Links and Notes for the day - 18th June 2018

Leave day.

On taking leave

I'm on leave today and boy does it feel unsettling. I'm reflecting on taking leave, something I'm notoriously bad at, and comparing it to how I switch off at other times. On weekends, and after work on weekdays, I switch off 100%. I leave my phone in a corner on not so loud, and there are special notification sounds for system alerts in case there's an actual emergency for me to look at. But other than that I dont look at it, and I don't think about work either.

But taking leave on weekdays is insanely difficult. I'm starting to realise that just like I trained myself to sign out and switch off after work each day I have to train myself to do this for days on which I'm on leave as well. Particularly when the leave I'm taking happens to be just to stay at home and relax. Currently drafting longer blog post on these thoughts. It's quite the ramble for now.

A robot cycles a bicycle (miniatures)

This is soooo damn cool!

Just Simone Giertz out with Alexis Ohanian

Even a brain surgery couldn't shook this amazing person. Simone is a gift to a lot of us.

On the far reaching impacts of things like games and nonsense apps

As a founder, you may never know the impact you have on the lives of individual users. There is so much more to life than curing cancer. Anything that makes someone smile & feel better about their current situation is worth building.

Quick thoughts on founder games (SL perspective).

One of the curious behaviours I see on Instagram around entrepreneurs tends to crop up when I know their out of Instagram life. Without exception, the ones getting started out have spent months taking carefully manicured photos of the various startup books they are reading. They'll post quotes about MVPs, and share quotes from articles about doing business.

And then they go do the exact opposite.

They'll build out the flashiest tech there is for an unvalidated product idea.

They'll go hunting funding rounds instead of building their own stuff.

They'll burn through cash they have without ever seeming to launch. Or they'll laugh and spend more than they can ever make.

Their pitch decks contain absolute lel predictions like 1 million paying customers in 3 years. Or 10M USD annually recurring revenue in a few years.

My only question is, what did they learn from those books and blog posts at all??? And once their businesses fail (one has already), they'll write the same post mortem I've seen everywhere. About how they should have built for the customer before tech and yada yada yada. We shouldn't need any more of these posts.

Truly are we doomed to repeat history.

Posted on June 18 2018 by Adnan Issadeen