Business Owner

Stop waving the same tired values as everyone else. Customers assume basics like quality and service. Ditch the defaults and uncover what truly sets you apart, something competitors won’t claim.

The basic elements of highly successful online videos are really just fundamental principles of human interaction, and you can apply to nearly any form of communication (especially marketing). While there's no way to guarantee that anything will "go viral," studying and applying those basic elements…

Smell sells. Tap scent marketing’s subconscious power to lift mood, memory, and sales. Choose simple, context-smart fragrances, tune the intensity, and watch productivity rise without customers noticing why.

If your team was the last surviving band of humans in a city overrun by zombies, you wouldn't let just anybody through the door would you?

As much as our work at Forty is about “touchy-feely” stuff (psychology, emotion, metaphor, experiences, etc.), I’m still a numbers guy at heart. That’s why I get so frustrated every time I hear someone recommending crowdsourced design services like [99designs](https://web.archive.org/web/20130115155…

Business is historically a male-dominated endeavor, so it’s no surprise that the stereotype about what it takes to succeed in business involves traditionally masculine characteristics: aggression, tactical thinking, bravado, ruthlessness, objectivity, ego, pride, sports metaphors, war metaphors, etc…

Stop copying competitors and build a site people want to visit. Focus on useful content, stickiness, professional craft, and ongoing care. Challenge assumptions, measure wisely, and keep refining with love.

Forty has been in business for over a year now, and it's been a wonderfully successful first year, having completely blown away our business plan estimate, our own expectations, and even our craziest ambitions. While I don’t claim to be a business expert, I do think that we’ve learned some things th…

There are passengers, and there are drivers—and there are also a few people who ride a bike instead. In his post [Let’s Steer This Ship Together](https://web.archive.org/web/20050508111709/http://www.willpate.org/archives/2005/05/04/lets-steer-this-ship-together.php), Will Pate talks about a concept…