Archives for August 2020

I’ve admired Jack Conte for a long time.

He is in two amazing bands: Pomplamoose and Scary Pockets. Pomplamoose landed on the map 10 years ago with their cover of Beyoncé’s Single Ladies, and they continue to perform tasty mashups on YouTube today. Scary Pockets do insane funk covers of classic songs.

In addition to the above, Conte is the founder and CEO of Patreon, a website that allows content creators to get paid directly by their fans. For example, a musician can have a community of ‘Patrons’ that pay a monthly subscription fee. In return, the Patrons get access to early music and exclusive content.

Since I first heard about Conte, it seemed like everything he touched turned to gold. His videos got millions of views, and his company is clearly the leader in its market.

So you can imagine my surprise when I came across his amazing talk called ‘Nothing Works’—where he vulnerably shares hundreds of his failures, and they all ultimately led to his successes.

It’s long—at 35 minutes—so I was hesitant to share it. But I got so much out of it, and think you may, too. If you’ve ever felt called or compelled to create something, this talk will inspire you, I can guarantee that.

I went cycling yesterday. As soon as I set off, it started to drizzle. And after 5 minutes, the rain had picked up to a steady patter.

I stopped on the side of the road and contemplated returning to my dry, comfortable living room.

I then had a flashback to 2016, when I spent 2 months travelling down the Mississippi River with friends. We were outdoors the entire time. And when it rained, if we weren’t in our tents, all we had were our jackets.

I wasn’t concerned about the rain back then, so why was worrying about it now?

The tension in my shoulders subsided, I lifted my face to the clouds, and felt the droplets fall on my face.

This week, after 102 days of being virus free, New Zealand identified its first resurgence of COVID-19 community transmission.

In order to battle the spread of the disease, the New Zealand government has announced a dramatic change to their containment strategy: going forward, any person who tests positive for the virus will be quarantined in a government facility.

This is a no tolerance approach, and is similar to the strategy China used at the beginning of the outbreak.

This aggressive response is only possible when the problem is small.

It got me thinking about the way we deal with other problems in our workplace, in our homes, and in our communities.

When the problem is small and measurable, it’s better to move fast and nip it in the bud. But once the issue has multiplied and embedded itself, elimination no longer becomes and option, and we need to shift our focus to mitigation.

I loved this quote from the cartoonist and creator of Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson.

Here’s hoping it helps you take a step back and think about the big picture. It did for me.

“…having an enviable career is one thing, and being a happy person is another. Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive. Ambition is only understood if it’s to rise to the top of some imaginary ladder of success. Someone who takes an undemanding job because it affords him the time to pursue other interests and activities is considered a flake. A person who abandons a career in order to stay home and raise children is considered not to be living up to his potential—as if a job title and salary are the sole measure of human worth. You’ll be told in a hundred ways, some subtle and some not, to keep climbing, and never be satisfied with where you are, who you are, and what you’re doing. There are a million ways to sell yourself out, and I guarantee you’ll hear about them. To invent your own life’s meaning is not easy, but it’s still allowed, and I think you’ll be happier for the trouble.”

It was 36 degrees Celsius (97 degrees Fahrenheit) in London this past weekend. Which, if you know London weather, is insane.

As I walked along a road with a melting ice cream in hand, I noticed someone leaving a shop with a large box under their arm—a fan.

The peak of summer isn’t the time to prepare for the heat wave. There are fewer fans to go round, and they’re more expensive. The fan we bought back in April—before the summer—has increased in price by 32% on Amazon.

Of course, fan-buying-timing is a trivial problem, but early preparation is a timeless lesson.

Last October, I posted about our acorn seedling, Carlos. I then provided another update in December 2019 on his growth progress.

Today, I finally got round to putting Carlos into his own pot—it’s the first time he’s sat in real soil. Weirdly, I feel like a parent. Although, I’m sure being a real parent is far more daunting.

There is something magical about growing an oak tree. So many things have to go right for the acorn to survive in the wild. But when it does, we all marvel at the strength of the oak—never for a moment remember it was once a tender sapling.

There are multiple metaphors for life hiding in the story of the oak.

Note: For those interested, we bought the delightfully designed acorn vase from Ilex Studios to house our little acorn for the first year of its life.

Earlier this week, I shared how a former colleague set up a print-on-demand t-shirt business during lockdown.

Today, I’d like to share another inspiring story about my friends, Kylene and Harry.

As the coronavirus crisis began to escalate in the UK—along with Harry’s Masters programme being put on hold, and Kylene’s ability to work remotely—they decided to move back to Australia.

