篇大论的博客文章。这不是他的风格。而布莱恩·阿姆斯特朗、哈米什或克里斯他们写的博客真挚又有效，这比单纯发推文要好得多。所以要选择你的发言人最擅长的形式，然后全力投入那个渠道。

Writing long, thoughtful blog posts. It's not a thing that he does. Whereas, Brian Armstrong or Hamish or Chris, they write great blog posts that are sincere and effective. And that's better than them just trying to do it only through tweets. So pick the thing that your spokesperson is the best at, and then invest everything into that channel.

先把它做到一定规模，再向外扩展。如果你想同时建立六七个渠道，那只会一事无成。

And then build it up to a decent amount and then expand outward. Because if you try to do if you try to build six or seven channels at once, you're just not gonna get anywhere.

我觉得这个观点太重要了。选择做通讯简报对我来说真是个好决定。虽然你可能不信，但我真不是个爱表现的人，我就想躲在电脑后面打字。疫情期间做通讯简报特别适合，可以宅在家里分享内容、编辑和思考。

I think that's a such a important point. I feel like me choosing a newsletter was actually a really good choice. It's like, I'm not a as much as you may not believe this, I just like, I'm not a performer person. I just wanna hide behind the computer and just, like, type stuff. And the newsletters, especially during COVID, was like, I could just sit at home and share stuff and edit and think about it.

而要说'大家好'这种开场白，我花了好久才适应。现在也许能做播客了，因为我逐渐建立了'这样做是有价值的'的信心。所以我非常认同这个观点，也经常这样告诉别人：选择最适合你的平台。也许你喜欢说话，

Whereas, like, hello, everyone. And it took me a while to get to this point of, like, oh, I can maybe do a podcast because I've built up a little more confidence that this is useful. So I so agree with that, and that's what I tell a lot of people. Just, like, pick the platform that is most natural to you. Maybe you like talking.

也许你喜欢视频表演，也许你只想坐着打字。

Maybe you like performing on video. Maybe you just wanna sit and type.

Lenny，这也是个很好的观点，因为事情会随时间变化。对吧？就像你选择了一件事并不意味着你要永远困在那里。随着时间的推移，你可能会选择不同的事物。比如我见过创始人们在镜头前变得越来越自在，尤其是在他们练习过几次之后。

And that's a good point too, Lenny, because it changes over time. Right? Like, just because you pick one thing doesn't mean that you're stuck with only that forever. Like, over time, you might choose different things. And I've seen founders become a lot more comfortable in front of the camera, for example, once they've done a few reps.

另一个需要明白你可以随时间调整的原因是，否则这会成为开始的阻碍。有时人们会陷入‘不知道该选哪个’的瘫痪状态，结果要么同时做一堆事，要么什么都不做。相信直觉选一个，你并非永远绑定它，随时可以在未来调整。

And the other reason to to know that you can just change it over time is otherwise it feels like a deterrent to getting started. Sometimes there's paralysis of I don't know which thing to choose. And so I'm either gonna do a bunch of them or none of them. Go with your gut, pick one, and you're not wed to that forever. You can always change it down the road.

你认为每个创始人都必须用推特吗？我常被创始人问到这个问题：‘我需要用推特吗？我讨厌推特。’你怎么看？

Do you think every founder needs to be on Twitter? I get this a lot from founders. Do I need to be on Twitter? I hate Twitter. What's your take?

不。我认为很多创始人确实在用。如果他们极度使命驱动，这是找到与你使命共鸣的人并为之发声的途径之一。若你以使命为导向，很可能你做的事会有人爱也有人恨，因此你需要以某种方式站出来捍卫它。

No. I think a lot of founders do. If they are super mission driven, for example, that's one way that you're gonna find other people that resonate with your mission and that you're gonna make the case for the mission. If you're mission driven, there's also a good chance that you're doing something that some people love and some people hate. And so you're gonna need to be out there fighting the fight in a way.

