TFTLR: 1) Minimum Viable Testing for Startup Ideas, 2) Bill Gurley on McKinsey, 3) Learn to Sell, and 4) Make the Most of 24 Hours
Thoughts for the Long Run, 10/23/22
Welcome back to TFTLR! Apologies for missing you all last week, I was working on a project to aggregate all of the TFTLR archives into a single mental map (more below)!
Mental Model 1 - The Minimum Viable Testing Process for Evaluating Startup Ideas (First Round Review): I absolutely love this approach to starting a company. The lean startup model and minimum viable products are absolutely an important step in the journey, but they're a component of a broader strategy of 1) Identifying a problem, 2) Developing a hypothesis on a way to solve that problem, 3) Listing out all of the riskiest assumptions that could enable success or cause failure, and then 4) Testing those assumptions (where tools like MVP, customer interviews, and desktop research play a role).
Mental Model 2 - Interview with Bill Gurley (McKinsey): A shameless steal from STROTW, which was my inspiration for this newsletter and I recommend to all. A fascinating interview with Bill Gurley on market environments (mid-correction), starting a company (it's the best time due to talent availability), and themes of interest for him (workplace innovation).
Mental Model 3 - How to Learn to Sell? (Hacker News): Sort of a unique piece for this newsletter, but a forum thread on selling to small businesses on Hacker News. The traditional method of dialing for dollars or cold emails is no longer adequate - get out of the room and go find those customers in their businesses, at conventions, etc.
Personal Development - How to Make the Most of Your 24 Hours (ZenHabits): 1) Be intentional at the start of each day (Five Minute Journal helps me here), 2) Don't shoot for doing more, do what matters (I list my to-do's with A- must be done today, B- can be done tomorrow, and C- postpone or delegate), 3) Create moments of transcendence (feel connected to the world as we go through these tasks), and 4) Reflect with gratitude (Also in 5 minute journal!)
Have a great week!
Aimun
I’ve put together a knowledge graph of every article ever included in TFTLR (including pre-Substack when it was only available over email!) categorized. See below for one screenshot of a small section of idea generation, with dozens of different category deep dives in the broader map.
I’m doing a small pilot of sharing this with others, for any interested! At $49 / year, I’ll make this entire graph available to you and continually add each week’s content. Please respond over email if you’re interested in learning more
