entrepreneurship
Have you ever been to a party or gathering and been seated next to someone who just spends the whole night talking about themselves? It gets old pretty fast. You keep giving half-hearted smiles and polite nods but your mind is elsewhere, and that exit sign is calling your name. Similarly, most advertising by small businesses is inwardly focused. Instead of speaking to the needs and problems of the prospect, it is focused on self-aggrandizement. The prominent logo and company name, the laundry list of services, the claims of being the leading provider of that product or service. All of these things are shouting, “Look at me!” Unfortunately, you’re in a crowded market, and with everyone shouting “look at me!” at the same time, it just becomes background noise. By contrast, direct response marketing focuses heavily on the needs, thoughts, and emotions of the target market. By doing this, you enter the conversation already going on in the mind of your ideal prospect. You will resonate at a deeper level with your prospect, and your ad will stand out from 99% of other ads that are just shouting and talking about themselves. (Location 659)
S/o any AI business in 2023, any web3 business in 2022. TBH, I don't want AI anywhere near your business name. And if your product is good, it should be focused on the customer's use of it, not it's vortex of self reference.
Wild that the tragedy of the commons makes business more about gospel than practice (202212170120, 202212182001)
Early-stage companies are obsessively focused on growth,[1] usually at the expense of retention. That methodology is backwards, because retention should be the north-star metric of any early-stage product. If someone builds a great product that users keep coming back to, it will be easy to figure out how to grow it (raise money, spend money on acquiring users, ask users to share it, etc.) (Location 1733)
Marketing a product with a low NPS is essentially saying to potential customers, “Hey, my product sucks, come check it out.” (Location 1738)
Ironically, this is one the core tactics of growing slowly. It's finding a formula that works, and then deeply questioning if adding new processes will cause more harm than good.
Perfect is the enemy of shipped. Creating the perfect feature indicates making lots of assumptions without gathering user feedback and data, and will take significantly more time. Are you continuing to work on features that are polished enough to put in front of a few customers now and get feedback? (Location 749)
I read this book before building Stenography, and have learned a lot about the harsh reality of creating a production ready product for other people to use.
This advice is easier said than done, especially when the few (patient) customers will lie to your face or not know what they want.
If you just avoid mentioning your idea, you automatically start asking better questions. Doing this is the easiest (and biggest) improvement you can make to your customer conversations. Here are 3 simple rules to help you. They are collectively called (drumroll) The Mom Test: The Mom Test: Talk about their life instead of your idea Ask about specifics in the past instead of generics or opinions about the future Talk less and listen more (Location 144)
#ExplosiveGrowthTip 4: First-mover advantage is useless if the timing isn’t right. Have you thought about ideas, products, or features that failed in the past—simply due to being too early—that may work now? (Location 365)
If you're not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late
Reid Hoffman
kairos (Ancient Greek: καιρός) is an ancient Greek word meaning 'the right, critical, or opportune moment'. In modern Greek, kairos also means 'weather' or 'time'.
It is one of two words that the ancient Greeks had for 'time'; the other being chronos (χρόνος). Whereas the latter refers to chronological or sequential time, kairos signifies a proper or opportune time for action. In this sense, while chronos is quantitative, kairos has a qualitative, permanent nature.The plural, kairoi (καιροί) means 'the times'. Kairos is a term, idea, and practice that has been applied in several fields including classical rhetoric, modern rhetoric, digital media, Christian theology, and science.
Wikipedia
Sometimes the right time is bad. Sometimes unlimited growth… is bad.
A positive adaption can have catastrophic impact for a species 202301021404
#ExplosiveGrowthTip 1: Find something that people are doing inefficiently and create a solution that makes it substantially easier (ten times easier) to achieve the same result. Does your product accomplish this? (Location 260)
Make software that automates the tedium, and highlights the dopamine and serotonin hits. The Joys of Micro Publishing
The previous chapter presented diagrams illustrating that most people work for everyone but themselves. They work first for the owners of the company, then for the government through taxes, and finally for the bank that owns their mortgage. (Location 1143)
After college, many educated young Americans finds themselves in need of a job and a purpose. These are two different things but employers have successfully convinced us that they are one in the same. Once that link is formalized, one has a hard time separating themselves from their identity and can put themself in a state of overwork for an organization that doesn't care about them.
One of the reason I like micropublishing is that it feels like working for myself and my curiosity! 202212181947
For example, had I continued with my flying career, I would have sought a company that had a strong pilots union. Why? Because my life would be dedicated to learning a skill that was valuable in only one industry. If I were pushed out of that industry, my life’s skills would not be as valuable to another industry. (Location 1948)
Cross industry skills (as of 2023):
- coding
- writing
- judgement
- public speaking
- managing
- origination and organization of knowledge
NB: Medical skills are cross functional (any person anywhere could have a heart attack or w/e), except you can't practice without very specific circumstances
Your competition is not better. Even if your competitor has 1000 employees, that doesn't make them better, they more likely work a lot slower and less efficient than a smaller company. Also, a big company is more likely to ruin a perfectly good product trying too hard to squeeze profits. (View Highlight)
All companies play out tragedy of the commons dramas in real time. Hopefully leadership at any organization is aware of their personal neuropathies in relation to their culture and market.