我指的不是好斗对立的方式，但你必须捍卫自己的事业。所以如果你以使命驱动，我认为这很重要。如果个人魅力是公司招聘的重要部分也同样——有些公司正是因创始人的魅力才吸引人才加入，对吧？

I don't mean in a pugilistic antagonistic way, but you have to defend your thing. And so I think it's important if you're mission driven. I also think it's important if your charisma is a big part of recruiting for the company. There are some companies where the founder's charisma is a big part of why people wanna go work there. Right?

比如Palmer Lucky和Andrew，他对许多工程师有磁石般的吸引力，人们就是冲着他去的。而有些公司人们更看重公司本身，创始人是否活跃反而不那么重要。

So, like, Palmer, Lucky, and Andrew. He is magnetic to a lot of engineers, and they wanna go work with that guy specifically. Whereas there are companies where people wanna go work for the company, and it's less important that the founder is vocal.

最近我发现一个有趣现象：我的新闻通讯从领英获得的流量比推特还多。你会考虑这点吗？说‘放弃推特去领英’感觉怪怪的，你怎么看？

What's interesting I found recently is I get more traffic to my newsletter from LinkedIn than Twitter. Is that something you think about at all? Like, going to LinkedIn instead of Twitter feels so wrong to say, but what's your take there?

是的。如果是职业相关的，领英会好得多。首先，它更好是因为那里不像一个污水池，任何事都会立刻引发争议，人们在评论区争吵。其次，领英确实未被充分利用。创始人应该明白这一点。

Yes. If you are career related, LinkedIn will be a lot better. One, it's better because it's not such a cesspool where anything immediately becomes controversial and people fight over it in the mentions. Two, because LinkedIn is really underutilized. And founders should know this.

产品经理也应该知道。领英超级未被充分利用，因为它能吸引大量关注，但大部分内容都很糟糕。大约95%的内容并不科学。

PM should know this. LinkedIn is super underutilized because it gets a ton of eyeballs in time, but most of the content sucks. Like, 95% of the content this is not scientific. It's

听起来没错。听起来没错。

Seems right. Seems right.

这是我的估计。95%的内容是人们互相祝贺工作周年纪念，或是有人说‘我为团队取得的成就感到骄傲’。这些内容其实并不有趣。人们点赞只是出于友情、喜爱或支持，对吧？

This is my estimate. 95% of the content is people congratulating each other on work anniversaries or people saying, I'm so proud of my team for this thing they did. It's not actually interest. And then people react out of a sense of friendship and affection or support. Right?

但领英上真正有趣有用的内容非常罕见。所以，你发布的优质内容与人们投入的时间和注意力之间的比例非常有利。

But actually genuinely interesting useful content on LinkedIn is very rare. So the ratio of your competitive set of interesting content versus how much time and attention people spend on there is excellent.

这真是个好建议。我想举些例子。你提到有人做得很好，直接触达用户。你提到了瑞安·彼得森。还有埃隆，当然，还有其他人吗？比如，看看他们在做什么，可以作为一个学习的好榜样？

That is really good advice. I'm gonna throw a fishing line into the pool of examples. You talked about people doing this well, going direct. You talked about Ryan Peterson. And, Elon, obviously, is there anyone else that's just like, here, check out what they're doing and could be a good model to learn from?

我觉得迈克·索拉纳在PirateWires上的做法很有意思。这就是为什么创始人活跃在推特上很有意义的一个例子，因为他既是自己的招聘官又是发言人。我认为美妆行业其实在这方面走在前列。美妆行业在利用社交媒体和网红方面比我们所有人都聪明，因为他们很早就意识到，人们购买化妆品不是为了订阅品牌，而是因为某个名人、网红或卡戴珊的眼妆好看，他们想让自己的眼睛也那样。所以早在几年前，当我们还在讨论直接触达时，就有美妆公司在营销上零投入，几乎不做公关，把全部精力都放在——你知道的——缩小接触面上。

I think it's really interesting to see what Mike Solana is doing with PirateWires. Here's an example of why it clearly makes sense to have the founder be very active on Twitter, because he is his own recruiter and spokesperson. So I think the makeup industry actually is at the forefront of of this. The makeup industry is smarter than all of us in how they use social media and influencers because they caught on very early on that people don't buy makeup to subscribe to makeup brands, that they do it because a certain celebrity or influencer or Kardashian has this nice looking eyelid, and they want their eyelid to look that way. And so going back years before the rest of us were talking about going direct, there are makeup companies that would spend $0 on marketing and minimal efforts on press and pour all of it, you know, decreasing the surface area.

