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Reforge: Dealing with friction

Types of friction:

  • Emotional friction
  • Cognitive friction
  • Interaction friction

My own interpretation of how it maps to the human brain

  • Emotional friction is mapped to the mammal brain
  • Cognitive friction is mapped to the human brain
  • interaction friction is mapped to the reptilian brain
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Key takeaways from dinner with Jerry and Johnson at the Rosewood hotel

Types of money making opportunities

it is very important to know the type of opportunity you are tackling and to employ the right strategy. Opportunity shifts overtime between categories

  • fast money
  • slow money
  • big money
  • small money

Types of abilities

  • professional knowledge, intellect
  • social capital
  • Must important: steadfast perseverance

Warnings

  • when dealing with opportunities pick your battles and don’t spread too thin
  • focus on the core and do it well

Parameters to optimize

  • Time
  • Effort
  • Quality

 

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Key takeaway from “Connected” by Nicholas A. Christakis

 

  • Our ties to others affect emotions, sex, health, politics, money, evolution and technology
  • Acts of aggression typical set off a cascade of killings
    • morality resides in groups instead of individuals

 Insights

  • the particular pattern of ties are more important than the individuals
  • different patterns facilitate the individuals in the groups
  • structures are more important than shared traits of individuals
  • we influence how densely connected we are
  • core discussions network decreases as we age
  • needs tending and should not be taken for granted
  • our mirror neurons gets affected by our network

Principles

  • emergent properties
    • inherent in the interactions and interconnection of the parts
  • Rule 5 – social proofing from 5 people is as effective as any number above that
  • 6 degree of connectedness
  • 3 degrees of influence
    • network instability inhibits 4th degrees
  • Situational inequality
    • where you are in the network matters
    • affects if you are healthier or richer than others
    • even if you have no control

On Mating

  • your network will find a mate for you
    • being in a network with more men than women makes it harder to find a partner and leads to a shorter life
  • Much easier to go for a guy that other women in your network are going for
    • assessment is already done by others
  • Men bring money and resources to the table
  • Women bring emotional/social support
  • friendship network and mating network are very different

On Friendship

  • Habits / behavior spread – culture
    • obesity
    • suicide
  • can be attributed to mirror neurons
  • behavior of female is more contagious than the behavior of male
  • people who have five friends who know one another has a different genetic makeup than a person with five friends who do not know one another
    • religion is the opiate of disconnected people

On Health

  • Targeting folks at the central of a network to treat an epidemic is more effective than treating those at the fringes in the case of aids

On Politics

  • Being in a politically active network makes you more likely to vote even in they support the opposing politician
  • peer pressure
  • voting makes no logical sense, since your impact is statistically insignificant

Mathematics

  • Contagion goes through a pattern called Levy Flight
    • imagine a seagull
    • Mathematicians
      • Pierre Levy
      • Benoit Mandelbrot
  • Weighted average of the crowd is not that inaccurate

Weak ties versus Strong ties

  • Strong ties help dissemination within networks
  • Weak ties act as bridge between different networks
    • useful for search large areas of networks
    • people with lots of weak ties get more frequently sought out for advice and given opportunities
    • they become central to the overall network
    • minority power effect – a small group of influentially positioned individuals can consistently get their way
  • it appears we often start our search for information two or three degrees away to make sure we learn something new

On language

  • makes it easier to interact with people as types rather than as individuals

Online networks

  • roles
    • Co-operators
    • free riders
    • punishers
      • manages public good versus private good
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Book summary: The Buyer Persona

Differentiation

  • There is a difference between the buyer persona and the user persona
    • buyer: before sale
    • user: after sale

Types of people to interview

  • People who considered you and chose you
  • People who considered you but choose your competitor
  • People who considered you but decided to stick with status quo
  • People who never considered you and choose another
  • People who are currently considering your solution

Securing an interview by contacting buyers

“My name is ___, I am calling because you recently evaluated our solution. I am hoping that I can get a few minutes to talk with you about your experience as you went through the evaluation. I am looking for your candid feedback about what worked and what didn’t as you went through the process. I’m hoping I can get about 20-mins time slot in your calendar within the next week. Here is my phone number ___. I realize that it may be easier for you to respond to me via an email, so I am going to follow up right now with an email. Looking forward to hearing back from you and hope we can talk soon.”

5 rings of insights: Critical information to tease out during an interview

“Take me a back to the day, when you decided you need to get a ….”

  • Insight #1 – Priority initiative:
    • Figure out what was the trigger that caused this need to suddenly escalate to top priority
    • know which buyer will be receptive and which will ignore you regardless of what you say
  • Insight #2 – Success Factor:
    • What they are hoping to get from the solution they are purchasing
  • Insight #3 – Perceived Barrier:
    • what attitudes prevent your buyer from considering your solution
  • Insight #4 – Buyer’s Journey:
    • What resources your buyers trust as they consider your solution.
    • The behind the scenes story about the work you buyers do to evaluate options, eliminate contenders and settle on their final choice.
    • Which buyers are involved in the decision and how much influence they hold
  • Insight #5 – Decision Criteria:
    • Which aspects of your solution are relevant or irrelevant to their buying decision.

other follow ups

  • If a prospect did not select your solution because its too expensive figure out if they missed the perceived value or know it but just think its too expensive

Resources

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Takeaways from conversations observed for the week

  • Ved and Tim
    • Abstract terms like simplicity can get interpretated differently
    • Simplicity could mean minimal number of clicks
    • Simplicity could mean the look and feel is something I am most familiar with
  • Regina
    • To keep the tendency to do everything yourself in check
    • much better to learn from the mistake of others
    • find a group of people that are actively learning how to solve the pricing problem and learn their lessons. It’s cheaper
    • personal branding is important. Not being taken seriously results in lack of access to resources in times of need

Relevant resources

  • The design of everyday things
  • Dont make me think
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Phases of starting up a new product

This graph was originally referenced from article written by Casey Winters. While his article is primarily focused on how to improve the way growth teams operate, it also documents the phases a product will necessarily need to go through.

The sections in red are traditionally handled by the following roles:

  • Founder in a startup in pre-product market fit phase
  • Product Manager in a mid-size startup in growth phase
  • User Researcher or Trained Anthropologies in a relatively mature company
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Key takeaways from discussions with Ved and observations around me during the day

  • Product management is the function that allows you to cut across the operations of all other functions in a Tech company
  • strategic partnership is focused on maintaining relationship for the sake of maintaining relationships
  • Fund raising is focused on being a good sales person. One becomes a good sales person by telling a good story thereby painting the big picture / a.k.a the Vision which will get investors excited enough act upon the call to action.
  • The fundamental difference between a human leader and a human follower is not skill-set but the ability to effectively self-regulate his own neural chemistry
    • domain specific skill sets get acquired overtime
    • leading will put subject in situations which will trigger off more neural chemistry than otherwise.