Most business books don’t age well.
Purple Cow is the exception.
Not because it’s full of tactics.
Because it’s a slap in the face.
“Safe is risky. Remarkable gets talked about.”
That one stuck with me. And not just as a quote to toss on a slide deck. I actually changed things because of it.
Here’s what I took—and what I did:
Lesson 1: You can’t market boring. Make the product interesting.
Do you have a dashboard with six tabs?
All of them grey. Functional, sure.
But do you watch users log in, click once, and leave?
Usability isn’t enough. Visuals matter. Surprises matter. One sentence that makes someone say “huh, clever”—that sticks.
You should have that one feature just for screenshots!
Maybe an alert module. Big colours. One-sentence summaries.
“Top risk you didn’t expect today.”
Boring → gone.
Useful → talked about.
Lesson 2: If your customer wouldn’t tell a friend, it’s not remarkable.
Are your customers quoting your copy in Slack?
Are they sending screenshots to their boss?
If not, you’ve built something forgettable.
Build for shareability. Not virality—just “you’ve got to see this” moments. That’s the new referral engine.
Lesson 3: Don’t chase mass appeal. Be a cult favourite.
Is your product trying to be for everyone? “Security for all cloud workloads”?
You’ll get beat by someone narrower and sharper.
Be the one company remote-first teams go to for DNS visibility.
Be the tool SOC 2 leads bookmark.
Mass appeal doesn’t convert. Specificity does.
If you’re not for someone, you’re for no one.
Lesson 4: Marketing is baked in. Not bolted on.
Before you launch anything, ask: would someone post this in a group chat?
If the answer is “probably not”—rethink it.
Great marketing isn’t a campaign. It’s a product choice that generates buzz without budget.
If not, cut it.
Biggest shift?
Purple Cow taught me to stop begging for attention. Start earning it by being worth it.
Because in a crowded market, being better isn’t enough. You’ve got to be interesting.
And useful.
And a little weird.
Especially in cybersecurity. Where every vendor sounds the same—until one doesn’t.
Leave a Reply