Dan's Daily

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?

There are no shortage of advertisements on the London Tube promoting financial trading apps and products.

One advertisement caught my eye today. It touted things like “world renowned platform” and “broker of the year”.

Yet at the bottom of the ad there was a disclaimer that read, “73.5% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading … with this provider”.

Something is wrong if the “best” player in a market has a group of customers where 3 out of 4 lose money.

I’m grateful we have organisations like the Financial Conduct Authority and the Advertising Standards Authority. The enforced transparency is likely to help a few people avoid the snake oil.

Did you face headwinds today? Or did tailwinds propel you forward? Maybe it was a calm day where the wind was neither slowing you down nor at your back?

If we know the wind changes all the time. It’s then all about making progress, however small, whenever we can.

There is a bit of meme in our building: the lift is always broken. We have one small lift, and for the past 6 months it’s been plagued with issues. I’ve been stuck in it, and so have many neighbours—all of us needing wait for the lift maintenance company to come and let us out.

We live on the 4th floor, so all those flights of stairs over the past 6 months has made me curious about the benefits of stair climbing—a sort of “mathematics of taking the stairs”.

According to a study in Atherosclerosis Journal that collected data from more than 400,000 participants in the UK, “climbing five flights of stairs daily can help reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease by 20%”. The study found that short bursts of stair climbing is more effective for our cardiovascular health than getting our 10,000 steps in.

Even when the lift is working, I’m now often choosing to take the stairs. And at the office, I’m making the same decision multiple times per day.

One flight of stairs won’t make a difference, but doing it everyday will likely lead to benefits over time.

Compounding in action again.

I’ll never run in the marathon at the Olympics, nor enter the World’s Strongest Man competition, nor play football for my country.

But what I can do is learn to run a little faster, train to become a little stronger, and play football with a little more stability and coordination.

I don’t need to target being the absolute best. A relative goal is good enough. The self-improvement game is much more fun when we’re looking at ourselves, not others.

We often think in terms of maximising benefits, but thinking in terms of regret minimisation can help us see our options—and their trade-offs—differently.

I was extremely lucky to take a little over half a year to travel between finishing university and starting my first job. I got to swim in the seas of countries far from home, eat foods I didn’t know existed, and learn a new language.

When I look back on that experience, I regret nothing. Although I didn’t have a lot of money, I didn’t have any responsibilities. It was the right life experience for the right time of my life.

As I think about the future, I’m thinking deeply about regret minimisation. I’m asking myself, “What experiences do I want for myself and my family that I know we’ll never regret? And I’m thinking about how to make them happen.

What are your regret minimisation options?