将所有资源投入到培养一小批有影响力的人，并通过他们传播信息。因此我认为应该关注化妆品公司和消费品公司，他们做得对。他们用人的声音说话，通过真人传递信息，而且反应迅速。比如当天出现一个趋势，他们就能立即跟上。

Pour all of it into fostering a small roster of influencers and having them spread the message. And so I think watch makeup companies, watch consumer companies, they're doing it right. They speak with a human voice. They speak through human beings, and and they're fast. Like, if there's a trend the same day, they will have hopped on the trend.

你知道，他们能在一小时内跟上趋势，而其他行业或更传统的公司可能需要几天时间，还要经过层层审批，那时机会早已消失。

You know, within an hour, they're on the trend as opposed to other industries or more traditional companies that take a few days and they route it through approvals, and then the opportunity is gone.

有哪些化妆品公司值得人们关注，看看他们是怎么做的？

What are some makeup companies for people to check out to see what they're doing?

比如NYX，n y x，它是欧莱雅旗下的一个品牌。据我所知，NYX在营销上的投入为零，他们把所有的资金和精力都用在支付网红上。在利用真人传递包含行动号召的信息并售罄产品方面，他们确实超出了自身量级。产品可能只是一支普通的黑色眼线笔，你能想象到的最普通的东西。

So NYX, n y x, it's a division of L'Oreal. NYX is one of the makeup companies that has, as far as I know, $0 spent on marketing, and all of their dollars and all of their effort spent on paying influencers. And they really out punched their weight in terms of using humans to deliver a message that contains a call to action and then selling out product. And the product will be like a normal black eyeliner. It's the most fungible thing you could possibly imagine.

而那支眼线笔会在全美CVS药店断货几周，因为他们在社交媒体上通过真人营销做对了某些事。

And that one eyeliner will be sold out at CVS's across the country for a couple weeks because they did something right with their social media using a person.

关于这个直接触达的概念，我还有几个问题。我不确定你是否谈过为什么这很重要，因为我们经常讨论这个，但人们可能没意识到为何如今这如此重要。Balaji和其他创始人背后的动机是什么？

Just a couple more questions around this going direct concept. I don't know if you actually talked about why that's important because I think we talk about this a lot, and I think people may not recognize why people find this so important these days. What's kind of the motivation behind that with Balaji and other founders?

这之所以重要有两个原因：进攻性和防御性。嗯。防御性方面要回归到保持弱者心态、反叛思维。如果你想做一些与众不同、逆流而上的事，人们就会攻击你。

There's two reasons it's important. There's the offense and the defense of it. Mhmm. The defense of it is going back to having the underdog, the insurgency mentality. If you're trying to do something different that goes against the grain, people are gonna attack you.

不是所有人都会喜欢它。重点在于本来就不该让所有人喜欢。但你需要有为自己发声的方式，因为你没有大型机构和权力结构为你代劳——毕竟你在逆流而行。所以如果要为自己发声，只有一种方式：亲力亲为。你需要建立受众群体和传播渠道，还必须培育市场——比如上市公司会通过让投资者习惯其信息披露方式来培育市场。

Not everyone's gonna like it. And the point is that not everyone should like it. But you need a way to stand up for yourself because you don't have the big institutions and power structures that are gonna do that work for you because you're going against the grain. So if you're gonna stand up for yourself, there's only one way to do it, which is you do it. And so building the audience and the channels and you have to prime the market, by which I mean like, if you're a public company, you're priming the market by getting them used to how you convey information to them.

