What I Learned From My 24hr Designed Serendipity Experiment

Over the last 24 hours, I've experimented with designing serendipity in my online life. Human connection is often the missing link in today's socially distanced world, and I want to create my own serendipitous opportunities to meet new humans. This experiment focused on sharing a guide on how to Hook up custom domains to Gmail for free.

I experimented in public and transparently documented the whole process and outcome. In this post, I share my reflections from my experiment, what I learned, what my approach was and how you may be able to design serendipity in your life in a similar way.

You may call it a growth hack, but I feel it was more intentional than numbers, followers and data.

But first, let's start with this...

WTF is Designed Serendipity?

Serendipity - "An aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident."

For some years now, I've found the benefit of intentionally designing serendipitous moments of discovery into my life. Inserting more randomness within the algorithmically driven world we live in is something I enjoy. I see it more as a hobby - a bit of fun, and often surprise myself with the results.

My Approach

I'll often experiment with random number generators, ideas of "what if I try that in a different way?" and other whimsical approaches. It's not all random and unstructured though. I have a system for my experiments and observations, which I consolidate in my "Mission Control". It's a version of and ode to Ray Dalio's approach to systemising the inputs and outputs of decisions made in his life.

Mission Control includes:

• Observation Jar - Where I begin recording my observations
• Question Jar - Where I frame the observations in a question
• Problem Jar - Where I frame the questions in a problem statement
• Idea Jar - Where I collate the ideas sparked from all of the above
• Learning Jar - Where I collate the things and people I want to learn about based on the above
• Synthesised Output - Where I collate and share the synthesised output from my experiments, ideas and experiences

Through these areas, I capture a stream of consciousness. It's an ever evolving web of the inputs and outputs of my life - which includes what happens at Nodeunlock

By designing this structured approach, I can capture serendipity from multiple facets of my life, allowing me to observe, reflect, expand, learn and share them.

Breaking down the latest designed serendipity experiment

I start with a beginners mindset. I know nothing. I'm here to learn, grow and explore. That's an important first step to any experiment. As you never know how it'll turn out.

For my custom domains experiment, it all began with the question of:

"How do you even do that?"

I'd tried to find out how to hook up custom domains without buying an email hosting service for the last 2.5 years, since starting Nodeunlock.

A student and friend asked me how she could do this for her current project. So I decided to explore if it was possible.

A bit of searching, a lot of tinkering and playing around, and I got it to work for her custom domain and a free Gmail account. AWESOME!

That opened the path to hooking up about 20 of my custom domains I have lying around. Including, my current focus, Remote Gap Year.

Hooked up a couple of custom domain email addresses for the Remote Gap Year programme.

I decided to create a guide for this, because it'll be useful for the students and Young Professionals joining the Remote Gap Year programme. in a few weeks time. They'll be going through the full process of ideating, validating and launching an online business in 8-weeks and having a custom domain email address will make their individual project appear more professional and increase brand value (just as I did with the original student).

While I created the guide, I recorded my screen to create a timelapse of the process. This is a simple way to create content and opportunities to share your work and process with minimal extra overhead in time and effort. Do it more, humans!

Tip: I've used everything from Loom, to Quicktime, to Kap for this. They all have their benefits.

But, the BEST tool I've found for doing this is Hustl. A little known $15 Mac App by Javi Rameerez which:

• Records your screen on a specified interval (I use every 3 seconds).
• You hit record and forget about it.
• When you're done, stop the recording, and it spits out a beautiful timelapse, which is super small (we're talking under 50mb for an hour or so of recording) and instantly shareable.

That last part is why it's a winner. No more editing to speed up your screen recordings. Gmail Custom Domain Guide Timelapse.

Anyway, enough about that wizardry!

Sharing's Caring

Next, I wanted to share my discovery with other humans. It was a revelation to me, so I thought it might bring some value to others.

