Real-World Virality

customer behavior—on the viral loop—and safely ignore those that do not. Such a startup does not need to specialize in marketing, advertising, or sales functions. Conversely, a company using the paid engine needs to develop those marketing and sales functions urgently.

The key, then, is to not only make something viral, but also make it valuable to the sponsoring company or organization. Not just virality but valuable virality.

Creating content with a chance to go viral forces you to stand in a place where you create an entirely new keyword—and supremacy based on originality. And Google seems to love that.

“If you want to build something that’s truly viral you have to create a total mindf**k experience that you tell everyone about. If I say, ‘What can I do to make this [product] better?’ you’ll say something small. If I were to say, ‘Reid, what would it take for me to design something that you would literally tell every single person you’ve ever enco