How Socialnomics Debunks The Mousetrap Myth

"Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door"
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882)

You've probably seen that somewhere. I hold that this is not wisdom, this is dangerous rubbish. The weirdest part is the conspiracy to blame this line on an ecologist like Emerson.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882) was an American essayist, philosopher, and poet, best remembered for leading the Transcendentalist movement of the mid 19th century. His teachings directly influenced the growing New Thought movement of the mid 1800s.^[1] He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society.

"Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door" is a phrase attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson but he didn't write it.

Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A mousetrap.

Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door is a phrase attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson in the late ninteenth centrury.^{[1] [2]} The phrase is actually a misquotation of the statement:

If a man has good corn or wood, or boards, or pigs, to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad hard-beaten road to his house, though it be in the woods.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson, ^[2]

In 1889, seven years after Emerson's death, came the invention of the current standard of mousetraps.^[2] That same year Emerson was quoted as saying:

If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap than his neighbor..."^[2]

The phrase has turned into a metaphor about the power of innovation,^[2] and is frequently taken literally, with more than 4,400 patents issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office for new mousetraps, with thousands more unsuccessful applicants, making them the "most frequently invented device in U.S. history".^[1]

To prosper through Socialnomics, you can't simply have a better mousetrap. It's a myth that the world will beat a path to your door.

A. The Formula for Failure, i.e.:

"Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.":

1. Find, create, or acquire a product or service.
2. Find someone to sell it to.

What's wrong with the above picture? Simple - it only focuses on product creation and sales, while completely ignoring marketing. Shawn strongly advises budding entrepreneurs to investigate and research their target market, and create a marketing plan BEFORE considering what products they will create. Hence,

B. The Formula for Success:

1. Find a hot, HUNGRY target market first.
2. Find out what they already want and are already buying.
3. Sell them more of the SAME.

It's a tried and true formula that established marketers use to stay on top.

From a Socialnomics perspective, you want a guild of Social Media robots wofting scent of tasty food where your hungry target audience is frothing. That my friends is where semi-automated article propagation becomes profitable when used in ethical ways.