Adrian Russo RecruitLocator Founder’s Favorite Book: The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

“The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

When an idea sparks, an entrepreneur gathers all their tools to make it a reality. As the vision transforms into a product, the next step is to share it with the world. Entrepreneurs will cross far and beyond to reach a broad audience.

If they’re fortunate, they might find the perfect influencer to endorse the product for them. As soon as entrepreneurs do, they present the outcome with pride and passion. However, persuading people to like their products or services is not enough.

In today’s generation, the most candid little things go viral overnight; take Instagram, for instance. Back in 2009, the number #1 social media platform was Facebook. The following year, Instagram, a video and photo-sharing app, took society by storm. Suddenly it became the fastest growing social network of all time.

This phenomenon is called a social epidemic. Intuitively, most people would think that social epidemics happen slowly and gradually. But in fact, many changes in society are so sudden that they almost seem to happen overnight. The moment at which a social epidemic goes from invisible to seemingly universal is called a “Tipping Point.”

Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference” popularized the idea of social epidemics, whereas the spread of thoughts, messages, behaviors, and products through a population in the same way as viruses. Gladwell published The Tipping Point in 2000 and sold more than 1.5 million copies six years after publication.

Malcolm Gladwell describes a tipping point as the moment when a trend turns into an epidemic. He provides building blocks for business people who want to make their product, service, or idea viral.

THE TIPPING POINT by MALCOLM GLADWELL

Malcolm Timothy Gladwell is an English-born Canadian journalist, author, and public speaker. He has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1996. He has published seven books, and his first five were New York Times Bestsellers, with The Tipping Point as his first.

Gladwell gained popularity with two New Yorker articles written in 1996: “The Tipping Point” and “The Coolhunt .”These two pieces became his first book’s basis, for which he received a $1 million advance. Gladwell also served as a contributing editor for Grantland, a sports journalism website founded by former ESPN columnist Bill Simmons.

The book seeks to understand how social epidemics happen and whether they can start and control them. Malcolm divided the book into three sections that summarize how ideas can spread like wildfires.

Law of the Few

All people connect to other people through family, friendship, work, hobbies, and more. However, a small handful of people wield an excessive amount of power. These kinds of people can spread information like a virus.

Connectors – have a massive social network with many acquaintances and allow ideas to spread from one social group to the next.

Salesmen – they boast about ideas they love and their incredibly positive energy is contagious.

Mavens – they hoard information to be a source of great tips to their network, the people of which they greatly influence with their advice.

The Concept of Stickiness

Being exceptionally good at spreading the word is not enough to make ideas go viral. The idea, product, or message must be at least intriguing, memorable, addictive, or "sticky." It has to be unforgettable to spur people into action. Gladwell gives examples of children's shows like Blue's Clues improved on Sesame Street research by showing that children like shows with a strong narrative and lots of repetition. Sesame Street and Blue's Clues have been very popular and educated millions of children about reading and counting—demonstrating how "stickiness" can be of great help to TV watchers.

The Power of Context:

Gladwell states epidemics are sensitive to the conditions and circumstances of the times and places they occur. He discusses the Broken Windows Theory. The theory argues that crime is the inevitable result of a public disorder. If a window is broken and left unrepaired, people walking by will conclude that no one cares and that no one's in charge. In the 90s of New York City, subways are filthy, vandalized, and familiar with minor to major crimes. There was no sense of anarchy in the subway because of the rebellious environment. When authorities implemented corrective actions, the city had a historic decline in crime.

A Founder's Favorite

Adrian Russo is an accomplished Talent Acquisition leader and Software Engineer. Adrian helps Fortune 500 companies, GOVCONs, and tech startups fix their talent acquisition challenges through recruiting organizational transformation, strategic talent roadmap development, building effective recruiting teams, and asymmetric recruiting approaches.

Russo specializes in ATS implementations and developing custom recruiting solutions. He implemented multiple platforms and performed multiple migrations for ATS' including Greenhouse, Level, Workday, Jazz, Akken Cloud, iCims, Taleo, and Bullhorn.

Adrian led technical recruiting at various organizations, including the National Institutes of Health, Discovery Communications, and the Department of Defense. Adrian is also part of the Amazon Prime series Top Recruiter, The Art of Recruiting, and multiple podcasts. In addition, he was a featured speaker at RecruitDC and demoed RecruitLocator at TechCrunch Disrupt.

― Adrian Russo RecruitLocator

Co-founder

He is the Co-founder and Developer of RecruitLocator, launched in 2016, a SaaS-based open-web resume search tool. The research engine tool searches 92% of the internet for talents. RecruitLocator finds thousands of resumes from the open web and collects the top 100 results. The SaaS appliance provides multiple tutorials and video resources, including professional explainer videos, self-help guides, and product demonstrations.

Adrian bootstrapped the company and is cash flow positive with a remote team of three in Maryland and Japan. In 2018, Recruitlocator’s revenue run rate hit $75.0K revenue. In his interview with Nathan Latka, Russo mentioned that The Tipping Point was his favorite book.

Adrian likes how Malcolm's compassion for customer service radiates to his readers. Adrian values his customer's feedback and criticism. After nine months of challenges, Russo listened and delivered. He refined and relaunched RecruitLocator to its best potential.

As of 2018, RecruitLocator gained 300 paying customers with over $6,000 to $7,000 monthly recurring revenue. Even in their early stages, Russo's experience and intuition made him a competent leader and entrepreneur. As the title of the book says, "Little things can make a big difference."

As the company is still at its early stages, we are beyond excited about what the future holds for the young Saas founder, Russo, in this fast-paced world. Today, RecruitLocator continues to scale with its content and additional integrations.

The Tipping Point is an excellent book for young entrepreneurs to learn whom to sell. Malcolm’s theories and insights reveal which people can influence most in the industry. The book also helps anyone become an invaluable resource and influencer.

"I just wanted to drop you a note to say thank you, for sharing your templates with me. I have 2 new Enterprise Sales Managers (AE’s) staring on Monday, and I have used them to great effect. The playbook will be a living breathing document that will constantly evolve. The template and the headings that you shared, provided a great starting point!"

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