如果你是小初创公司或创始人，就要通过让受众了解你的常规沟通方式来培育市场，这样当你采取行动时才不会显得突兀。比如你从不发动态却突然开始频繁更新，人们会以为你遭遇了危机之类的。他们会过度解读。所以你必须提前建立好沟通节奏和关系网络，这样当你遭受攻击时才能随时调用这些资源。

If you're a a small startup or a founder, you're priming the market by making your audience aware of how you normally communicate so that when you do something, it's not weird. Like if you never post and then suddenly you start posting, people are gonna think you're having a crisis or something. Like, what is going on? They're gonna try to read into it. So you have to already have the cadence and the relationships set up so that when you need to draw on them, if you're under attack, then you can.

这是防御层面。进攻层面则是：如果你在做真正新颖独特、使命驱动的事情，没有人能比你更好地讲述这个故事。即便是地球上最友善的记者也无法像你那样透彻地传达，因为他们不如你理解得深刻。所以这个责任自然就落在你肩上。

That's the defense of it. The offense of it is if you're doing something new and if you're mission driven and if what you're doing is truly unique and innovative, no one else will be able to tell that as well as you. Media, the most friendly, sympathetic reporter on earth could not tell that as well as you because they don't understand it as well as you. And so the onus just falls on you to do it.

如果有听众心想'没错，我完全同意，是时候行动了'，你建议他们接下来该采取什么步骤来开始培养受众并广泛直接传播？

If someone listening is like, yep. Okay. I fully agree. Time to do this. What do you suggest as a next step to starting to kinda build an audience and going direct broadly?

第一步是评估你擅长什么、喜欢什么。由此决定：我喜欢长文写作吗？还是更喜欢播客？我的媒介形式是什么？第二步是在选定平台上创建账号。比如喜欢长文写作就要选择：是用Substack平台吗？

Step one would be assessing what are you good at and what do you enjoy. So that's where you decide, do I like long form writing, or do I enjoy podcasting, or what are my mediums? Step two is setting up your account on those channels. So if you enjoy long form writing, then you're gonna have to choose. Do you do a sub stack?

还是用Medium或其他平台？这方面其实有客观正确的选择。但如果你要做短视频，就得选择投资Instagram还是TikTok。搭建好平台后就可以开始培养受众了。

Do you do a medium or whatever else? There's a objectively right answer on that one. But, you know, if you if you are doing short videos, you're gonna choose or you gotta invest in Instagram or you gotta invest in TikTok. You set that up. And then you start building your audience.

刚开始时，如果真是从零起步，需要准备好人才输送渠道...等等不对，抱歉，不是人才渠道。

And when you start, if you're actually starting from zero, get some pipeline of talent ready. So no. No. Sorry. Not pipeline of talent.

内容储备管道。提前准备好。嗯。就像你创办Substack时一样。如果你要推出Substack，你会希望准备一到两周的帖子，这样一开始就能积累大量势头。

Pipeline of content. Get it ready. Mhmm. It's the same way as if you're launching a substack. If you're launching a substack, you wanna get, like, a week or two of posts ready to go so that out the gate, you can build a lot of momentum.

对于不同的社交网络，开局强势且保持规律实际上有助于算法推荐。以TikTok为例，如果你从零粉丝开始，最好准备一两周的优质内容储备，这样就能持续发布，因为算法会在你起步阶段给予优待——平台希望你能坚持下去。所以要充分利用这个优势。第二步就是为发布做好准备，不要只发一条内容就干等着。

With different social networks, it actually helps the algorithm if you come out the gate strong and are really regular. So TikTok, for example, if you're starting a TikTok with zero followers, you wanna get a week or two of solid data just in the pipeline so you can hit it, hit it, because the algorithm favors you right as you're starting out because they want you to keep going. So you wanna ride that as much as possible. So that's step two is just get yourself ready for launch. Don't do one post and wait.

准备好一批内容然后密集发布。第三步是制定持续的内容策略。明确你的目标受众，了解他们的关注点，这样才能做好规划。

Like, get a bunch of posts ready and then boom, boom, boom. And then three is to have an ongoing, content strategy. You know who you're going to reach. You know what they care about. So you have to plan out.