Instead of sitting around waiting for things to blow over, they teamed up with Harry’s sister, Victoria, to start The Flying Zucchinis—a fruit and veggie box subscription service built on the growing demand for grocery delivery brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.

I’ve loved following their textbook lean start-up approach. They’d set up a website and social accounts within days. They hacked together a range of Software as a Service third party systems to handle inventory, checkout, and subscription orders. And most importantly, they got their product out to market as quickly as possible.

At first, their product selection was modest—they only had one fruit and veggie box option, as they were testing to see if there was interest for their product. But as they’ve gained momentum, their product selection and their branding have taken leaps forward.

They now offer multiple fruit and veggie box options, along with eggs, milk, and bread subscriptions. They added a hella cute logo, and made a mini cooking show via Instagram stories for how to use that week’s produce.

They also follow Paul Graham’s classic advice of doing things that don’t scale by providing a handwritten card with each order to build a strong early community of customers.

I love seeing their posts about the inner workings of getting a business going: the 3am wake ups to head to the fruit and veggie markets, the delivery runs, the warehouse space they’re about to move into, and the new logo printed on their boxes. It’s gritty, real, and human.

And they’ve had success, too! Last week they completed their 1,000th order, and are now nearing 200 active subscriptions. This is huge growth in 4 months.

Finally, I asked them what they’ve enjoyed and learnt by going on this journey. I’ve summarised them into 3 learnings:

1. They’ve learnt the importance of customer obsession (in the Jeff Bezo’s sense. They use the product themselves and feel all the frustrations when things go wrong. And when that complaint comes in at 11pm at night about the missing brussel sprouts, they don’t go to bed until it’s sorted. They also realised their customers loved the more personal nature of the business (e.g., Harry cooking 3 times a week behind the camera) so they’ve invested heavily in growing that part of their operations.

2. Go hard when the opportunity is ripe (pun intended). They’re based in Melbourne which has just gone back into a strict lockdown. People want subscription boxes more than ever. They’re unlikely to have as much organic demand as they’re getting now, so they’re trying to scale up their operations as quickly as possible.

3. Starting a business and running it is all-consuming, but the joy that comes with throwing yourself into it 100% is intoxicating. They’re loving the journey, and that, perhaps, is the most important thing.

“Study as if you know nothing. Work as if you can solve anything.”—James Clear

I don’t think I need to add anything to this quote. It’s simple, clear, and pithy.

H/T to James Clear’s weekly newsletter. It lives up to its goal of being “the most wisdom per word of any newsletter on the web.”

In a recent blog post, I shared an article full of advice on how to write well in the workplace.

In that article, I leant about the Gunning-Fog Index, which is a way to “measure the readability of your text by counting words-per-sentence and syllables-per-word.”

The output of the GFI can be interpreted as the years of formal education required to understand the text on the first reading.

For example, Winston Churchill’s war time speeches were so simple the average 10-year-old could understand them, versus Kodak’s Security and Exchange Commission filing, which is so complicated it likely requires a Masters Degree.

I then got curious. What if I took a random sample of 5 of my blog posts and run it through this nifty GFI Tool? How many years of formal education would be required to understand my posts on the first reading?

I picked 5 posts at random from my blog: 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5; and I inserted them into the tool.

These posts received a score of 9.97.

Assuming these posts are representative of all the posts on my blog, it means that the average 14-year-old should be able to understand my posts on the first reading.

I’m okay with this score, but I want it to be lower.

It’s important to remember that the GFI isn’t assessing content. It only looks at sentence length and average syllable count. So, in my mind, irrespective of the topic—or complexity of the content—a lower GFI score is preferable.

If you’ve got any writing that you think is representative of your style, I encourage you to throw it into the tool and see what number you get. Is it where you want—or hoped—it would be?

This week, 96-year-old, Giuseppe Paternò, graduated with first-class honours from his degree in philosophy from the University of Palermo.

There were many obstacles in Paternò’s way. He was the eldest of seven children growing up through the Great Depression in the 1930s, so he started working with his father in a brewery when he was a child. When he was still a teenager, World War II started, and following the war he took up a job with the state railway service to provide for his young family.

Despite these challenges, Paternò was determined to gain an education, and by way of night classes, he successfully graduated from high school as a surveyor at 31.

Fast-forward half a decade past retirement, theology courses, and a published autobiography, Paternò eventually enrolled at the University of Palermo in 2017 at the age of 93. And despite his age, and the setbacks he faced, he finished.

If the reward is intrinsic, it’s never too late to do what you love.

I subscribe to First Round Review, a blog that focuses on “actionable knowledge from the best practitioners” in the start-up world.

I was thrilled—I mean it—when their latest article was on how to write well in the workplace.

