I'll admit I may have seen more than 1 episode of Carebears when I was younger. I don't remember what it was about except that they are colourful bears with different icons on their tummy.
But I like Carebears. Not so much the cartoon but rather people who are caring and are willing to sacrifice themselves toward things that matter to them. If you ask me what type of people I would hire, I'll choose a Carebear any day, any time.
Last weekend, instead of watching a movie or lazing at home, about 50 people decided to spend their time stalking strangers, working late and building prototypes. They participated in our very first Lean Startup Machine (LSM) workshop here in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah.
For the uninitiated, LSM is quite different than your average workshop or hackathon. Besides learning and working on your idea, you are "forced" to Get out of the Building to interview, sell and pitch to your customers. It focuses on customer development and practices the mantra of Learn First, Code Last.
You may have heard of the term User Experience (UX) and wondered what does it mean? Lots of companies including startups are looking for UX Designers to help improve their products. Why does it seem like everyone is raving about user experience and why should you care?
Even if you are not building a product or directly is involved in the creation of one, as long as you are consuming and using any product or service, then you are part of the equation. User Experience or UX is about how you as the user feel and think about a product or services you are using.
Whether you are running a business or a marketing campaign, ideally, you would prefer to target as many people as possible. Since by definition, most people are average (yes you are), the largest target market is the average consumer.
But, who is the average consumer? How do they make decisions and what are their preferences? Let’s take a look from the consumer's perspective.
From the moment I wake up till the time I go to bed, I’m always interacting or using some sort of applications and services across multiple devices. Since I’m a software developer, I spend a large amount of my time in front of screens. Even when I’m not working, I’ll be reading and interacting with smaller screens.
So, I’ve decided to go through a typical day and list the applications and services I use on a daily basis. I’ve identified 35 of them and grouped them into categories. Hopefully, you’ll discover something new and can consider adding it into your daily routine.
Most would say entrepreneurs are job creators. Businesses and companies they build, employ workers and drive the economy. You could also say entrepreneurs are value creators. Their ventures create and deliver value to their customers.
In my mind, an entrepreneur is someone who is exceptionally good at identifying gaps in the market, fills it and captures the resulting value of this exchange.
If you could only improve one skill at this moment, choose to get better at communicating. Communication (listening, verbal and writing) is one of the most sought after skill in the workplace. It doesn’t matter if you are in a managerial position or not, being able to communicate effectively, provides tremendous value to the company.
A good communicator is not only someone who can listen, speak and write well. She also knows which channel to use to get her message across and chooses the right mode of communication to improve its effectiveness. To get the message across, you have to care more than the words you use.
Even if your toothbrush is newer, cleaner, fancier, more colorful, electrically powered or emits ultrasonic wave, I still prefer mine. After all, why would I want to use someone else’s toothbrush. Yuck!
This is fine if we are just talking about toothbrushes but in reality, we have the same concept towards other peoples’ ideas. We tend to prefer ideas we came up with rather than those from others. This is known as the Not-Invented-Here bias or the Toothbrush Theory.
At last year’s Team Retreat, while enjoying the breeze on Khao Lak Beach in Thailand, I told the rest of the team that I don’t care about people. We were playing Two Truths One Lie and there are times when I’m unsure if that statement was true or a lie.
Studies have shown that willpower is a limited mental resource. Every time you make a decision, it depletes that same energy resource your willpower uses and eventually you’ll give in to your desires. This is known as Ego Depletion.
The single most important advice Peter Thiel (Co-founder of PayPal & Palantir) gave to Brian Chesky (CEO of AirBnB) after he invested $150M in the company was, “Don’t f**k up the culture”.
He didn’t say “Don’t waste the money” or “Don’t buy a Ferrari”. What he is implying is that you need a good culture to build a successful company. But what the heck is company culture?