确定与受众互动的节奏：如何安排沟通频率、如何进行社群管理及回复、通过哪些渠道发布公告。形成固定节奏很重要，这和经营新闻通讯是一个道理——规律性和持续性才是增长的关键。

Here's the cadence with which I'm going to talk to them. Here's how I'm gonna do community management and respond to people. And here are the ways where I'm gonna do announcements. And you get into a cadence because it's the same as growing a newsletter. The regularity and the consistency is a big part of growing.

培养受众也是如此。人们常犯的错误是偶尔试图制造爆款，而不是保持稳定输出。当然有些帖子天然表现更好，但持续产出才是正道。我自己就没做到...我不是好榜样，因为我对使用Twitter有种自我厌恶，经常消失一两周什么都不发，然后某天突然密集发布一堆内容。

And so it's the same with audience. A mistake that people make, I think, is just every once in a while trying to go viral as opposed to just being consistent and then it you know, some posts do better than others organically, but that's the way to do it. I don't live that. I I'm not a good example. I because I'm so sort of self loathing about being on Twitter, I will go away for one or two weeks and do nothing, and then I'll come in with a bunch of posts in one day.

这不是最佳实践，也不是正确做法。理想状态是每天保持发声，随时间积累影响力。

It's not a best practice. It's not the way you're supposed to do it. Ideally, you're just there every day saying something, and then it builds over time.

我其实是个专注于非爆款但持续输出的例子，而且效果不错。

I'm actually an example of trying to focus on consistent non viral content, and it it's worked out.

它有

It has

成功了吗？这很有趣。目前是成功了，但观察人们的不同反应很有意思，我是说，试图让每条推文、每个帖子都走红，

worked out? It's interesting. It's worked out. It's worked out so far, but it's interesting to see how different people act and how it's like, I mean, trying to go viral every tweet, every post, and

是啊。

Yeah.

那很难。没错。而且人们能看出来。你只是在试图制造一些病毒式的内容，但没人会在意。

That is hard. Yeah. And it's also just, like, people can tell. You're just trying to, like, create some viral thing, and no one cares.

是的。而且当你只是为了走红而走红，却没有实质内容时，这非常明显。就像那些截图iPhone六位数安全码并说这是苹果有史以来最好功能的帖子。嗯。你知道，有几个人这么做过。

Yeah. And it's very obvious when you're just trying to go viral for the sake of it and you don't have a real message. It's like the the post the when people screenshot the iPhone, you know, six digit security code and they say best feature Apple's ever built. Mhmm. Know, a few people did that.

现在我已经看过几十次了，这甚至不能帮你涨粉，因为人们不会觉得只有你能持续提供这类内容。如果你想靠一次性笑话涨粉，那必须是个极其搞笑的笑话，让人感觉你会持续带来欢乐。但这类病毒式诱饵，我觉得效果并不好。

And now I've seen it probably dozens of times, and it doesn't even help to get you followers because that's not something where people say, only this person could uniquely give me this kind of content in the future. Like, if you're gonna get followers with a one off joke, it has to be an incredibly hilarious one off joke where they say this person's gonna keep entertaining me. But with these kind of viral baits, I don't think it's even that effective.

而且我发现，就算有内容真的走红（不管用什么术语形容），很多情况下生活照常继续。就像，那只是昙花一现。

And also, what I find is something does go viral, whatever the term correct term is, many like, life goes on. Like, nothing's gonna significantly like, that's just one thing.

是啊。

Yeah.

然后你必须一遍又一遍地做这件事。这就是人们没有意识到的地方。比如，哦，我走红了。我就完事了。我的生活现在很好了。

And then you have to do it again and again. That's that's where people don't realize. Like, oh, I went viral. I'm done. My life is good now.

不。除非你经常这样做，否则什么都不会真正改变，你必须一遍又一遍地做。

No. Nothing's gonna really change less often, and you have to do it again and again.

是的。我认为这是真的。Lenny，我注意到你的观众群体很好，是合适的观众。他们能从你所做的事情中找到价值，他们在正确的地方，这是一个匹配。有时候，仅仅为了增加粉丝或走红而努力，最终会导致观众不匹配，比如你有一条关于仓鼠的推文走红了，现在他们都来这里期待仓鼠内容。

Yeah. I think that's true. One thing that I've noticed about your audience, Lenny, is that it's a good it's the right audience. Like, it's the people who find value in what you do and they're in the right place and there's a match. Sometimes in the effort to just gain followers for the sake of it or go viral for the sake of it, you end up with a mismatch of the audience you had this viral hamster tweet, and now they're all here expecting hamster content.

