oglowo3

"Stay lean and stay alive." Reminds me of the PG article on "default alive."

Each time we barely pushed the needle when it came to growth. We dreamt of silver bullets, but we were only pushing out what amounted to paper bullets.

To be successful over the course of a career requires the application and accumulation of expertise. This assumes that for any given undertaking you either provide expertise or you are just a bystander. It’s the experts that are the drivers — an expertise that is gained from a curiosity, and a mindset of treating one’s craft very seriously. A startup is by nature a crash course in developing expertise. What makes startups unique is the sheer dearth of resources. This dearth of resources forces founders to rapidly adapt their skills to meet the demands of the project. ‘I didn’t know how to do x, so I just had to figure it out.’ This is what I regularly hear from successful founders, whereas ‘I couldn’t find someone to do X, so I had to reconsider whether to pursue it at all’ is a common refrain from unsuccessful founders.

I agree that he is thoughtful. His work on PTSD and psychedelics is interesting.

He’s a thoughtful person overall. He is an excellent interviewer. There’s also something to be said that creating a brand as large as he has takes some insight into marketing and understanding his audience.

A pre-requisite to automating and finding optimizations in the way Ferris describes, is to first be really good at what you do. Tim Ferris himself is good at what he does.

Startup graveyards are full of visionaries without expertise or the proper skills to execute.

It’s in exploring these unknown territories and facing the headwind of startup challenges that it becomes clear that the startup is merely a force of catalytic professional and character growth. With actual success of any given venture subject to the whim of outside forces, this growth is the non-monetary dividend that makes the experience priceless.

Elana Miller always knew she wanted to be a doctor. In 2013, the finish line was in sight. She couldn't wait to start this new chapter of her life practicing Integrative Psychiatry. Elana's life took a detour when in December of 2013, she went to the ER because she was having trouble breathing. The chest x-ray revealed a huge mass in her chest. She was diagnosed with Stage IV Acute Lymphoblastic Lymphoma, a rare and deadly type of cancer. She was 31 years old. She survived and rebuilt her life when in the fall of 2019, she relapsed. Listen to her inspiring story of courage and resilience. "I have reasons to live!"

Liked this line: "You have to wonder how many potential great entrepreneurs have been lost to these golden handcuffs. It’s the brain drain that has robbed the sciences of some of its best. So many world-class minds going to work on the transferring of money in banking. How many Elon Musks have we lost to this industry? How many innovative companies and ideas have not been created because of these golden handcuffs."

Thought this was an interesting question.

I don’t know much about the inner psychology of Elon Musk, but I wonder what would happen if he had started his career out of college working at an investment bank or a hedge fund. Even with his endless ambitions and truly disruptive ideas, would he forego the paycheck to pursue those ideas? I have no idea what the answer to that question is. However, I do see this dynamic of golden handcuffs preventing talented people from venturing out to work on their own projects all the time.

Liked this:

"Staying lean is in fact a critical piece to avoiding a startup tarpit. It is something I wished we focused more on. In fact, I would never raise money to propel more development again. I would raise money with a functioning product already developed. The alternative is just too risky. If you raise money and make no progress except in expanding your head count and list of features, there is no way to raise additional funding—you’re dead. Why would an investor invest in a company that hasn’t shown any ability to hit some meaningful metrics?"

This is really calming and helpful.

I stumbled on this today and thought it was an interesting approach.

One of my favorite quotes

To be successful over the course of a career requires the application and accumulation of expertise. This assumes that for any given undertaking you either provide expertise or you are just a bystander. It’s the experts that are the drivers—an expertise that is gained from a curiosity, and a mindset of treating one’s craft very seriously.

I don't think Tim Ferriss is the issue, nor is the 4 Hour Work Week. I think Tim Ferris chose the title for marketing purposes. I do however, agree that a lot of his followers are looking for too many shortcuts.

The product is adequate, because people are paying for it. It could be better, hence the feature requests.

The most important thing I always want to know is how they found me — unfortunately, for all of them it was via a search for a specific phrase. That doesn't help me at all: I am prominently featured for that search phrase.

No viral potential, this is a niche B2B product.

It seems I am one of those in the tarpit.

I think the problem for us engineering types is that there is so much bullshit around marketing, that it's offputting to us. That's the case for me at least. If I spend time/money on a feature, I know how long it will take, how much it will cost and when it will be ready. Compared to this, marketing seems like burning money with voodoo rituals.

It doesn't help that marketing efforts are only meaningfully measurable on a larger scale. If you're bootstrapping something yourself, you don't have 12k to spend on marketing this month. You have $300. It's easy to burn that $300 on adwords or facebook ads and get zero signups, with no meaningful data whatsoever.

The usual advice goes: hire a marketing expert. But how do I hire a marketing expert that a) isn't full of it, b) will even listen to me if my current budgets are in the hundreds of dollars?

I think the article is right on point, but I wish it pointed me to a way to deal with the marketing problem.

It seems I am one of those in the tarpit. I think the problem for us engineering types is that there is so much bullshit around marketing, that it's offputting to us. That's the case for me at least. If I spend time/money on a feature, I know how long it will take, how much it will cost and when it will be ready. Compared to this, marketing seems like burning money with voodoo rituals. It doesn't help that marketing efforts are only meaningfully measurable on a larger scale. If you're bootstrapping something yourself, you don't have 12k to spend on marketing this month. You have $300. It's easy to burn that $300 on adwords or facebook ads and get zero signups, with no meaningful data whatsoever. The usual advice goes: hire a marketing expert. But how do I hire a marketing expert that a) isn't full of it, b) will even listen to me if my current budgets are in the hundreds of dollars? I think the article is right on point, but I wish it pointed me to a way to deal with the marketing problem.

"Build an organization where everyone is out for themselves and you’ll build what Schopenhauer called a culture of individuals “fencing in the mirror.” When we are caught up in our own agendas and circumstances, we forget to live up to our obligations and commitments to each other. This is where dysfunction foments; this is how startups die and missions never get completed."

So true

Interesting read. Kind of like a mosaic identity.