127 Matching Annotations
  1. May 2019
    1. Part of Snap’s story is the same as Twitter’s: most of the company’s advertisers are large brands who are taking advantage of a product that reaches users that are both heavily engaged and not necessarily on Facebook properties with ads that are extremely cheap.

      how can 13-24 not be on Facebook ?

    2. brand versus direct advertising: while brand advertisers want to be ubiquitous, with the goal of making money down the road thanks to increased brand affinity, direct advertisers are much more, well, direct — they want to make money directly

      performance vs brand markering

    1. vast majority of media is completely commoditized and, in a world of zero marginal costs, happy to accept whatever pennies Apple is willing to throw their way

      newspapers, content publication not being able to make money.. people not paying.. they relying on ads... even the very good publications would find it hard to get paying users online...

    1. a higher price means fewer customers, and given the multitude of ways that Disney has to monetize customers throughout their entire lives that would have been a poor trade-off to make.

      circle - multiple touch points.. driving one another..

      more views, more fascination with characters, seeinf more movies, buying more merchandise, visiting disneyland more, etc...

      Cheap entry point into the disney universe selling lots of diff kinds of things

    2. starts with search, not a channel guide.

      can choose whatever you want unlike tv where you need to watch that which is available at that moment

    3. the most persuasive of mediums.

      video + audio...

    1. brilliance of paying on a subscription basis is that a company can buy exactly what it needs, when it needs it, and no more.

      SaaS - Pros

      1. buyer can just the right amount whenever they want. can change amount when they want.
      2. no upfront big costs + for selling company revenues became more predictable
      3. most users would be on the latest updates as updates can be done automatically by seller
      4. easier for smaller companies to use this enteprise software as now seller (say MS) doing all the hard work of hosting etc... they dont need internal IT teams for setting stuff up & management
      5. Saas made distribution so much easier.. no complex sales team., no on premises installation.. all online..

      Cons

    1. Projects get “blown up” late in development due to large communication gaps during development.

      something which happend a lot at DocsApp

      stuff took a lot of time to build . .. the booking appointment feature took over 1 month to build, despite us having communicated very clearly early on..

    1. In the below scenario, I assumed that a segment of the company is working on optimizing the existing products and services to sustain 10% MoM growth and another segment is working on new product innovation that leads to a 50% bump in MAUs midway through the year. This scenario is plotted as a black dashed line on the graph.

      combination of innovation + optimization

      Some people on each

    2. Innovation is when a company embarks on building entirely new products or services for existing customers or for a new segment of customers. Innovation can also involve expanding into an entirely new business line. However, this happens so rarely (hello, Amazon!

      Innovation =

      1. new product/service for same customer
      2. new customer
      3. new business line (less common.. AWS with amazon)
    3. If they are incremental in nature, then why do them? Well, because many small optimizations can accrue into large long-term results when you allow those optimizations to compound.

      like all the product improvements we made at docsapp to improve conversion.. and now that conversion improvement is always going to hold

    4. Do you think Facebook would be at its current scale without innovations like News Feed? Community-driven translations to expand globally? Or the developers platform? The answer is obviously “no”.

      new innovations (products) which led to growth

    1. In fact, I'd guess the most successful startups are the ones started by uncertain hackers rather than gung-ho business guys.

      people who building it are uncertain on whether it will work or not;

  2. Apr 2019
    1. According to this principle, behavior that is followed by pleasant consequences is likely to be repeated, and behavior followed by unpleasant consequences is less likely to be repeated.

      this is like in the habit loop

    1. his follows because, under such conditions, our old flavor will be so entrenched in consumer pref-erence by psychological effects that a big flavor change would do us little good

      familiarty ...

    2. lollapalooza result,

      when multiple factors combine together to create something huge

    3. “Casino patrons bet more than $37 billion annually—more than Americans spend to at-tend sporting events ($17.8 billion), go to the movies ($10.7 billion), and buy music ($6.8 billion) combined.

      crazy !!!.. money on gambling > money on watching sport events + movies + buying music !!!

