Idea Ripper // ArchiveCards: 1555 [Live] | Updated: 2026-10-14
Card #c1351IR // #c1351Synthesis

"The other (and more important) thing I learned was that Barstool was driving the ticket sales; not the artists."

— In our words · Source: Cancel Me If You Can (Dave Portnoy)

[Use when]

You're paying a premium for an outside draw and haven't tested whether your own brand is the real pull.

[Why it matters]

Paying for far bigger acts sold exactly the same number of tickets as the cheap tour, and fans wanted photos with Portnoy. He swore off paying for outside talent. The next tour used in-house people and cleared about $200,000 a night.

Filed under situations:When a rival’s move changes your gameWhen your picture of things might be wrong

More from Cancel Me If You Can

#c1344"At this point the business model was pretty simple: if I could sell $3,400 worth of ads in the newspaper, I would break even."You're running a new venture on thin cash and the finances feel vague. #c1345"How do you sell ads for a newspaper that doesn’t exist? On promises."You need paying customers before you have a finished product. #c1346"I’d sift through all my competitors’ publications in Boston and call every single one of their advertisers every single week to poach them…You're looking for your first customers and your competitors publish who theirs are.

Same situation, different book

#c1290Starting points decide the reactionYou're predicting the effect of a move by copying what happened when someone else made it.From Trade Outside the Box #c1565The Fourfold Remedy, Desire Triage, and Static vs. Kinetic PleasureUse when auditing your personal burn rate, stripping scope creep from a product roadmap, or breaking the…From Lives of Eminent Philosophers #c1549The Cathartic Purge and the Shadow of TranquillityUse when a strategy session or research team is prematurely locked into a dogmatic narrative and needs a…From Lives of Eminent Philosophers #c1544The Boundless Soul and the Dæmon-Filled WorldUse when diagnosing why smart people locked in private ideological bubbles exhibit rigid, convulsive…From Lives of Eminent Philosophers