他们并不正确。与你互动。你没有给他们带来价值。这只是让数字上升，这并没有多大意义。所以一个例子是，有很多关于如何在Twitter上无缘无故增长的帖子。

And they're not Right. Engaging with you. You're not bringing value to them. It's just making the number go up, which is not that meaningful. So one example of this is there's all these threads about how to just grow on Twitter for no reason.

只是为了增长而增长。有很多泛泛的建议，比如确保你列出10点，但总是存在这样的问题：确保你重视你的关系，为自己腾出时间，以及那些不能丰富人们生活的事情。它们会获得很多点赞，但这些点赞来自互联网上的随机人群，价值不高。但我认为它们并没有加深与有意义观众的关系。我也不认为它们真正赢得了同行的尊重和钦佩。所以我认为重要的是要考虑人们在努力增长时所做的权衡。

Just grow for the sake of growing. And it's a lot of generic advice of like, make sure that you bullet point out the 10 things, but it's always kind of problem of make sure that you value your relationships and make time for yourself and things that are not enriching people's lives. They get a lot of likes that are kind of low value likes from random people about the internet, But I don't think that they're deepening a relationship with a meaningful audience. And I don't think that they're really capturing the respect and admiration of their peers. So I think it's just important to consider what trade offs people make in their efforts to grow.

好吧，说到这里，我们已经到了非常激动人心的闪电问答环节。我有五个问题要问你。你准备好了吗？

Well, with that, we've reached our very exciting lightning round. I've got five questions for you. Are you ready?

准备好了。

Ready.

第一个问题。很好。你向别人推荐最多的两三本书是什么？

First question. Great. What are two or three books you've recommended most to other people?

我推荐《火之门》。这本书出自海军陆战队司令的阅读清单，常年上榜。它讲述的是温泉关战役，就是300斯巴达勇士的故事，但包含了完整的背景故事。

I recommend Gates of Fire. It comes off the Marine Commandant's reading list. It's on their perennially. It is about the battle of Thermopylae. It's the 300 Spartans, but it's the whole backstory.

如果你深入阅读，会发现它讲的是领导力、勇气和创造力，而且文笔极佳。所以我经常推荐这本书。

And if you get into it, it's about leadership. It's about courage. It's creativity, and it's really well written. So that's one that I recommend a lot.

最近最喜欢的电影或电视剧是什么？

What's a favorite recent movie or TV show?

我最近和地球上所有人一样在看《最后生还者》。我既是为了娱乐也是为了工作，因为观察这部剧如何带动游戏销量，以及如何实现1+1>2的效果非常有趣。所以我看得很仔细。

I've been watching The Last of Us, like everybody on Earth. I've been watching it both for entertainment and for work because it's really interesting to see how the show drives sales of the video games and how you can use that to kinda make the whole of the sales greater than the sum of its parts. So I'm watching that really carefully.

有意思。我们现在要玩个喝酒游戏——每次有人提到《最后生还者》就喝一杯。因为最近这剧名出现得太频繁了。

Interesting. We're gonna we have a drinking game now. Every time someone says last of us, that's a new thing. Yeah. Because it's starting to come up a lot.

好的。大家请享用饮料。你最喜欢问的面试问题是什么？

Yeah. So everyone, enjoy your drink. Favorite interview question you like to ask?

我也喜欢问人们最近在读什么书。这是获取好书推荐的好方法，同时也能了解他们在不工作时的思考状态。

I like to ask people what they've been reading too. It's a good way to get good book recommendations. It's always a good it's also a good way to see where their head's at when they're not working.

你日常使用的最喜欢的SaaS产品有哪些？如果最近发现了新颖有趣的产品，可以额外加分。

Favorite SaaS products that you use day to day and bonus points for something that is new or interesting that you recently discovered.

