从吃救济到做一次演讲赚几十万美元，请看一位85后的逆袭人生

随着世界越来越数字化，在互联网占据一席之地已成为各行各业的标配。但大量新创业者涌入市场的结果是，社交媒体能提供的红利越发稀少。幸运的是，英国这位技术营销达人兼数字朋克——文森特·迪格南正努力帮人们迅速获得最渴望的流量。

文森特性格好斗，脑袋聪明，非常了解贫穷的痛苦和创业的艰难。他花了很多时间研究如何高效打入社交网络。

如今文森特已成为非常成功的作者和演讲者，他也开始走出数字世界在全世界巡回传授“秘密武器”，解释他疯狂做事背后的逻辑，这四个字恰好也是他最新一本书的书名。

《千禧一代》杂志与在好莱坞见到了文森特，希望了解为何这位生于伦敦西南的社交技术达人能白手起家三年内赚到几十万。这是个坚忍不拔的千禧一代如何利用病毒营销实现自我重塑的励志故事。

进入文字的世界

“小学时我就发现，表现得奇怪一点就能让人注意逗人笑。这对我影响很大。”他告诉我们。从小文森特就很会写东西。他的同班同学曾建议他当记者。多年后命运却指向一条不同的道路。

人们常说凡事天注定，在文森特身上体现得很明显，当年误打误撞敲开一扇门是他犯过最正确的错误。“当时我在一家夜总会里找洗手间，推开门后发现找错了，里面是乐队休息室。”仿佛冥冥中有天意，文森特这次误闯后来帮他当上一份全国报纸的音乐记者。

他回忆起那段有趣的生活。“99%的情况下采访对象都会给我免费的门票，所以我想看什么乐队就看什么……简直太赞了。”文森特表示，那段时间恰好是音乐历史上关键时期（2004年-2009年），很多新乐队雨后春笋般冒出来。“摇滚有敲击乐队，有Von Blondies，情绪摇滚有我的化学浪漫乐队，翻闹小子乐队等，英国有Grime，车库摇滚，还有新锐舞，等等，”他说。

音乐不仅影响人们的穿着，随着社交网站MySpace流行，音乐越发让人们兴奋。“MySpace的出现意味着突然之间每个人都可以有网络身份。”那是文森特第一次接触社交媒体，没想到过不了多久社交媒体会彻底改变他的生活。

从音乐记者到数字朋克

文森特从报道乐队转型成为乐队经理，到2009年几乎所有乐队他都打过交道，从Phoenix乐队到Eagles of Death Metal都合作过。“我帮他们约电台采访，送他们去车站，”他说。但就像20多岁年轻人经常遇到的一样，他沉迷于寻欢作乐，因为工作不力被炒了。

他承认，后来申请了社会救济，开始做电话销售。但新工作只做了5星期又被炒了。这段经历让文森特渴望独立，他立刻开始阅读创业方面的书。“当时我靠救济金生活，前女友说，你得有个工作，你想干什么？我说我想写东西。”

那天晚上他做梦自己办了份网络杂志。“杂志里的明星都是作者，不是乐手。”他醒过来，立刻打电话给好朋友刘易斯·弗路德帮他按照想法搭建网站，Planet Ivy诞生了。

下一步就是吸引作者。“我在卧室里打给全国所有大学，解释说我在办全英国最酷的杂志，现在还没有稿费，但作者会收到编辑反馈，还可以在比个人博客大得多的平台上发表。”反响很热烈，稿件蜂拥而至。

Planet Ivy于2012年5月上线，一个月后成立了公司。网站专门生产病毒营销内容，上线第二个星期浏览量已达到25000。“一般来说，乐队成立半年就知道能不能活下去，我觉得各行业都差不多。要做好一件事，半年内一定得折腾出点名堂。”文森特说。

没到半年Planet Ivy已经聚集起200位作者，每月浏览量已达30万次。3个月后，作者数量达到600人，浏览量突破百万。虽然发展势头不错，却没有销售收入，文森特和刘易斯都清楚一定要融资，不然网站就得关闭。

“他解释说，之后那周在一个类似创业真人秀的论坛上看到广告说‘快来推荐你的公司’。”他承认真正推介的时候，“表现不是很好，不过最后说了一句‘过去三个月里访问量已达100万。’”一位前Facebook高管听到了这句，对他们的快速成长很感兴趣，立刻找了文森特，说可以帮忙筹集25万美元资金。

一线生机

顺利完成种子轮融资后，文森特和作者团队几乎垄断了在线内容领域。他们继续生产病毒营销内容而且很成功，但很快又没钱了。

他们的最后希望是加入伦敦的一个孵化器科技之星（TechStars）。Planet Ivy从1500家创业公司中脱颖而出，加入2014年的科技之星。

“加入科技之星后，我们的访问量从200万掉到30万，”文森特解释说。“所以我们开始研究要不要继续留在孵化器里。很多人希望我们继续融200万资金。但我们想不如趁机成立个创意公司。”

他之前从未有公开演讲的经历，直到在科技之星最后几天才终于尝试。“我对着600名投资人介绍项目，站在台上时我心里知道我们还没什么业务，只能说我们是个从事内容生产的公司。”虽然紧张到胃痛，但文森特演讲的结果出乎意料。

As the world continues to digitize itself, having an influential online presence has become a standard business practice. Yet as new entrepreneurs enter the market, it is becoming increasingly more difficult to navigate and harness the power of social media. Luckily, UK based growth hacker and digital punk, Vincent Dignan, is making it easier for individuals to better understand how to amass the one commodity everyone wants: traffic.

