Priceonomics > Quotes

“If you see something out there that is bullshit, you can replace it with something that is not.”
― Priceonomics, Everything Is Bullshit: The greatest scams on Earth revealed

“When you have no plan, you have no expectations – and when you have no expectations, everything that happens to you is unexpectedly wonderful”
― Priceonomics, Hipster Business Models: How to make a living in the modern world

“why rich people like wine so much: “It’s the most consistently reliable way that they can convert money into happiness.”
― Priceonomics, Everything Is Bullshit: The greatest scams on Earth revealed

“Today’s ideal social form is not the commune or the movement or even the individual creator; it’s the small business. Every artistic or moral aspiration — music, food, good works, what have you — is expressed in those terms.”
― Priceonomics, Hipster Business Models: How to make a living in the modern world

“At its core, the word hipster has always referred to someone who embraces new ideas and tries to be different.”
― Priceonomics, Hipster Business Models: How to make a living in the modern world

“As Jamie Berard, LEGO’s senior product designer, says, “Dad’s gotta have his toy room too!”
― Priceonomics, Hipster Business Models: How to make a living in the modern world

“Some people think that there is only one way to start a business: protect an idea through a patent, get a loan to make a product, hire people who know how to make the product, get the product sold by retailers, spend money to advertise, and finally, find customers for said product. And then there is the hipster business model: Make a product you love so much that you'll make it yourself. See if anyone wants it. Try again.”
― Priceonomics, Hipster Business Models: How to make a living in the modern world

“a trend we see playing out across America: young people are in Detroit fixing up real estate, in Burlington starting farms, and in San Francisco building tech companies. The “kids these days” aspire to be small business owners, startup founders, and makers. Just maybe, the kids these days are alright.”
― Priceonomics, Hipster Business Models: How to make a living in the modern world

“But there’s a cheaper way to enjoy the con, and that is to take advantage of all the other factors that “trick” us into enjoying wine more. Like Troy Carter, you can ride to Napa and walk the vineyards before you buy a bottle. If you don’t live near wine country, you can talk to the manager of a wine store about the wines she loves. A nice pair of wine glasses, candles, and a picnic in a beautiful park all lend wine a refined air. All these strategies take advantage of the psychological biases that lead us to enjoy the same wine more than we would in other circumstances. And they do so without the rarefied price tag.”
― Priceonomics, Everything Is Bullshit: The greatest scams on Earth revealed

“While technology has made it cheaper to build products and find customers, there is also a cultural trend at play: it is becoming more socially acceptable to pursue oddball ideas.”
― Priceonomics, Hipster Business Models: How to make a living in the modern world

“Living in a van while operating a small business might now be seen as a “life-hack”; in the past, this lifestyle exemplified failure.”
― Priceonomics, Hipster Business Models: How to make a living in the modern world

“A true man of his craft, he requested his ashes be molded into memorial Frisbees and given to family and close friends upon his death – a request that was fulfilled when he passed in 2002.”
― Priceonomics, Hipster Business Models: How to make a living in the modern world

“The entrepreneurs in this book sell. They frequent public parks to see if anyone will buy their custom, typewritten stories. They use crowdfunding websites to raise money from customers before their products even exist. They post their ideas to massive web forums to gauge interest, or set up online shops the second they have a product to sell. Sales come first, not last. Finally, the entrepreneurs in this book try again. In almost every instance, the first versions of their products don’t work properly, or customers don’t want them. Instead of giving up, they tinker – sometimes for years – until they get things right. They hit roadblocks and spend late nights anguishing over seemingly insurmountable obstacles, until one day, through sheer force of will, they make it. The ones who survive are the ones who don’t quit.”
― Priceonomics, Hipster Business Models: How to make a living in the modern world

“by the multi-talented Dan Abramson.”
― Priceonomics, Hipster Business Models: How to make a living in the modern world

“Those that benefit from the taxi medallion system have been protected for 80 years. In that time, they abused taxi drivers and produced a crappy product. Ride-sharing apps should be allowed to take over the market — until they too are disrupted by self-driving cars. And so it goes.”
― Priceonomics, Everything Is Bullshit: The greatest scams on Earth revealed