Using examples from Churchill, to Google, to Kodak, Dave Girouard—the founder and CEO of Upstart—will give you an arsenal of 8 pieces of advice that if put into practice, will improve your writing.

Enjoy!

An old colleague of mine, Max, recently started a side hustle during the UK lockdowns.

His business idea is really simple: iconic football moments on premium white t-shirts.

His company is called ‘FourFourTee’, a play on words on the classic 4-4-2 football formation.

I love it for a number of reasons:

1. It’s niche and ridiculous. Their target market are 1) football fans, that 2) are also part time history geeks, and 3) also have enough disposable income to want to buy a t-shirt that contains a joke that most people won’t understand. Max has immediately excluded 99.8% of the world from his target market, but for the 0.2%, he’ll have their attention.

2. Minimal design. Each football moment is a tiny logo that sits on the left hand side of the chest—it’s deliberately understated. If you see someone wearing the t-shirt, you have to do some work to get the joke—and that exclusivity has currency.

3. It’s spreading fast. When I heard about FourFourTee, I knew a few of my friends would love it, so I shared it in a Whatsapp chat. Within 5 minutes they had come up with 25 iconic football moments they requested to see on a t-shirt. Products that spark this kind of sharing and chatter grow organically—which is the holy grail of marketing.

4. The business model and its operations are simple. FourFourTee is using a print-on-demand business model. When a t-shirt is purchased on their Shopify website, it is printed by a third party, and sent to the buyer. This means they can offer an unlimited number of iconic football moments without having to tie up any capital in inventory. The trade off is the higher cost to produce each t-shirt, the fact it takes about 7 days from order to delivery, and less control over production quality and return logistics.

Finally, I messaged Max and requested the Maradona ‘Hand of god’ moment from the 1986 World Cup—with Maru being Argentine, let’s just say there are more iconic moments in Argentine football than there are in New Zealand football. Within 2 hours, it was available on FourFourTee’s website, and it should arrive within in the week.

I remember being intrigued by the idea of “Public Goods” in my high school economics class.

Public Goods are products or services provided by governments—usually because there is little to no economic incentive for the private sector to offer them.

Street lights are a great example. Their existence reduces the rate of road accidents—especially for pedestrians. However, despite clearly being a benefit to the public, it’d be almost impossible to find a private company willing to invest in and maintain a portfolio of street lights if they had to collect payment from private citizens. So the government collects taxes to pay for them—they’re a Public Good for the public good.

Which brings me to my musing for the day.

Pre-corona, I’d sometimes sit in the London Underground and think about what proportion of the cost of my travel was 1) paid by my fare, and 2) paid by taxes, grants, or subsidies. (I’m also aware how weird this sounds; but it happens).

I never cared enough to get the data and figure it out, but this article about the closures and re-openings of the New York Subway gave me a little insight into what this split may be, and reminded me why I love Public Goods.

40% of the New York Transit Agency’s operating budget come from fares, and this revenue stream has been decimated by COVID. At the peak of New York City lockdowns, 90% of users stopped using the subway. And even now, usage has only returned to 20% of pre-COVID levels.

It got me thinking. If the New York Transit Agency was a private company, it’d need a helluva lot of cash to survive this pandemic.

However, a government, on the other hand, has the ability to collect taxes and take on debt to see its nation and people through a crisis. It made me grateful for the systems and structures in place to help us all weather this pandemic, from street lights, to subways, to education, to healthcare, and beyond.

I haven’t taken a single day of vacation in 2020.

According to “the plan” at the beginning of the year, I would’ve taken a month in April to get married, and I would’ve also taken a few more days by now to go on small trips.

But, let me tell you, I’m looking forward to the week ahead.

I’m taking the next week off to spend time with books, music, and London’s parks.

I’ve always tried to cram every vacation with a trip—or some other exciting experience. However, given all that’s happened in 2020, I’m happy to be spending it quietly. It’s a welcome change.

Here’s hoping you’re making the time to rest, too—even if it looks a little different to what you had originally planned.

Here’s a fun fact: did you know many of New Zealand’s most progressive laws come by way of a ‘randomisation apparatus’ that’s a 30 year old biscuit tin?

When the New Zealand Parliament has extra space on their order, they debate Member’s Bills—which are recommendations for law changes brought forward by members of parliament.

To ensure fairness, Member’s Bills are represented by plastic bingo counters, and when it comes time to select a bill for debate, a member of the parliamentary service puts their hand into the tin for a lucky dip.

“It’s just what was available at the time,” was the reason given by Trevor Mallard, the Speaker of New Zealand’s Parliament, when asked, “Why a biscuit tin?”

I love how a humble biscuit tin has become a symbol of democracy and progress in my home nation.