koolhead17
It is humankind vs invisible virus, who would have pictured world war 3. This time around we don’t have two camps fighting for superiority or resources. This time it is different, it is about our survival.
War and corona are alike. They both take lives and wealth. Both make the global economy paralyzed.
A war that requires no ammunition but doctors and precautions.
After crossing 30 I have realized a few things matter in life. Most important being building relationships. I can count on my fingers the number of people I have around me whom I can bank on when am dying.
Does this mean I am stopping my adventure of connecting with more people? Nope, on average, I interact with one or two new people every day. Some stick by, teach me and make me a better and to some I am of some help.
This urge to build new relationships and learning, sharing is what keeps me going. Relationships guaranteed me in getting all my past jobs, hiring I have done currently and mentors who are shaping me in becoming better.
Any relationship requires trust, love, care and the urge to give selflessly. We have to shed our capitalist glasses and know others, their imperfection and relate with them. We have to give more be it love, respect, care.
The more and more I am drowning inside books am realizing about the authors who are reaping $$ out of buzzwords.
Mental model, a cure for stress, leadership, becoming successful, a winner in negotiation. These are the topics you will find the topic of the bestsellers. My limited learning suggests most of these are puff pieces.
I ended up going back and reading history, philosophy, and autobiography.
We, humans, are no machine that requires if-else decision-making capability. We like to be trusted, believed and get loved. Every relationship and handshake happens in a win-win situation.
If you are filling your house selves buying books you are wasting money.
In a democracy, it is perfectly alright to question our rulers. What we should not do is mud sledding. Instead of working with the government in avoiding the spread of the corona outbreak, a lot of many folks were making fun of government measures.
Running a small half dozen team with many personas can be challenging at times, here we have our government working towards 1.5 billion population. It requires our support not to make a mockery.
Life exists beyond Twitter, Facebook, and real life is on the streets worried/vulnerable looking for food and security.
The interconnected world we are living in has one side effect: spreading of propaganda. We a keyboard away from spreading lies, false information. With Corona turning into a pandemic, people are blaming China. I am not sure what is the reality, I am sure in future we will find out. In this tough time, it is more about taking precautions and helping civilians.
Social media has turned into a war machine and politicians from developed counties are acting like scumbags while smaller nations are taking utter precautions.
Spreading lies, blaming is only going to spread hatred and we should avoid it.
This is the time when you will be tested as a leader. This is a time when every single decision of yours will define the leadership for the future. This is the time when your decision can make or break someone’s life and belief. This is the time when you are going to be looked upon or down.
Act wisely, act rationally and act honestly. Time flies but relationship survives for eternity. Your virtues and mental models are up for a test.
At any decision put people in the center. People who were with you in tough times, those who believed in you when you were nothing.
People should get priority over profit.
I have been told that enterprise sales take months to years in closing. But if the ticket size is small, decisions are taken quickly. Some of my learning from my mistakes has been simple.
In the end, nobody likes to get their ass on fire. So you have to comfort your customers in whatever it takes. But do not delay in closing else your competitor will sell them.
As a founder, solving a problem one has to find early adopters. These are people who will use your product from day 0, even when your product is broken or half baked.
These early adopters come in two categories.
Those who like and care for you.
You will find many well-wishers who will come as early adopters out of courtesy or because they like you. You have to avoid such people, they care about you hence they are with you on this journey. They might not be having pain enough to use your product when it is ready. They will not pay for your product.
Those who have got pain and are looking for painkillers
Focus on people who have pain and are even willing to pay token money while you are developing the product. This will ensure you are building a product for paid customers.
I wish someone had given a copy of this book: the mom test, when I was starting up. It would have saved 1000 odd hours which as a team we consumed in meetings and shipping features.
As an early-stage company and a first-time founder, I have gone through many cycles. Sometimes misread what customer is saying irrespective of buying or feature requests.
If you or your friend is starting his own, give them a copy of this book. The book is all about asking the right questions from potential customers, understanding pain before writing a line of code.
We get so blinded with a few sets of conversations that we end up assuming a pain worth solving when there is none.
This book is going to be complementary with Jobs To be done book: when coffee kale compete.
As an early-stage startup building product from the ground up, please prioritize features early on. It is a feature creep that will kill you before the starvation of funds.
It is very easy to fall for users feedback, compliment as an ego boost. We rally behind every other request we get from our users. We spend months building it and then we realize it has not moved the needle.
Every feature request from a user has to be thought through deeply. It should be vetted, all scenarios should be measured. Do not run after your tech team in building features a user request.
Avoid falling for feature crap and burning, killing your company. Put priority, understand users’ pain and only if it is worth building think of building it.