Oops! How Blunders, Bloopers, and “Accidental” Stupidity Could Make You Millions

It’s safe to say that no one wants to be a f*ck up. We go to great lengths to avoid total humiliation – who wouldn’t? No one wants to get caught with his pants down. No, not that kind of mistake. I mean the getting-caught-doing-your-business kind of mistake. Keep the door shut (and your mind out of the gutter) already.

When the stakes are super high – entrepreneurial high – we REALLY don’t want to screw things up. But some mistakes make billions, like the whole 3M Post-It Note story. And other mistakes aren’t mistakes at all. They’re deliberate blunders designed to catapult a business into the stratosphere of success.

Take Monster.com. In 1994 Jeff Taylor, a former DJ, developed the first online job search database, The Monster Board, which became Monster.com in 1999, and is now the largest job search engine in the world. That success translates to about $1 billion, which is not a bad top line figure for fourteen years of innovation.

While you probably know of and may have even used Monster.com (unless you’re living…under a rock), you may not know about Taylor’s sneaky little “oops” that helped kick his company into high gear.

Monster.com connected job seekers and employers in the thick of the dot.com boom, when everyone was looking for and hiring help from all over the country. And thanks to the Internet, people in many fields could work from almost anywhere.

For this young entrepreneur, Monster.com was an awesome resource. But what really got me hooked on using it was the fact that I had “discovered” a secret way to get free access to all of the resumes available on the site. The news of the monster “oops” – what, it’s a pun, sue me– spread like wildfire. Hundreds of thousands of business owners like myself gleefully searched Taylor’s database and soon Monster.com became a resource we couldn’t live without.

Which is just about the time Taylor turned it off. Hordes of people called Monster.com to get their access reinstated, and were informed that the free access had been a “mistake.” So what do you think most people did? That’s right. They coughed up the cash. People were addicted to Monster.com, so they signed up on the spot.

Let’s break down the genius of this colossal blunder:

1. Bend the Rules – Be honest. You get a cheap thrill out of bending the rules from time to time. Your “free” Wi-Fi that your neighbor pays for, the booze in your coffee cup, that extra trip to the salad bar. When Monster.com secretly enabled access to their resumes, they knew that people would jump on just to be part of something sneaky, yet basically benign. And they told all of their friends…
2. Go Viral – We all know the beauty of viral marketing, and we know there has to be a hook to make it happen. A secret way to get free access on Monster.com was a viral marketers’ wet dream. The secret went viral because a) it was a secret – duh – and, b) it was about getting something for free.
3. Be Indispensable – Taylor’s plan wouldn’t have worked if he had a crappy product or service. He knew people wouldn’t want to give up the service, and would be willing to pay for it once they got used to having it.

Monster.com broke through thanks to perfect timing, plus innovation, plus a happy “accident.” What bloopers or blunders could help your business take off? Block off an hour or two and get your posse together for an “oops” brainstorm session and see what you come up with. You might come up with something huge. All I ask is that you let me in on it.

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Tags: Bloopers, Blunders, Mistakes Makes Millions, toilet paper entrepreneur

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