Scrappy and resourceful, Vincent knows too well the struggles of being broke while trying to launch a business. That is why he spent countless hours researching and investigating the most effective techniques at breaking through those social barriers to entry.

Now as a successful author and public speaker, Vincent has come out of the digital shadow and is touring the globe sharing his “Secret Sauce” – a phrase that represents the method behind his madness, and which also happens to be the title of his latest book.

MiLLENNiAL met up with the British social hacker in Hollywood to learn more about how this Southwest London native went from living on welfare to making over six figures within three years. This is the story of how one resilient millennial merged self-reinvention with the power of virality.

Entering the World of Words

“In primary school I realized that if I was weird or different people like it and laughed. And that really affected me,” he tells us. Vincent always had a knack for writing. Kids in his class even suggested he be a journalist. Years later that opportunity would find him in an unlikely place.

It is often said that there are no mistakes in life. And in Vincent’s case, opening the wrong door at a club would be the best mistake he ever made. “I was in a nightclub and I was looking for the bathroom, and I pushed this door and it was not the door for the bathroom, it was the green room for the band.” As fate would have it, Vincent’s stumble would land him a job as a music journalist with a national newspaper.

He reflects on this fun chapter of his life. “99 percent of the time they would give me free review tickets, which meant I could see any band I wanted…it was incredible.” As Vincent points out, this was happening during a pivotal time in music’s history (2004-2009), where a lot of new niches were popping up. “You had a rock rival with bands like The Strokes and the Von Blondies, you had emo with My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy…in the UK we had Grime, Garage, and New Rave,” he says.

Not only did music affect the way people dressed, but the scene was on steroids due to the invasion of MySpace. “MySpace meant that we all suddenly had an online identity.” This was Vincent’s introduction to social media—an industry that would soon change his life in ways he could never imagine.

The transition from music journalist to digital punk

Vincent transitioned from writing about the bands to managing the bands, and in 2009 he was working with everyone from Phoenix to Eagles of Death Metal. “I was managing their radio and getting them to the station,” he says. But as most 20-somethings do, he fell victim to the party and was fired for incompetence.

Admittedly, he filed for welfare and began telemarketing. But after five weeks in his new job, he was fired again. This gave Vincent a lust for independence and he immediately began reading books about entrepreneurship. “I was on welfare and my ex said you need to have a job. What would you like to do? And I said writer.”

That night he had a dream about running an online magazine “where the writers would be the stars, not the musicians.” When he woke up, Vincent immediately called his friend Lewis Flude to help him build the site that matched his vision, and Planet Ivy was born.

The next step was attracting writers. “From my bedroom, I called up every college in the country and said we are running the coolest magazine in the UK, we can’t pay you but you will have editorial feedback and you’ll have a platform that is bigger than writing on your own blog.” The response was enormous and the content started flowing.

Planet Ivy launched in May 2012 and formulated as a company a month later. By strictly focusing on creating viral content, the site had reached over 25,000 views within their second week of being live. “You know in six months whether or not your band is going to make it, and I think that is a great distinction for any pursuit in life. There have to be major things that happen in the first six months,” Vincent says.

Within six months Planet Ivy had amassed over 200 contributors and had reached over 300,000 visitors per month. Three months later, they tripled their writer count and were receiving over one million visitors. But with all that work, came no time for sales, and Vincent and Lewis knew it was time to raise capital or they would have to shut down.

“The next week I saw an ad that said “come pitch your company” in a shark tank style forum,” he explains. When it came time for the pitch, he admits, “We weren’t very good but I closed it with “we’ve had a million page views in the last 3 months.” This caught the attention of an ex-Facebook executive who was intrigued by their rapid growth. She immediately approached Vincent and said she could help him raise $250,000.

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

After successfully closing their seed round, Vincent and his team of writers dominated the online content space. Focusing their attention on viral content got the best of them yet again, and they soon found themselves running out of money.

Millennial Magazine – quote-2Their last hope? TechStars. Out of 1,500 applicants, Planet Ivy was selected to join the TechStars London class of 2014. Just when they thought they were finally in the clear and on to bigger things, Planet Ivy died within the program.

“We went from 2 million visitors to 300,000 while we were in TechStars,” Vincent explains. “So we had to pivot while we were still in the program. Everyone wanted us to raise $2 million and we were thinking why don’t we start a creative agency.”

