Notices by Logan Dice (logandice@mastodon.social), page 11

“If you find yourself in a fair fight, you didn’t plan your mission properly.”
—Colonel David Hackworth

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe after I get bored with just winning I’ll try that ‘fair’ thing.”
- HPJEV

1:9:90 Rule of Internet Culture

On any platform:
- 1% of people create new content.
- 9% of people contribute or provide feedback on content.
- 90% of people are lurkers and just consume the content.

This means that:
- Any platform will have a small committed "power" user base who will make up the bulk of your content.
- In order to reach 90% of the people all you need to do is target the core influencers, and the information will disseminate to everyone else.

Evaluating your market:

- Urgency - how badly do people need this?
- Market size - how many total potential customers are there?
- Pricing - how much would a typical customer be willing to spend?
- Customer acquisition cost - how much will it cost to generate a sale?
- Competitive advantage - do you have an unfair advantage unique to you?
- Speed to Market - how quickly can you create something to sell?
- Upfront investment - how much will you have to invest before your first sale?

#startup

Optimize behaviors, not outcomes.

You can directly control the actions you take, but not the results they lead to.

Reward yourself based on taking the right action, use outcomes as analytics to learn from.

Confusing the two leads to anxiety, frustration, and beating yourself up over things you can't change.

Don't burn your mental energy on things outside of your circle of control, instead - try to spend all of it on taking actionable steps.

#startup #productivity #rationality

4 types of innovation:

1. Basic research - making fundamental scientific discoveries.
(Deep Learning, Blockchain)

2. Breakthrough innovation - applying fundamental discoveries and thinking from first principles to engineer new products. (Tesla, SpaceX)

3. Disruptive innovation - finding new applications and business models.
(Uber, YCombinator)

4. Sustaining innovation - gradually improving what already exists, making it better/cheaper. Solving clear problems using preexisting skillsets.

Mental models are thinking tools that you can learn (or develop) and apply to many situations to make optimal decisions.

Everything is driven by cause-effect relationships. You can deliberately look for common patterns, learn to recognize situations where you can apply a familiar model, and use it to achieve optimal results.

Intentionally expand your mental toolbox, build a “latticework” of mental models that work well. It will help you to efficiently reason about the world and solve problems.

Interview questions to ask your users:

- What is the primary benefit you have received from using this product?

- Have you recommended it to anyone else? If yes, how did you describe it?

- Who do you think would benefit most from it?

- How can we improve it to better meet your needs?

- How disappointed would you be if this product no longer existed tomorrow?

- What would you use instead if it were no longer available?

Instead of focusing on the next big thing, consider focusing on things that won't change. Focus on substance instead of fashion.

Amazon focuses on fast shipping and affordable prices, because there's no way that in 20 years people will wish shipping was slower or prices were higher, this focus will always give them an advantage.

37signals focus on speed, simplicity, ease of use, and clarity.

Fashion fades away. When you focus on fundamental things your product will never go out of style.

Helpful framework for coming up with product ideas.

Identify:
- Market weakness - What are people frustrated about?
- Internal Strengths - what are you good at and passionate about?
- Adjacent Possibility - what has recently become possible thanks to new technology?

Find the overlap:
1. Is there some problem you have an aptitude for fixing?
2. How can brand new tech fix some old problem?
3. What new tech can you be good at?
4. How can new tech you're passionate about fix an old problem?

A simple feedback loop for achieving goals:

- Identify your goal based on your values, break it down into steps, and start pursuing it

- Encounter a problem on your path, diagnose it's root cause, and design a plan to solve it

- Execute the plan, see the feedback from the world, use it to update your model of the world and your plan

Repeat facing and solving problems, each solution taking you a step further.

More reasons not to take on venture capital:

- Investors need their returns within 3-5 years, so rushing to sale/IPO becomes more important than building a long-term quality business.

- You're just getting started and you have no leverage, so you'll get a bad deal.

- You end up caring about your investors interests more than you care about customers.

- Raising money is slow, uncertain, and very distracting. It takes months of effort, a time better spent building a great product.