    4. One founder I interviewed spoke of a simple method his company was using to make work more satisfying, “Everyone gets a Post-It Note in the form of a hand,” he said. “It’s called a ‘five.’ And whenever someone does something above and beyond, it goes on the community wall in the breakroom. And everyone sees it. It’s just about celebrating the behaviors you want to reinforce. At the end of the month, we pick a few out, read them out loud to everyone, and then give out a few gift cards. Everyone goes up and grabs a few and then finds the person that it’s written about and then gives it to them. We want to have little wins all the time.

      fantastic way to motivate the people ! !

    5. Every behavior is preceded by a prediction

      this is the emotional response only ? or both emotional response + logical response ?

      fast - emotional response slow - deliberate response..

    6. When repeated, this neurological feedback loop leads to the formation of new habits

      repetition = formation of habits

    1. Even in situations where we believe our decisions are guided purely by logic and rationality, emotions play a key role.

      how ??

    2. But why exactly do we experience emotions? What role do they serve?

      .

  3. Mar 2019
    1. The key to any good ritual is that it removes the need to make a decision. Most people never get moving because they can’t decide how to get started. Having a ritual takes that burden off your shoulders.

      remove decision making. decisions making = friction. hicks law. friction makes chance of behaviour happening lower. reduce friction by pre-commitment. implementation intention. put it on Google calendar. then nothing to think. just doing consistently.

    2. Objects in motion tend to stay in motion. In the case of starting a healthy habit, that means getting started is usually the part that requires the most willpower.

      max resistance in starting......

    3. If we buy a candy bar, we assume it is because we wanted a candy bar. The truth, however, is that many of the actions we take each day are simply a response to the environment we find ourselves in – just like the children in the Marshmallow Experiments.

      behaviours as a result of the environment...

      So how can enviroment be tweaked to product healthu behaviours.. nudge.

      how can a students who wants to study be motivated to study?>

    1. It’s not about how you feel, how inspired you are, or how brilliant your work is that day. Instead, it’s just about “not breaking the chain.”

      taking the control away from motivation !!

      Action > motivation.. not waiting to be motivated to do the action.. but just doing the action irrespective of motivation...

    2. They show up and deliver day after day while everyone else gets bogged down with the urgencies of daily life and fights a constant battle between procrastination and motivation.

      Urgent vs important..

      do we just procrastinate just on the important ? Because urgent we know we have to do .. for eg, just 3 days before exam, every kid knows they have to study.. they will study by themself without push ?? ....

      but studying 2 weeks before exam.. that time its not urgent but its important to learnn ... will they study at that time???

      Does procrastination only attack important stuff & not urgent stuff ?

    3. You'll notice that Seinfeld didn't say a single thing about results. It didn’t matter if he was motivated or not. It didn’t matter if he was writing great jokes or not. It didn't matter if what he was working on would ever make it into a show. All that mattered was “not breaking the chain.”

      system (input, habit) > result (outcome)

    1. For example, you could schedule your yoga session for next week while you are feeling motivated today. When your workout rolls around, you have to justify opting-out rather than motivating yourself to opt-in.

      implementation intentions.. like in focusMate..

      once you have already schedueled study time throughout the week at certain times, one needs to justify & go against a decision that has already been made... more friction...

    2. Whether or not you achieve your goals in the long-term has a lot to do with what types of influences surround you in the short-term. It's very hard to stick with positive habits in a negative environment.

      thats why friends matter a lot!

    3. Similarly, many of the decisions we make in our professional and personal lives are shaped by the options that surround us. If you sleep with your phone next to your bed, then checking social media and email as soon as you wake up is likely to be the default decision.

      NUDGE!!

      reduce the friction in a positive behaviour and increase friction in a negative behaviour (time, money, physical effort, commitment bias, loss aversion - thrown out of forest group)

    4. Although most of us have the freedom to make a wide range of choices at any given moment, we often make decisions based on the environment we find ourselves in

      Friction

      something which takes less (a) time (b) money (c) physical effort (d) mental effort (e) social deviance..

      between 2 substitutes (2 behaviours) .. the motivation vs friction equation comes into play

    5. After/Before [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].

      behaviour cue! cue = trigger. a behaviour already occuring, creates trigger for new behaviour.