我不确定这个是否新颖，因为我几乎用Notion处理所有事情，而且很喜欢他们新开发的AI功能。我最近也在用Lex，这是Nathan Bechaz的创业项目，一个你可能见过的AI写作编辑器。我在想有没有什么小众工具是我在用而别人不用的——这方面我觉得自己没什么独创性。不过我确实经常用微软Excel，这可能会引起争议。

I don't know that this is new or novel because I use Notion for almost everything, and I really like the new AI that they've built into it. I also have been using Lex, which is Nathan Bechaz's startup where it's like the AI writing editor that you've probably seen. I'm trying to think if there's anything that I use that other people don't. I don't think I'm terribly original in that sense. I do I use a lot of Microsoft Excel, which I think is controversial.

哇，这确实...很酷。但我理解。当你用Excel时，说明你在做正经事了。

That is. Wow. That's cool. But I get it. That's when you know you're serious, doing serious work.

你得加速了。

You gotta accelerate.

没错，正是这样。

Yeah. Exactly.

最后一个问题。对于想要为产品吸引关注的人，有什么最佳建议？关键要点。最重要的关键要点。

Final question. Best tip for someone trying to get attention for their product. Takeaway tip. Best takeaway tip.

把产品免费赠送给对的人。如果你能选择那些会爱上它的人。就像看维恩图，一边是会痴迷这款产品的人，另一边是你想触达的目标人群中有大量粉丝的人。落在维恩图重叠区域的人，就用免费产品轰炸他们。

Give it away for free to the right people. If you can choose the people who are gonna love it. Like, if you look at the Venn diagram of people who are gonna be obsessed with this product and people who have a large following among the other people that you wanna get to. Whoever falls into that sliver of the Venn diagram, shower them with free product.

太棒了。Lulu，我觉得这次对话会让更多人选择直销、敢于冒险、传播创意。感谢你的参与。最后两个问题：如果想了解更多或联系你，大家在哪里可以找到你？

Amazing. Lulu, I think this conversation is gonna lead to a lot more people going direct, taking risks, and idea spreading. Thank you for being here. Two final questions. Where can folks find you online if they wanna learn learn more and reach out?

听众们怎样才能帮到你呢？

And how can listeners be useful to you?

大家可以在getflack.com找到我。那里记录着我的想法，希望未来更新频率能比过去高些。感兴趣的话可以在那儿看到相关内容。至于听众如何帮我——就是给我反馈。我正在实践中学习。

People can find me at getflack.com. That's where I write down my ideas, hopefully more frequently in the future than in the past. But that's where they can find some of this stuff if they're interested. How can, listeners be helpful to me is to give me feedback. I'm learning on the job.

我不认为当今世上有人精通在这个疯狂环境中的沟通之道。我们都在摸着石头过河。听众们以各种方式经历过这些，如果他们有任何新想法、反馈或反对意见，希望他们能通过那个网站或Twitter发邮件告诉我。

I don't think that there's anyone alive who's an expert in communicating in this crazy environment that we have now. I think we're all crossing the river by feeling the stones. And so your listeners have gone through this in many different ways, and I hope that if they have new ideas or feedback or objections that they'll email me through that website or on Twitter and let me know what they think.

太棒了。网址是getflak.com，我会把它放在节目备注里。

Amazing. And it's getflak.com. I'll link to it in the show notes.

谢谢。

Thank you.

露露，感谢你来到这里并与我们分享你的智慧。

Lulu, thank you for being here and sharing your wisdom with us.

谢谢你，莱尼。感激不尽

Thank you, Lenny. Appreciate

非常感谢你的收听。如果你觉得这期节目有价值，可以在苹果播客、Spotify或你喜欢的播客应用上订阅我们的节目。同时，请考虑给我们评分或留下评论，这真的能帮助其他听众发现这个播客。你可以在lenny'spodcast.com上找到所有往期节目或了解更多关于节目的信息。下期节目再见。

Thank you so much for listening. If you found this valuable, you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Also, please consider giving us a rating or leaving a review, as that really helps other listeners find the podcast. You can find all past episodes or learn more about the show at lenny'spodcast.com. See you in the next episode.