Category: entrepreneurship

forgot what you asked for

The amazing feeling immediately after you get what you asked for — emphasis on immediately.

When people ask to be famous, subsequently do everything to chase their goal, and eventually end up as a star, they can suffer tremendously. The celebrity can no longer speak freely. Every statement has to be pre-approved by a manager or publisher. To name one of the undoubtedly many downsides.

A small price to pay? When we ask for something, we usually don’t take secondary effects into account.

Think the ask (or desire) you’re manifesting completely through. Remember that a bump in the road today might be a secondary effect of something you asked for a long time ago.

third to market

Sometimes third ends up first.

The first batch of search engines and social media sites is no longer around. The same goes for the second batch.

It’s almost as if two sacrificial lambs have to precede the actual winner. Maybe the third time really is a charm?

first progress

Throughout the history of humanity, progress wasn’t always perceived as a good thing. Now it seems progress is the way forward. Health and defense, among many other domains, appear to need innovation daily. Either to push a nation forward or to beat adversaries in a race towards a certain goal.

Some cultures are inherently more progressive than others. Yet, even in forward-thinking places, innovation is sometimes hindered in an attempt to maintain the status quo.

There is a first time for everything. There has to be.

Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson, among many others, helped overcome discrimination at NASA as women and as African Americans. They helped the United States of America succeed in the space race. Paving the way for others to follow in their footsteps.

Here is to the pioneers who take the punches and let ridicule roll off their backs.

frustration barrel

Don’t let the barrel of frustration overflow. That’s one of the first principles I learned during a (web) accessibility class, part of ux (user experience) course, years ago.

Imagine spending time on a slow website that a machine has translated, that only works in one particular browser, unoptimized for mobile, a search function in a place where you’d never expect it… Every issue along the way adds frustrations to the proverbial barrel until it’s full.

When the barrel overflows, we quit trying and potentially have an emotional reaction — not the good kind — to boot.

Customers’ barrels of frustration aren’t necessarily empty when they start making use of your product. Maybe, due to lack of sleep, their barrel can only hold two additional drops of frustration.

Remove all frustrating hurdles so your customer can get the most out of using your product or service. Keeping their barrels in check in the process.

permanence decline

It’s not like it’s written in stone (anymore). At one point, things were actually written in stone or chiseled in clay, for that matter. Today, undoing is just a keyboard shortcut away.

Making a typo while writing in stone is irritating. Since writings in stone preserve relatively well, you’d better have a solid understanding of what you want to relay before putting pen to paper, or should I say, hammer to tablet.

Today, stories disappear. Encrypted messages can be seen once, provided they’re not screenshotted. The ability, and more importantly, the speed with which we can publish, recall, delete, edit items is bonkers.

That’s not a bad thing. It provides us with the possibility to do more testing. “Build, measure, learn,” the foundation for lean business, encourages us to launch experiments (early), analyze the impact and reiterate. Significantly harder to do with writings in stone.

A strategy no longer has to be crystal-clear upfront. Publish early, revisit.

manual override

Sometimes you have to ignore the warning signs. I imagine the instrument panel in an airplane performing a zero-gravity flight lights up like a Christmas tree. Yet, the pilots have to disregard the signals to perform the stunt.

Not for long, though. The warning signs are there for a reason.
Enabling a company for (hyper) growth is bound to make the dashboard light up. If you don’t have a dashboard, make one first where you track your KPI’s.

Growing is natural. Growing super fast isn’t. Ignoring the warning lights is allowed, but only temporary.

integrity in the end

Companies’ lifespans are becoming increasingly shorter. Beating this statistic is tough. Partly due to more and more companies being founded, and the battle for customers is rough.

Growth is a very long-term, never-ending process. If you’re in it for the long haul, working on — and investing in — growth is a daily activity.
Integrity is a crucial asset in this struggle. Not just a hollow word being carved into marble in your skyscraper lobby, actual, end-game integrity.

It starts with you, your first hire, your first team. Emphasize integrity from a company culture’s point of view. If not, growth and longevity will be compromised.

research now develop later

Twenty percent. That’s how much companies ideally invest in research & development. Meaning, twenty percent of employees’ time should be spent researching and developing ideas.

Twenty percent is something most companies can only dream of. Hence, they often don’t invest in r&d at all.

Even if twenty percent isn’t an option, introduce research & development as a mindset, rather sooner than late. To (re)introduce r&d at a later point becomes increasingly difficult. Start early. Something is better than nothing.

trench delegation

A piece of advice that’s both right and wrong; to run a successful business, you must learn how to delegate.

Good advice because; there are only twenty-four hours in a day, and together we can achieve much more than alone.

Bad advice because; ceo’s can’t delegate getting in the trenches (in the beginning). Outsource too early, and you’ll have no idea how a certain process works. Delegate accounting entirely, and you won’t know how money actually flows in- and outside your company.

Start delegating after these two conditions are met, in this particular order. First, establish a firm understanding of the task at hand. Second, you’re able to attach KPI’s to the job(s) to be done.

begin peak-end

This morning, I underwent a gastroscopy. I was really looking forward to it. Am I a masochist? I don’t think so. The gastroscopy peaked my interest because it’s often referred to in psychological studies. The doctor was visibly confused with my enthusiasm while scheduling the procedure.

Generally, a gastroscopy is not a pleasant experience. The peak-end rule states that people judge an experience by its peak(s) and how it ends. Meaning, people don’t remember things based on the average of an experience. What sticks is the highs, the lows, especially towards the end.

Interestingly, the peak-end rule can be used to improve both good and (inherently) bad experiences.

Granted, you only get one first impression. Those still matter tremendously. However, whether your product is used once or a service that’s used often, knowing that people overemphasize the end of events, make sure to end on a high note.