He had no public speaking experience up until the last day of TechStars. “I had to pitch in front of 600 investors, knowing that my business didn’t exist and that we were going to become a content writing agency on stage.” Even though his stomach was in knots, Vincent’s largest obstacle became his biggest reward.

文森特•迪格南的关键制胜局

第二天，Planet Ivy就顺利变身Magnific，一家内容营销和生产公司。几个星期后，文森特开始在伦敦各种会议上介绍技术营销。

他发现“公开演讲作用非常大”。大谈技术营销一个月后，他找到了19个客户，然后开始各处演讲。

他下意识地申请在SXSW科技大会上讲技术营销，而且得到了机会。令他吃惊的是，他得了最佳演讲称号，生意也越来越多。“那次演讲帮我赚了几十万美元，”他说。

演讲赚钱策略继续，他频频出入Meetup.com在纽约、旧金山和洛杉矶组织的各种会议，谁邀请就去哪讲一场。“后来一个月里我讲了9场。”

社交媒体的秘密武器

他的演讲有什么特别之处？面对一群信息饥渴的创业者，最合适的内容就是告诉他们如何利用被在线服务和平台充分占领的世界。

文森特有个过人之处，他会列出所有利用技术一个小时内实现大量吸粉的网站，然后解释如何做到！他第一条建议是：合作。

他说：“英国人的习惯是什么都不说，喜欢保密。但在美国讲求合作，合作方越多就越成功。”他建议其他人不要孤立，要勇敢与别人合作，因为只有团结合作才能将问题各个击破。

合作是一方面，每天踏踏实实工作8小时也很重要。“要保证工作时间就得拒绝很多诱惑。”他还表示有些最重要的突破就是周六晚上工作时想出来的。

另一个建议是考虑内容战略时要重视渠道。“好内容是10%的文字加上90%的渠道。”他表示，业内专家都建议写文字时注意取吸引人的标题，段落要简短，不过并没明确指出哪些渠道效果最好。

当然，表情包的作用也非常大。“表情包非常关键。从小孩到老人都热爱表情包。”文森特表示，所有内容形式中，表情包的反馈最好。

下一章：伦敦到洛杉矶

文森特的公司日渐增长，演讲生涯越发成功，还发布了合著新书《秘密武器》，他也在不断拓展职业生涯，目前又在开拓新业务，明年初就会宣布。

与此同时，他打算从伦敦搬到洛杉矶，寻找可以共同探索下一步的合伙人。文森特用自己在多个领域不断的成功告诉我们，命运关上一扇门，必然会打开另一扇窗。他的经历正是强大适应能力的体现。（财富中文网）

译者：Pessy

审校：夏林

Vincent Dignan’s Pivotal Power Play

The next day, Planet Ivy turned into Magnific, a content marketing and production agency, and a few weeks later, Vincent was giving talks on the topic of growth hacking at various events around London.

That’s when he realized “public speaking gets leads.” After the first month of speaking about growth hacking, he picked up 19 clients, and began giving talks everywhere.

Then almost subconsciously he applied to give a talk at SXSW V2V on growth hacking and was offered the opportunity. To his surprise, he won Best Speech, and as a result, ended up receiving a ton of new business. “That speech made me tens of thousands of dollars,” he adds.

Capitalizing on his strategy, he reached out to all the Meetup.com groups in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles and whoever got back to him first he would fly to give a speech. “I ended up giving nine talks in less than a month’s notice.”

The Secret Sauce to Social Media

So what was so special about this speech? In a room full of hungry entrepreneurs, the best information to offer is how to leverage the saturated world of online services and platforms.

Vincent has an uncanny ability to feed his audience with all the sites he uses to amass a large following within an hour, while offering strategy on how to do it! His first piece of advice: partnerships.

Millennial Magazine – quote-1“It’s a very British mentality to not give your secrets away and keep everything for yourself. Whereas, here in America, it’s all about partnerships. The more partnerships you have the more successful you are.” He encourages others to not get consumed in their own isolation and to work with other people more because together you can divide and conquer.

While partnerships are key to growth, so is committing a solid eight hours of work everyday. “You have to say “no” to a lot of thing to get those hours.” He even suggests some of the best breakthroughs happen while staying in on a Saturday night.

Another piece of advice he gives when thinking about content strategy is to focus on the distribution. “Content is 10% content and 90% distribution.” He says experts in the space are advising people to adjust their content with better titles and shorter paragraphs, among other things, but they rarely define which distribution methods work best.

And of course, posting memes will help with engagement. “Memes are everything. Everyone from children to old people can enjoy a meme.” According to Vincent, memes receive the most engagement out of any type of post.

The Next Chapter: London to Los Angeles

With the growth of his content agency, burgeoning speaking career and launch of his coauthored book “Secret Sauce,” Vincent is continually reinventing himself and is currently working on a new business, which he plans to announce in the new year.

In the meantime, he is ready to make the transcontinental move from London to Los Angeles and is looking for allies he can partner with to take his vision to the next level. As someone who has reached all levels of success in multiple industries, Vincent reminds us when one door closes another opens. He is the living embodiment of the power of adaptation.