Godin graduated from Tufts University in 1989 with a degree in computer science and philosophy. Godin earned his MBA in marketing from Stanford Business School. From 1983 to 1986, he worked as a brand manager at Spinnaker Software. For a time Godin commuted every week between California and Boston both to do his new job and to complete his MBA.

After leaving Spinnaker Software in 1986, Godin became a book packager. It was in the same offices that Godin met Mark Hurst and founded Yoyodyne. After a few years Godin sold the book packaging business to his employees and focused his efforts on Yoyodyne, one of the first online marketing companies. It was with Yoyodyne that Godin came up with the concept of permission marketing. For a period of time, Godin served as a columnist for Fast Company

Godin and his wife Helene now live in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.

First, the end of the "TV-Industrial complex" means that marketers no longer have the power to command the attention of anyone they choose, whenever they choose. Second, in a marketplace in which consumers have more power, marketers must show more respect; this means no spam, no deceit and a bias for keeping promises. Finally, Godin asserts that the only way to spread the word about an idea is for that idea to earn the buzz by being remarkable. Godin refers to those who spread these ideas as "Sneezers", and to the spreading idea as an "IdeaVirus." He calls a remarkable product or service a purple cow. Yahoo! currently has a model of a purple cow in the lobby of its Sunnyvale campus.

Advertisements on television and radio are classified as 'interruption marketing' which interrupt the customer while they are doing something of their preference. Godin introduced the concept of "permission marketing" where the business provides something "anticipated, personal, and relevant".

Godin's introduction of only a few concepts per book (e.g. "sneezers" in Purple Cow) or per lecture (see TED [1]) gives an easy style that lends itself to audio books (which he reads himself).

Spinnaker Software

Godin worked as a brand manager for Spinnaker Software.

Seth Godin Productions

In 1986, Godin used $20,000 in savings to found Seth Godin Productions, primarily a book packaging business, out of a studio apartment in New York City.. Seth Godin Productions published a variety of books written both by Godin and other authors. Seth Godin Productions was best known for publishing the Beardstown Ladies investment guide.

Yoyodyne

In 1995, Godin launched Yoyodyne which used contests, online games, and scavenger hunts to market companies to participating users. In August, 1996, venture-capital firm Flatiron Partners invested $4 million in Yoyodyne in return for a 20% stake. The site gained significant traction, with over one million viewers visiting the site, and companies like America Online, American Express, H&R Block, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, Sony Music, Sprint, and Volvo using its services.

At Yoyodyne, Godin developed the principle of permission marketing and authored Permission Marketing: Turning strangers into friends and friends into customers.

In 1998, Godin sold Yoyodyne to Yahoo! for $30 million and became Yahoo's vice president of direct marketing, a position he held until 2000.

Squidoo

In March 2006, Godin launched Squidoo, a community website allowing users to create pages (called "lenses") for subjects of interest. The site donates 5% of the profits to charity, and 50% to the lensmasters. Godin and Squidoo have been profiled on CNN and the Washington Post. The site was given top prize in SXSW's community/wiki category. As of July 2008, Squidoo is one of the 500 most visited sites in the world.

ChangeThis

Godin developed the idea for ChangeThis, a website aimed at spreading ideas through PDF files. In the summer of 2004, Godin hired five interns...Amit Gupta, Catherine Hickey, Noah Weiss, Phoebe Espiritu and Michelle Sriwongtong...to build and develop the website. The website went live on August 14, 2004. Tom Peters, Chris Anderson, and Guy Kawasaki all had manifestos featured on ChangeThis. In July 2005, ChangeThis was turned over to 800-CEO-READ, the leading distributor of business literature in the United States.

Six Month Alternative MBA Program

In December 2008, Godin announced in a blog post that he would be offering a six month alternative MBA program at his office in Hastings on Hudson, NY. 48,000 people looked at the post and 340 applied. He invited 27 applicants to his office for a group interview. They spent two hours interviewing one another. After co-mingling, they and Godin together wrote down the names of their favorite candidates. Three weeks later the chosen 9 showed up at Godin's office. The participants were Emily Kate Boyd, Jon Dale, Rebecca Goldstein, Ishita Gupta, Clay Hebert, Alex Krupp, Susan Lewis, Al Pittampalli and Allan Young. This group graduated in July 2009.

Godin is the author of 11 books; his Free Prize Inside was a Forbes Business Book of the Year in 2004, in its first two years of release, Purple Cow sold over 150,000 copies in more than 23 printings. The Dip was a Business Week and New York Times bestseller. And Godin has called his free ebook Unleashing the Ideavirus the most "popular ebook ever written". In the early 1990s he created a ten book series for children titled Worlds of Power, which was written by various writers. In each the plot of a single video game was told in a novelized form.

Beginning with Permission Marketing, Godin uses the concepts discussed in the books to promote the book. For Permission Marketing, Godin gave 1/3rd of the book away for free to anyone who sent an e-mail. For Unleashing the Ideavirus, Godin released the entire eBook on the internet for free, which led to eventual publishing deals in 41 countries and a public speaking career. For Purple Cow, Godin crated a milk carton container for the book which generated attention from work colleagues. For Tribes, Godin launched an exclusive online community for the first 3000 people who pre-ordered the book.

Bibliography

• Book online - Detailing the idea of Viral marketing

Godin's blog, is ranked in the AdAge Power 150 as the #1 marketing blog out of 976 tracked.