siblings

Siblings and rivalry go hands in gloves when you have a small age difference. I was talking to my team about their siblings and fight. We all agreed that those fights on petty things. But we all fought.

With time as we grow old, we start becoming more responsible and respectable for each other.

We are living in an idiot world as we grow old. We get busy with our little world. We have time for everything other than talking to our loved ones, people we grow up seeing, idolizing and playing.

That mango eating competition, fighting for remote, sitting in front of a motorbike. Those moments are priceless.

crazy

Innovation requires little craziness. One has to be crazy to go against all the odds. A lot of it comes from inside, not to prove someone or for the status quo.

Mozart, Kalam, Beethoven, Ford, Picasso, Einstein, Jung, and living legend Elon Musk. Each has been crazy in their own ways. The world made fun of them, their innovation, and going against the tide aka default.

moments

There are moments when people would try to run over you. They will try to show you your worth, or what you are selling. They can do that because they are the decision-makers.

It does not mean whatever their opinion is about us is universal. Do not get disheartened, keep building, shipping, and delighting your believers. You cannot win or please everyone.

For how much is Lettuce sold? Fifty cents, for instance. If another, then, paying fifty cents, takes the Lettuce, and you, not paying it, go without them, don’t imagine that he has gained any advantage over you. For as he has the Lettuce, so you have the fifty cents which you did not give.

— Epictetus

Customer needs

Reading Customer Culture by Micheal D. Basch has been a refreshing read focused on building an organization, managing team, and delighting customers.

In one of the chapters, the author talks about customer needs. He defined the journey in these stages. These are related to his experience in logistics service, as the book revolves around FedEx.

http://www.stoicdoodler.com/customer-needs/

Physical
Will my goods be shipped?

Informational
Where is the package at any instance of the shipping journey? Can I track it at any moment of the shipping journey?

Emotional
The package is going to be delivered on time. It gives me peace of mind.

Spiritual
I can associate with the brand. It is part of who I am as a person.

Each startup is solving a unique challenge. Knowing customer needs help in delighting our customers.

Cats or Dogs

The success of any enterprise product depends on the team it caters. These teams have their working comfort. Some teams work like a herd of dogs, all in together. Success is for everyone resulting in shaping the organization.

Some teams like to work as a herd of cats. Each is unique, in its own way of doing things in silos. It is like a pack tied together. Each has their own opinions and incentives. One heavy hitter defines success for the organization.

Selling to teams with the persona of dogs is always better than that of cats. No solution can please a herd if they are not in it together.

buzzwords

Silence does not mean a sense of fear or some void. During the pandemic, I had the opportunity to interact with many founders. For many of them, nothing has changed because they have been running the business on simple fundamentals. 

Go to social media to learn about mambo jumbos around SaaS metrics. 

When key should be:

  1.  Customers’ and employees’ happiness.
  2.  Check on income with expenditure.  

Spending money on marketing, selling product underprice with investors money is not a growth hack. It is not going to end well for the founders or team.

lazy

Do only we humans fight with our brains? Is our brain lazy?

The brain takes shortcuts and avoids high cognitive tasks. Is it because of our past? When we were hunter-gathers, be alive being the default?

Is this reason we worry before even starting anything? The constant reminders of what we can not do?

Can acquiring good habits and affirmation help?

observation

What happened to our observation skills? We surrendered it to click through advertisement. Or we moved to the virtual world and raising cattle?

Einstein got a clue about apple while being an idler, lazing around and observing.

Wright brothers spent many days watching birds flying and observing.

Once we start observing surroundings we become more aware of the present. We start seeing things as they are instead of dreaming.

Individuality

Individuality has disappeared, we are all in the business of copying be it a persona, work, or product idea.

In random conversation, we get to hear about thought leaders et all. How every entrepreneur looks at the success of X and wants to become like them. Is it because copying, cloning is easy?

We have forgotten to find who we are and all sudden got into a race of becoming like X/Y.

Our education system talks about excelling in a career, getting good marks. What about acquiring self-knowledge or self-inquiry?

We see the glowing successful face of personas we want to copy. We forget their hard work, journey, sweat, and stress.

The virtue of self-knowledge needs more love. We live in a fast-paced world. Does this mean we should outsource our consciousness?