    1. Motivation is short lived and doesn't lead to consistent action. If you want to achieve your goals, then you need a plan for exactly when and how you're going to execute on them.

      motivation is not a reliable source (trigger) for doing action..

      location & time trigger already pre-decided actions (behaviours)...

      Does this concept apply only to habits ? not really.. this can be for even 1 time actions.. its also why people use Google calendars.. once they have scedueld something on it, they are basically using "implementation intentions" .. since (a) time is specific (b) what to do be done is specific... Decision making is not required..just taking action is required at that moment...

      Summary -

      1. motivation is not reliable.
      2. to achieve goals you need a specific actionable plan (scheduele).
      3. consistent follow through the specific plan will lead to deadline completion.

      .... but what happens when a person cannot even break down the goal into its constituents ? When the goal is too abstract ? then how will they work on it ??

    2. The sentence that the third group filled out is what researchers refer to as an implementation intention, which is a plan you make beforehand about when and where to act. That is, how you intend to implement a particular habit.

      how is this related to SMART goals ?

      • specific - What
      • measurable, meaningful - what -Agreed upon (all parties agree) -reasonable, -time bound (deadline) - When
    3. When the moment of action occurs, there is no need to make a decision. Simply follow your predetermined plan.

      but at that moment, motivation does come into play right..

      if in morning, i have decided i will meditate or exercise but it seems complex, i will not do it then..

    1. I work mainly solo and from my home office, and can easily stray from my goals when tasks are tedious or challenging (which is many of them!). I can see using Focusmate as a way to make sure I don't avoid the unpleasant stuff!
    1. Kenome Technologies that has been trying to use so-called knowledge graphs to mine dark data

      what is knowledge graphs ?

    1. AWS is primitives at scale; that, though, is also how you can describe every part of Amazon’s business.

      what does primitives mean here ?

    1. In other words, what matters is not “technological innovation”; what matters is value chains and the point of integration on which a company’s sustainable differentiation is built; stray too far and even the most fearsome companies become also-rans.

      what ??

    1. his past year, we nearly doubled the number of stores offering online grocery pickup to more than 1,100 locations in the U.S.

      so people order online then pick it up from Walmart ?

    1. Here are the mini-challenges (you do not have to do all of these, just pick one per week): 1. Adding healthy things: Eat one vegetable at lunch/dinner (pick one meal) Add one more vegetable to lunch/dinner (pick one meal) Eat fruit for breakfast Eat fruit and raw nuts for a snack Eat veggie with hummus for a snack Eat a healthy protein for dinner/lunch Eat a fiber-filled breakfast Have a tofu scramble with veggies for breakfast Drink green tea in the morning or afternoon (pick one) Add whole grains to your meals. Eat a hearty salad for lunch every day. 2. Changing your approach: Learn a couple new recipes this week Eat at home more (add a couple of nights to whatever amount you normally eat at home) Decide on healthy items to order before you go out to eat with friends. Bring healthy food to a pot-luck party or work gathering. Cook your healthy food in big batches and eat during the week. Eat slowly and stop before you’re full. Don’t eat after 8 p.m. Set portion sizes and try sticking to them. Don’t eat if you’re not actually hungry. Try for high-volume, lower-calorie foods: vegetables, beans, fruits rather than white starches, meats, and fried foods. 3. Cutting out unhealthy things (look at what you do now, and set a target that’s lower): Eat fruit instead of one of the sweets you normally eat. Drink tea instead of soda. Drink coffee with less or no sugar. Cut back on the number of alcoholic drinks you have by one. Eat less pastries, bread and other white flour. Eat less fried foods. Switch from white rice to brown rice. Eat less fast food. Bring a healthy lunch to work instead of eating fast food. Try Ezekiel flourless cereal instead of sweet cereal. Switch from processed meats (sausages, bacon, etc.) to real meat, or fish. 4. Vegan stuff (a few people asked for some suggestions): Try eating one meal a day with no meat. Reduce dairy or egg intake (use soymilk or almond milk on your cereal, for example). Try cooking with tofu, tempeh, or seitan. Try some awesome lentil recipes. If it sounds easy and you’re already used to vegan food, try the 7-Day Vegan Challenge. Not every change listed above for everyone. Find changes that feel right to you, as I know not everyone agrees with everything I’ve listed.

