7-1d1 Apply the newest technology to the oldest problems. The best source of arbitrage is between the newest tech papers and the oldest books.
7-1e We ask ‘what is the rich doing’ because they are the ones who have the resource to experiment with to find ways to cheapen the means of production
Contradictory:
AN3C - People don’t want better, they want less crap
Crazy Connections (in particular, how to stay in the game when you are solving ‘obvious’ problems):
7-1b6 There are only problems to be solved. Types of problems are arbitrary, because one type can be easily morphed into another.
RUL3 - Run upstairs. Choose the difficult terrain like guerillas.
9-4b2a1b Build the Idea Maze - Explain the history around an idea, and why yours is a good one. Virtually render the history of the evolution of that idea.
To make something people want, simply take a thing people have been doing for thousands of years, and use code to make it simpler, faster, and more readily available.
- hunting a gazelle → Postmates, Instacart, UberEats
- watching a gladiator show at the Colosseum → Netflix, YouTube, Twitch, Hulu
- singing hymns → Spotify, Apple Music
- grunting at each other → WhatsApp, Messenger, iMessage, Snapchat
- the Library of Alexandria → Google, Wikipedia, Quora
**Or simply build a moat around it (Ackerman & Lex Podcast)
- Chipotle
- Universal
5-2c2b1a If you want your writing to still be readable on a computer from the 2060s or 2160s, it’s important that your notes can be read on a computer from the 1960s, for your future self
As time progresses, companies will outsource everything that isn’t their main value proposition. To build a successful B2B company, simply be the outsourcee.
- customer support → Zendesk, Intercom, Drift
- product analytics → Mixpanel, Segment, Google Analytics, Amplitude
- search → Algolia
- payments → Stripe, PayPal
- authentication → Auth0
- error tracking → Sentry, PagerDuty
- sales → Salesforce, HubSpot
- email → MailChimp, SendGrid, MailGun