How To Learn Anything From Anyone. The Million Dollar Question.

I was ready. Seriously, really ready. Pen and paper in hand, on the edge of my seat.I knew that the commercial break would soon be over, and I prepared myself. I saw him first, then heard his voice. Regis Philbin jumped right in and launched into the first qualifying question. The almighty question that would determine my fate to pretend like I was actually on the show to try to become a millionaire.“Put the following races in order according to their length, from the shortest to the longest: A. Iditarod Dog Sled Race B.Tour de France C. London Marathon D. Indianapolis 500”Crap, this was a tough one, I thought quickly to myself. I could feel my heartbeat increase and my brain scrambling to connect the dots. And just when I -“And the answer in the correct order…”Damn!I hadn’t even written my answer down before the time was up. I had to come to terms with the fact that once again, I was not the fastest pretend contestant to win a spot in the chair at the center of the stage. I was not going to have a chance to pretend that I could answer the 15 questions that would score me a million bucks.Even though the show “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” is long gone, there’s a special place in my heart for it. My favorite part was the excitement when the contestants used their “Phone-a-Friend” lifeline. If you are too young to know what I’m talking about, the show asked 15 questions with increasing amounts of money on the line. Each contestant got three lifelines: They could have two wrong answers eliminated (giving them a 50/50 chance), they could poll the audience, or (my favorite), they could “Phone-a-Friend” and ask for help.I always wished that if someone I knew was on the show, and they had a question worth a million dollars, they would call me. Well...only if I knew the answer.A lot has changed since the show left the air, but two things are still around: 1. The existence of million dollar questions and 2. The importance of the “Phone-a-Friend” lifeline to have your million dollar questions answered.One aspiring entrepreneur, Kyu Lee, is taking a crack at making a virtual “Phone-A-Friend” lifeline for people who have their own million dollar questions and want to call experts who have the highest chance of helping them get answers.May I introduce: Wiselike.com, a website that addresses the problem of sharing people’s valuable knowledge online by letting those who want to brand themselves as leaders in their professional space answer questions about topics within their expertise.From bestselling authors and Google product managers, to dinosaur hunters and Yale professors, the site boasts an impressive and eclectic list of individuals actively answering lifeline questions.You can follow a number of influencers, like Guy Kawasaki, who answers questions very candidly. His reply to an inquiry about how to “do what he does” was to “Work for 30 years. Help people without requiring reciprocation. Find something you love. It's easy to do what I do.”The honesty that I found in browsing through various answers was refreshing, to say the least.With an easy interface and subtle steps in creating your own page, the user experience was intuitive. You can check out my page at https://wiselike.com/ryan-foland and feel free to ask away!After seeing Wiselike pop up in a few social media feeds, and being referred to the site by a handful of my influencer friends, I was curious to learn more about what inspired the site. In sitting down with Kyu, I was able to get him to answer some of my questions.What was your Eureka moment?I used to be a career counselor in college and through that experience, I realized that most people have ambition to do something great. However, most don't reach their career goals — not necessarily because of a lack of intellect or drive, but because they don't have the right resources or information. I thought this was incredibly saddening and started to wonder what the world would look like if anyone could get information about anything. Then I realized that the only way to achieve that was by allowing people to share the resources, knowledge, and information. That’s how Wiselike was born. We want anyone to be able to learn anything from anyone.How connected are you with your users?Our team is very connected with them. We talk to them on a daily basis because that is the only way we know what about our product is working and not working. Lean Startup is something we definitely try to employ. You've got to learn and iterate and learn and iterate. That's the only way to build a successful business.How do you distinguish yourself as being different than Quora?Quora is a great platform, but I do believe there is a fundamental limitation in their platform. Quora is a website where you can ask the entire community a question, where Wiselike is a place where you ask one person a question. This one-to-one interaction allows for more targeted questions, and as a result, helps to make less noise in questions that are answered.How have you handled the problem of a double sided market?We’ve found out that we need to convince people of the value of having a Wiselike page. With a Wiselike page, you can build your brand and engage with your peers and even build a following. Once we can convince someone of this, the creator of the page is incentivized to want to share their page to get more questions.Next time you have a burning lifeline question that you want answered, give Wiselike a try: find someone you trust could give a good answer, and ask away.#lifeline