      List of healthy habit changes

  4. Feb 2019
    1. It’s currently #3 on the top grossing charts in India. The game drives more IAP (in-app purchase) revenues than any other app except PUBG and Tinder!

      how come ??

    1. Simply put, your frog is the most important task. It is the thing that moves the needle the most towards your ideal future. It is probably very important, but not very urgent. So our advice (and Brian Tracy’s as well) is to make sure you tackle this MIT at the beginning of your day when you have the most energy and willpower available. Tackling your MIT first thing is extremely important!

      MIT in morning

      max willpower (not decreased cause of decision fatigue during day)

      • max impact on long term goal.. -important but not urgent -procrastinate because (a) big, overwhelm where to start (b) fear of failure - perfection , sense of worth linked
    2. If I were to summarize the book in a single statement, it would be that you should do your most important task (MIT) first thing in the morning.

      eat that frog summary

    1. Research published in the prestigious scientific journal “Cognition” [DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2010.12.007] has shown that short breaks and diversions can cause a significant improvement in one’s ability to keep focused on a task for long periods of time.

      scienticific proof - breaks & diversions lead to improvement in ones ability to keep focused on a task

    2. he Pomodoro method helps you by working using time as a friend that regulates when to work and focus on the task you are performing, rather than using time as an enemy who sets goals against you and puts pressure on your mind.

      vs saying "finish task 1 by 6pm" that would pressure. because one doesnt really know how much time a task would take.. .So pomodoro takes the pressure off, and just says you focus on task 1 for 1 pomo without distractions..

      it focuses on the inputs/efforts & not the outputs.. output automatically happens..

    3. n order to enhance concentration, the pomodoros are indivisible, that way the impact of internal or external disturbances is reduced: you work on a task until you finish the Pomodoro or the task

      indivisible.. so you stop when time/task finish.. not 2 tasks in 1 pomo

    1. I like the big red Pomodoro application, and my brain's reward circuitry likes the clanging sound at the end of the period, kind of boxing gym type bell

      sound at the end.. is reward to brain..

      can there be a better reward for the brain.. at the end..

    2. Oh, and there will be interference, especially if the job at hand is super hard or dull. Great idea for a screenplay? Jot a quick note and come back to the boring task.  Remember an email that needs to be sent out today? Great, make a note and then get back to the boring task. When you complete the Pomodoro, you are free to take a break or write a screenplay or send out an email.

      if ideas come in the middle, then note them but act on them after pomo finish

    1. . While it worked great on the days when all of my time was my own, it became quite complicated when I had scheduled calls and meetings. I didn’t think my clients or colleagues would react too favorably to me yelling, “Be back in five! My timer just went off!” in the middle of a conversation.

      disadvantage

      not great for working in teams..

    2. Because I was forced to get up and give myself a rest from staring at my laptop screen, I found that I actually did feel better at the end of each day. Not only did I feel like I had put in an honest day’s work, but I also felt less stressed, blurry-eyed, and cramped up

      less stress at day end

    3. The idea behind the technique is that the timer instills a sense of urgency. Rather than feeling like you have endless time in the workday to get things done and then ultimately squandering those precious work hours on distractions, you know you only have 25 minutes to make as much progress on a task as possible.

      sense of urgency, sense of deadline ...

