Month: July 2020

An entrepreneur’s first idea rarely pans out. It’s a stab in the dark, aimed in a direction that might hold opportunity. The market may be there, but it’s not being listened to. Entrepreneurs need to become market therapists to succeed.

A good therapist won’t go into a relationship assuming they know the client’s problems. Their hunches can inform where to dig in, but they never see the whole story at the beginning. It takes multiple sessions to get to the heart of the issue.

An entrepreneur starts with a good hunch. They have their idea, and they know generally where they need to focus. But they must listen to the market to fully understand its problems. 

Entrepreneurs should never assume that they know the full scope of the problem going in. What is the market saying that others aren’t hearing?

Starting a big project is tricky. I usually have some sense of what needs to be done, but my time estimates tend to be… a little off. There’s one thing worse than underestimating the time it’ll take: doing unnecessary work. I hate getting traction on a project only to realize that a bunch of work was wasted.

There’s a trick that often works for me: Rescope the project to complete it within the next week. Even when unrealistic, trying to apply that tight constraint can get you to notice things you wouldn’t otherwise. It forces me to consider what is absolutely necessary and what can be skipped. It forces me to spend one of my days planning so I know exactly what I need to execute.

Parkinson’s Law states that a project takes as much time as you allow it. Once in a while, try allowing much less time than you think is necessary.

When the automobile was first released, people referred to them as horseless carriages. The driver would sit at the same height as on a carriage, even though there was no horse to see over.

New technology has far broader implications than an initial implementation suggests. Florent Crivello proposes that every new technology goes through this “valley of mismatch”:

It’s becoming more widespread, but people are still using it under the logic of the old paradigm

Software, the Tough Tomato Principle, and the Great Weirdening of the World

There used to be huge printed directories of local businesses (Yellow Pages). Innovators carried the same idea to the internet (Yahoo). It took a while to discover the full information indexing potential of computers (Google). 

What valleys of mismatch do you see around you? There may be some Tortoises crawling through them as we speak.

Hares are quick. They love the thrill of racing their competition. They move fast and stay lean. But their greatest strength is also their weakness. Hares act first and ask questions later. Sometimes, their speed gets the best of them and they’re forced to learn from their mistakes.

Tortoises are slow. They move mindfully, thinking through each step before they take it. Tortoises see much further ahead than the hares; they know exactly where they’re going. They carefully consider each move but act decisively. A tortoise rarely retraces its steps ⏤ one wrong turn can spell disaster.

Sometimes it pays to be a hare, such as Facebook and Alphabet. Other times, it pays to be a tortoise, like Apple and Tesla.

Trying to be both at once rarely turns out well.

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