I can think of multiple use cases:

1. Students creating portfolio project
2. Entrepreneurs creating side projects
3. Small businesses looking to increase brand value
4. Professionals who want a custom domain email address for themselves

The list goes on...

LinkedIn

I share a lot on LinkedIn. Many believe it's just a job board. It's so much more than that. I use it as another way to design serendipitous interactions, meet new humans and create business opportunities for Nodeunlock.

I shared the above timelapse and my Call To Action (CTA) asked for them to comment if they'd like the guide, and I would DM them. I got what I thought was a pretty good response.

Minimal Viable Metrics (MVM) Check In:

• 538 Views
• 15 comments asking for the guide (15 were my replies)

See the original post here.

What's the deal with the DM's?

See here's the thing. This designed serendipity experiment wasn't about the guide. It was fundamentally about creating opportunities for human connection. Putting myself between the human and the information they wanted was the intentionally design element.

We talk about "onboarding" in the startup and business world a lot. But how are YOU onboarding humans into YOUR world?

Here's how I did it:

• Create something of value
• Put myself between the thing and the human
• Greet them and chat after we connect

Rationale for the "convoluted" approach

I wanted them to:

1. Comment on the post - this gains traction on LinkedIn per they (crap) algorithm
2. Think before they mindlessly clicked on a link and collected another digital artefact from the interwebs
3. See value in my share by having it hand delivered to them by myself
4. Begin a conversation - The essence of my experiment

It's a beautiful way to begin building a relationship, your personal brand and your reputation.

And it worked.

To name a few, I met:

• Learning Experience Designers
• Insurance Executives
• Graduates
• Research Specialists

It was really lovely to connect with these humans. Some new. Some existing and we were reconnecting. Designed Serendipity at its finest.

A reflection question for you: How do you "onboard" humans into your world?

Twitter

I decided to expand my experiment and post the timelapse on Twitter. Same information & approach. Consolidated copy to fit the Twitter-shpere's ethos.

Original Twitter Post

Initially a few humans got in touch. Mostly from my existing followers.

I shared the guide, we began a conversation, and...so did the continuation of my designed serendipity experiment.

It's this approach of openness and setting aside your ego which creates the space for yourself and others to connect.

A different approach

Not many purposefully put themselves between the thing they share and the humans on Twitter by asking them to DM.

One human asked about my strategy, so I explained it and we shared value within the exchange.

Twitter conversation about the DM strategy.

Indie Hackers

I've wanted join and be active in the Indie Hackers community for some time. I've heard lots of great things about it. Especially for connecting and sharing with like minded entrepreneurs and creators who are building awesome stuff.

I'd signed up a couple days earlier, and decided now was the time to dive in and create my first post. My intent was to give value from the very start, and I felt the results from LinkedIn, Twitter and my own discovery showed this could be the thing to do so.

I posted on IH, using similar information as LinkedIn & Twitter.

Original IH Post - Hook Up Custom Domains To Gmail For Free

I made a point of highlighting I was here to design serendipity, get to know the humans in the community and share our world.

The guide

My strategy for the guide was also intentional. I hosted it on Notion.

It contained:

1. An embedded 9-minute Loom video walkthrough
2. A 15-page step-by-step PDF guide
3. A Q&A section
4. A social proof section sharing thoughts & tips from humans who'd stepped through the process

Why was this intentional? Notion allowed me to create a wonderfully packaged guide, with all of the assets and content inside, which was easily shareable AND I could update it live.

My process was:

1. Send the humans who DM'd on Twitter a bit.ly link to the Notion guide
2. Ask them to let me know how they get on
3. Screenshot the results from them when they replied
4. Share that on the Notion page and on the Twitter thread

This whole approach allowed me to create further value instead of it being a static guide. it also allowed me to create social proof in real time.

Here are a few humans thoughts on the Designed Serendipity strategy:

The outcome

Well, it seems I whipped up a bit of a storm ha! It took about 5-10 minutes before comments started pouring in, humans were DM'ing me on Twitter and it's been non-stop since.