    1. “Oh, I’m just going to do this for 25 minutes” and it’s not uncommon for people to want to continue to work.

      same concept as mini -habit

    2. What Francesco and others have discovered is that when you complete a small chunk of work, you build momentum so that you will feel more productive which in itself leads to getting more work done.

      similar to mini -habits Once you start doing it, momentum builds, and you realise that doing the task was not so hard after all... Also after completing it you realise it wasnt so hard after all.. and then you feel good.. feel motivated & feel sense of accomplishment, feel like a winner..

      Benefits of pomodoro

      1. Helps to start - as 30 min seems small, not v hard (small resistance)
      2. Less stress - as one has to do just 1 task in it. One doesnt need to think what else has to be done later. No stress. no overwhelm. just plain & simple Single Tasking
      3. After completing pomo, feel sense of accomplishment, sense of winning.
      4. Sense of winning, motivates, to do more. So virtuous cycle. Soon lot of work ends up being done.
    3. Whenever I tell people that we help people become more productive and achieve their goals faster, the usual follow up question is: what’s your number one productivity tip?Based on this article, you might think I would say the Pomodoro Technique. Actually, the number one tip is to eat your frog. The second best tip is to use the Pomodoro Technique.

      eat that frog (MIT) pomodoro

    4. By setting this constraint, a lot of people find it very freeing to know that they can focus on just one thing and then do other stuff once the timer is over. People with ADD/ADHD find this technique very powerful.

      one of main benefits -

      sense of relief.. in these 30 min, need to do nothing else except this ! ... so can study without the pressure of a lot of things to do

    1. In, say, five years time, you might be able to buy, as a consumer product, a pair of ‘glasses’ that combine both a transparent, colour 3D display and a cluster of image sensors. Those image sensors map the space around you, so you can make the wall a display or play Minecraft on the table, but they also recognise things around you

      smart glasses with sensors !

    1. I found myself fantasizing about a curated version of ChatRoulette—powered maybe by Google’s massive server farms—that would allow users to set all kinds of filters: age, interest, language, location. One afternoon I might choose to be thrown randomly into a pool of English-speaking thirtysomething non-masturbators who like to read poetry. Another night I might want to talk to Jets fans. Another night I might want to just strip away all the filters and see what happens. The site could even keep stats, like YouTube, so you could see the most popular chatters in any given demographic. I could get very happily addicted to a site like that. But that site would also lose a lot of what makes ChatRoulette, for now, so weirdly magnetic. If I’d been able to curate my experience, I might never have had what ended up being my favorite interaction: a half-hour chat with a twentysomething, vaguely Kurt Cobain–ish guy in Pittsburgh.

      Balancing chaos & control. if its self controled, then chance encounters which might be enriching & thrilling are gone. If its only chance (chaos), then noise:signal ration might be too high ..

    1. The paradox of face-to-face conversation across vast distances seems to do strange things to the human brain. I often found myself acting unlike myself: dancing without provocation with a roomful of Korean girls, greeting people with flurries of over-the-top marijuana slang even though I’ve never even smoked a joint.

      why do we behave different when facing strangers we know we will never meet ?

    2. After a while, I started to get the lay of the land. The median age seems to hover around 20, and males outnumber females probably twenty to one. Sex is ever-present, whether insinuated or enacted

      Why is Male : Female ratio so skewed in these sites ? Even opentalk has such a skewed ration ? Why??? is it that women dont feel safe talking to stangers ?

    1. Steve Jobs gives employees a little speech when they’re promoted to Vice President at Apple…Lashinsky calls it the “Difference Between the Janitor and the Vice President.” Jobs tells the VP that if the garbage in his office is not being emptied regularly for some reason, he would ask the janitor what the problem is. The janitor could reasonably respond by saying, “Well, the lock on the door was changed, and I couldn’t get a key.” It’s an irritation for Jobs, but it’s an understandable excuse for why the janitor couldn’t do his job. As a janitor, he’s allowed to have excuses. “When you’re the janitor, reasons matter,” Jobs tells newly minted VPs, according to Lashinsky. “Somewhere between the janitor and the CEO, reasons stop mattering,” says Jobs, adding, that Rubicon is “crossed when you become a VP.” In other words, you have no excuse for failure. You are now responsible for any mistakes that happen, and it doesn’t matter what you say.

      no excuses !!

