Ariadne's Thread
How Greek mythology reminds us we're in the same loop as our ancestors thousands of years ago.
I came across a Greek myth in Paulo Coelho’s novel The Zahir this weekend:
One of heroes from Greek myth, Theseus, had to fight the evil Minotaur in its maze-like lair called the Labyrinth. Ariadne, Theseus’s love, gave him a thread which he unspooled from the entrance to make his way out after defeating the Minotaur.
Theseus makes it out alive only because of Ariadne’s thread. Otherwise he would have died in the Labyrinth, despite killing the Minotaur…Though he promptly ditches Ariadne after. Spoiler.
We’re constantly moving from one minotaur to another in our daily lives - imagining each obstacle more beastly and daunting than the last. While forgetting that we all have our own Ariadne, who tied an invisible thread to us before we even entered the Labyrinth at birth.
Even if we forget the thread is there and can’t see it, it exists. Binding us to where we began, and what our greater mission is
.
Before I started Conduit, I spent half a year devouring product management and startup books. Assuming there had to be a quantitative formula for success, that was just on the next page. Without a formal product management background, I thought owning a PM-role in the future company would be my non-technical way to contribute.
Two years in, I realize how we missed subtle threads. I also couldn’t tell you how many, since we’re still in the dark of the Labyrinth.
Last week’s experiment to improve Steam pages could be one of those threads. We identified something which applies to every game developer - optimizing their store page, which is the top organic discovery channel for games.
Of the developers we serviced, more than half replied within 24 hours with a positive reply. Here’s one:
Just wow! This is a great job and a special thanks from me for the gifs, I have already added and posted the text and gifs
Thank you so much for the work from me and all the players!
I hope for further cooperation with the rest of the games, there will be many of them, and I am also considering the possibility of doing PR through social networks in the future.
We’re leaving this experiment open until the end of October - sign up here if you' want your Steam page optimized for free.
This week we’re focusing on what we do best - finding the best businesses to connect our partners to. More on this next week and how to sign up.