Minimal Viable Metrics (MVM) - Check In:

• Views: 8,888
• 53 comments (some of which are my responses)

Twitter was on fire...

MVM - Check In:

• Impressions: 5,416
• DM's ~250
• ~150 new followers

I've had some incredible conversations with some wonderful humans. Many were deeper than surface level, others maintained the surface level conversation.

Even though I clearly stated my intentions behind the post on IH, I managed to piss off a few people. This only shows me I'm moving in the right direction. Those aren't the type of humans I'm looking to attract and surround myself by, and I'm VERY glad they dedicated their time and energy to try and cancel out my message.

Most of my replies to people on IH have been downvoted and therefore hidden. Which only goes to show you that no corner of the internet, or any community is impervious to cancel culture.

Observations & what I learned

System Validation

I learned my designed serendipity approach is valuable not only online, but also in person. It's validated my system and shown me that you can design serendipity even in this algorithm driven world.

Surrounding Myself With The Right Humans

We're so used to having an abundance of information at our disposal through the internet, by placing yourself (temporarily) between the humans and the thing of value, you can attract the sort of humans you wish to interact with.

Transparency

By building in public and actively sharing your process, you create this level of transparency that many humans aren't used to. It creates trust and brings new opportunities for collaborating and connecting. It also makes some feel uncomfortable, and they will be vocal about their insecurities. You may engage on a light touch, but my energy is far more beneficially used by focusing on those who "get it".

Online Communities

Online communities offer a massive opportunity to expand your horizons and your growth. Finding them, offering value up front and sharing what you know is an exceptional strategy for building your audience and opportunities. Use these tools to find new use cases for experiments.

Experimentation

Since COVID19 began, I have made a point of experimenting and trying mo' shit. I made this t-shirt to remind myself of this and so far, it's brought me so many opportunities I hadn't had previously.

Communication Skills

Many lack the basic communication skills to be able to communicate effectively with humans online. I observed both human behaviour which was inherently all take take take. Many of the DM's were transactional in nature.

For the small percentage who approached interacting with me in a more human way, I'd love to thank you for your time and energy and for being part of my experiment. Truly beautiful humans!

I designed my Ask Better Questions digital product and online sessions to help others have better, more human conversations. I've seen the power in using well formed questions to approach different conversations and it'll perhaps help you do the same.

Doing things that don't scale

Scale, scale, scale. That's all everyone ever wants to do these days. Scale! Sure, it's incredibly important to focus on things that scale when you're building a business. However, by allowing yourself to intentionally engage in things that don't scale, you open up your world to more human opportunities.

Diversity

Out of the ~250 humans who DM'd me. No more than 5 were women. That observation struck me, and shows there's either a lack of trust to DM, or a lack of women entrepreneurs and makers. Either way, we should be encouraging women to experiment more for themselves, and celebrate it just as we do with men.

What I'd do differently

I would:

1. Not ask people to comment on Twitter for me to DM them. Many don't have their DM's open, and so it's better to just ask them to DM me.
2. Give the negative comments less energy - focus on the positive impact I'm creating.
3. State a timeframe for the experiment so people know what to expect

What's next

I'll continue to design serendipity in my life. As this experiment is now over, I've moved the guide over to Gumroad and allow people to download it for free, or if they feel I gave them value they can buy me a coffee.

This will do 2 things:

1. Allow anyone to access the guide if they wish.
2. Remove me out of the equation so I can get on with my other projects.

So there it is.

A full breakdown of my designed serendipity experiment. Some great conversations, a whole lotta lessons learned, and expanded my audience along the way.

I intentionally design my world, the interactions I have in it and the connections I create by doing things like this.

It works. The question is, are YOU ready for it!?

• What are your thoughts?
• What have I missed?
• Are you going to try something similar?