Archives for February 2024

I heard a stunning statistic today.

In 2003 when Michael Jordan retired, Nike sold $700m of Air Jordan products.

In 2023 the Air Jordan brand earned more than $6.59 billion.

That’s an almost 10x increase in revenue off an already mind-blowing base number. Furthermore, this happened twenty years after Jordan’s retirement.

It’s an amazing example of the brand transcending the person and becoming it’s own thing. A juggernaut like few others.

Sometimes the answer, no matter how much prep has been done, isn’t to get things right on the first try.

Sometimes it’s just trying a handful, a dozen, sometimes hundreds of things, before we find something that works.

Knowing when we’re playing a numbers game is important. It changes the way we approach the problem.

I read a stunning New York Times article over the weekend about a trade that occurred in 1667.

The context is the Dutch owned Manhattan, and the city within it was called New Amsterdam. Meanwhile, the English had colonised an island called Pulau Rhun, which was one of the only places in the world that grew nutmeg—a spice which at the time was worth its weight in gold.

As part of a treaty in 1667 following the Second Anglo-Dutch War, the Dutch agreed to trade the island of Manhattan for the island of Pulau Rhun. The English promptly renamed New Amsterdam to New York.

The roads these two islands have taken since couldn’t be more different. But it’s fascinating to look back on how these two islands—on opposite sides of the world—are connected in the history books.

Nike got its start in the shoe market by importing and reselling track shoes made by Japanese company, Onitsuka.

If you’ve read Shoe Dog, you’ll know the relationship between the two fractured as Nike came into their own.

It made me smile today as I walked through Oxford Circus, a well known shopping district in London, and saw the Nike store directly opposite the Ontisuka store. Both companies thriving on the high street.

Few people likely know the back story, which makes spotting the easter egg all the more fun.

If the game is one of inches, where every little advantage adds up, and every incremental gain compounds, then the nuance matters.

So about that nuance, embrace it. Enjoy it. Wrestle with it. Let it frustrate you. Care less about it. Then care about it more than anything else. Spend all your time on it. Then spend no time on it. Approach it like a puzzle. Be dogged in your persistence.

The nuance is hard. It’s dealing with trade-offs that other people want to avoid.

But, it’s where much of the magic happens.

Some markets are big. There have ripe fruit just waiting to be picked from a myriad of trees in the orchard. These are good markets.

Some markets are small and scarce. Their opportunities are like crumbs that have fallen from the table. Not enough to survive on.

In my experience, teams and companies don’t spend enough time thinking about, and critically challenging, the markets they’re in. It could be the different between a bounty harvest and chasing crumbs.

Maru and I have a polaroid camera and we ask guests to take a snap when they come over. The photo then goes into a little guest book where they also write a note.

Each photo and message is like a little window that allows us to peer back in time to a happy memory of when we shared our home with friends and family.

It’s the one-off, instantaneous nature of the photo that makes this tradition even more special.

Back in 2011, I remember walking the streets of Pisa in Italy on an overcast afternoon. I had no place to take cover when the rain started pouring down. Like clockwork, men appeared on the street selling umbrellas. “Perfect,” I thought. I bought one for 5 Euros and happily continued to exploring the city. However, within 2 hours, the umbrella had fallen apart. It had completely broken, it was still raining, and I was soaked again.

As a contrast to the above, my mum gave me a Blunt umbrella seven years ago. It’s a brand known for its durability, construction, and longevity, and it hasn’t disappointed. It’s survived seven rainy London winters, and works just as well today as it did the day it was given to me. There is not a single rip, tear, or broken piece.

It’s tempting to go for the cheap and convenient option, but it’s often the more pricey, robust option that wins out in the long run.

A few weeks ago, I asked readers to share their two favourite apps and why those apps made the list. The last of the responses have now come in, and I thought I’d share a short summary.

I think the best way to categorise the apps is into the ‘Blockbusters’ and ‘Useful niche apps’.

In the Blockbuster category, it’ll probably come as no surprise to hear the names ChatGPT, Spotify, YouTube, and Calm. Used universally, with great reliability, and outstanding UX.

WeChat was also mentioned by a reader who used to live in China, and who misses it a lot. Now that they’ve moved back home, they’re still shocked at how nothing like this exists outside of China. It’s an app that is basically “WhatsApp + Uber + Expedia + Deliveroo + Venmo + Apple Health + Amazon + whatever banking app you’d use to pay all your bills”.

In the ‘Useful niche apps’ category, there was iA Writer, a markdown-based writing tool. Libby, an app that allows you to rent e-books from your local library, which I thought was awesome.

I’m also throwing in my preferred writing app into the mix: Ulysses. It’s been a joy to write using their software for almost 5 years, even if they suffer from iCloud syncing issues every now and then.

Thanks for sharing, folks! Was really interesting to read the responses!

Quite a few friends and colleagues have been getting into monitoring and measuring their glucose levels, some of them using services like Zoe.

One thing nearly all of them learned, and have since incorporated into their habits, is the order in which they eat their food.

Starting with vegetables, moving to protein, and ending with carbohydrates, results in a stable level of blood glucose post-meal. The opposite is true when they started with carbohydrates—their blood glucose spiked.

I’m starting to get curious about doing 2-weeks of glucose monitoring, and seeing how much body responds to different foods and types of exercise.

Anyone else given this a go? Would you recommend it?

I did cardio wrong most of my life.

I thought being puffed and exhausted was the goal. The thought of an “easy run” seemed like a waste of time. It led to a poor relationship with cardio, one that I’m still trying to unlearn.

What I learned in the last few years is that the vast majority of cardio training should be at low levels of intensity. This is in your Zone 2, or 60-70% of max heart rate. At this level, you should still be able to keep a conversation, but it’s ample time spent in this zone that really builds your aerobic base.

Conversational cardio, it’s a great benchmark to get your cardio right.

When building technology products, I’ve learnt that good optics can often come at the expense of impact.

Time spent trying to make something look good to others can distract from making the thing better.

Some optics are important. We do need people to buy-in to what we’re building, but too much time spent on optics will lead to a worse product and eroded customer trust over time.

The near miss is often celebrated.

There are sighs of relief, smiles across the group, and a line of people willing to take credit for what seems like a success.

But more time should be spent dissecting the near miss. Could it be a signal that there are gaps in our current way of working?

Why did it happen? What caused it? What would’ve happened had things gone truly wrong? How does our system need to change so we reduce the probability that things go wrong in the future?

Creating requires an immense amount of energy. We’re fighting inertia, doubt, and the status quo.

Reacting is much easier. We look with fresh eyes and and typically critiquing from the grandstands.

Both roles have their place, but knowing which role we need to play, and when we need to play it, can help us approach situations with the right mindset.

Am I creating today today? Or am I reacting?