    1. Facebook is a sort of holding company for social networks; back in 2014 I called it The Social Conglomerate. That, though, is very much a user-centric perspective; to that end, if you consider the advertising perspective, you could argue that Facebook the company is an advertising dashboard and sales force. I think, though, that sells short the functionality of Facebook the company. Specifically, Facebook is a data factory

      mental model

      2 perspectives on FB...it is both..

    1. why ?

    2. If an idea or object has lasted for X number of years, it would be expected (on average) to last another X years.

      why ??

    3. As a thinking tool it means approaching a situation from the opposite end of the natural starting point

      when running FB ads without builiding a product is this.. the PR release of amazon is also this.. building dummy to validate before building real

    1. If you are having trouble sticking to a workout routine or healthy eating plan, invite a friend to join you and help you stay on track.Studies show that people who slim down with a friend are more likely to stick with weight loss and exercise programs. They also tend to lose more weight than those who go it alone (24, 25, 26). Plus, having a friend or family member with the same health and wellness goals can help you stay motivated while having fun at the same time.

      having same wellness, health goals with friends & family -- motivates.. studies show more likely to slim down with others ..

    1. And once that group workout is scheduled into your calendar, with other people banking on you showing up, it’s a whole lot harder to hit snooze a second time and roll back over.

      accountability

    2. When we work out with other people we can gain a sense of camaraderie, because everyone is there for the same purpose,” agrees Davina Wong, Master Trainer at Club Pilates. “The people you see each week in a group class eventually become your family and want to see you back each week creating accountability.”

      camarederie as everyone there for the same purpose ...

    3. It’s an amazing feeling to see [people] do things they never thought they could until it took the person next to them to encourage them to complete that set, rep, mile or round. There’s a bond that is created when a group struggles, sweats, fights, and grinds their way through a tough workout. I focus on building relationships in class because if that happens, I know participants will come back tomorrow.”

      building relationships in the group will lead to the participants coming more ...

    1. Increases commitment massively. It’s one thing bailing on your own workout, but it’s much, much harder to ditch a workout when you know you’re going to be letting your workout buddy down – not to mention the heat you’re going to get when you see them again. In addition to this, having a workout partner means you have to plan your workouts in advance to meet each other’s schedules, and once it’s down on paper and scheduled, it’s much more likely that you’re going to follow through with it.

      accountability..

    2. Help you achieve your fitness goals. Here’s an interesting bit of research: through ongoing studies, Stanford University has found that simply receiving a phone call each two weeks can boost the amount of exercise you do by up to 78% (on average). The call, which was by either a human or a computer, would find out how much exercise was done in the past week, how the level of exercise could be increased the following week, and if any workouts were missed, emphasize the importance of getting back on track. Get this, after 18 months, they were still exercising at the increased level. So even if you can’t find a workout buddy yet, at the very least you can get a friend to call you and ask those 2 questions each week, which will boost your motivation considerably. The takeaway from this study is that social support works even if it’s just on the phone. So when you make that support face-to-face, it’s even more powerful – you’re definitely going to be making your workouts, and the more consistent you are with your workouts, the sooner you’re going to achieve your fitness goals.

      wow !! .. its like Standup.. Why should this have such big impact ??

    1. To make matters worse, online retailers don’t just sell cheaper, they sell smarter, thanks to the insight they have of customers’ browsing and purchase habits

      Data driving more sales. Recomendation engine. if person likes X, he is likely to buy Y. More data total, and more data/person, increases confidence of assessing more clearly.

    1. The 40 % figure is contribution margin. The copy has been edited to reflect the change. Every incremental learner that they get is profitable. However, since the company is investing heavily on building the programme, content and technology, it is making losses.

      how is just 40% ? if its online, shouldn't it be much higher ?? Cost of incermental digital stuff should be zero right ??

      Maybe this counts -

      1. