Ever ponder why Black Friday, Facebook, and Twitter are so successful? Want to duplicate the same feat with your startup or your venture? Just follow these 3 keys to success, and I’m sure you’ll have VC‘s and angel’s knocking at your door. Duplicate the 3 keys, no need to re-invent the wheel!

Step 3 – Go Mainstream

Well that goes without saying. If Black Friday wasn’t the term commonly known as the day after Thanksgiving, it wouldn’t be mainstream. Once it reached this level, it became quite apparent that to be in retail, you had to honor the Friday after Thanksgiving.

Facebook would not have survived as a college only social network. Once you are out of college, you are in the mainstream. To have been stubborn and not open to new ideas, it would have remained a small niche social network that, gasp – MySpace might have buried!

Twitter in 2006, 2007 was yet to reach mainstream. Once it clicked or resonated with the masses at SXSW 2007, it was off and running to the mainstream.

Step 2 – Get people talking about “it“

Whatever “it” is, you need people talking about “it“. If you don’t have the people buzzing about “it“, you won’t ever reach step 3 which as you just read is the mainstream.

For Black Friday, that mainstream was when the media picked up on all the sales post Thanksgiving and dubbed it by it’s common known name. Yes, Black Friday not only leveraged the media into believing the name it gave itself, it lent the tip to media to help spread the word of the “it” which of course is Black Friday.

Facebook became the “it” by simply being the “in” place to be first as a college only site, and by holding off the next level it pushed the anticipation of “it” by opening up the site to anyone. Once that happened, it quickly surged into the mainstream.

Twitter had a more difficult time since it wasn’t your classic social network. It was something new, but so new that it could never put it’s finger on”it“. Once it figured out that “it” was actually step #1 below, it quickly leveraged “it” to make a run to the mainstream quicker than either Black Friday or Facebook did.

Step 1 You follow therefore you become a follower

Black Friday would never have had the success it currently enjoys unless there were people seriously following the run up hype to the Friday after Thanksgiving. Retailers now even open on Thanksgiving morning since the hype (look for a new media dubbed name soon for the morning of Thanksgiving sales!) is so big for Black Friday. By hype, I mean lines of people (followers) that maybe won’t buy a thing unless they are tempted with super sales that the date offers. They still might not buy any item, but will be highly tempted by all the accompanying hype, so chances are they will spend some money.

Facebook would have never had the success without opening up and loading up their user base. Once they figured out that you hooked ‘em in college, but now most of their users were post college days, they needed to open it up so that their mainstream friends could connect. Once they did that, the next 2 steps were easier to achieve and success followed up quickly.

With Twitter this first step was more crucial since no one had a clue what Twitter was or how it was going to work. Twitter is/was almost like how this post started out. It had no idea where it was going, but figured that out when step #1 magically took off on it’s own. Once that happened, the powers that be at Twitter realized that it’s true calling was the followers that propelled it to be the darlings of water cooler chat, and then talk shows. It had “it” to talk about, even though “it” was still an unknown, but talking about “it” via the crucial follower step #1 helped it reach mainstream faster than Black Friday or Facebook.

Technically Speaking, if you gain some followers who talk about “it“, you’ll reach the final step in the 3 keys to success which is mainstream acceptance. If you want to put that in your pitch to VC’s and angel’s, tell ‘em you read it here first! Oh, btw, Happy Safe Thanksgiving to all!

Related articles

• Black Friday Deals 2010: 7 Ways To Use Social Media To Score At Sales (huffingtonpost.com)
• Use these apps and save big on Black Friday deals (en.onsoftware.com)
• 10 Social Media Deals to Check In to on Black Friday (mashable.com)
• CyberMonday2010.com is Here! (bradsdeals.com)
• AMD Twitter Contest Goes Live; Along With Some Killer Black Friday Deals (geardiary.com)
• Getting The Jump On Black Friday Deals With These Sites & Mobile Apps (makeuseof.com)

While I can’t really go into deep details here, the whole NYC experience was a costly yet interesting one. While the sun sets on the bright lights of life in the Big Apple, the twists and turns somehow end up working out. Note: The track that is auto-playing is “Little Wonders by Rob Thomas”; video at the end of the post. I feel the lyrics sum things up rather well at this time.

Sure, I will miss the location of living across the street and around the corner from the places where NYPD rolls on a call, as well as the views, I won’t miss other aspects of living in NYC.

If nothing else, I can always say that at one time, for 6 weeks, I lived right next door to the Empire State Building. I walked the streets at night exploring the neighborhood.

While for some people that love the whole NYC experience, such as my buddy in Chicago who loves brick and subways, I’m more of surfer dude and always have been.

Technically Speaking, while I wish that the whole situation in NYC would have been fully resolved and I could talk more about it openly, I just wanted to update everyone – as well as say – Happy Thanksgiving week! If you want more details, just ask me directly and I can provide them privately. I hope you know what you are thankful for. I sure have a lot to be thankful for this past year.

One last thing I want to share with those that have given me the crazy eye about my definition of a nice lawn – not so crazy am I? :)

Little Wonders by Rob Thomas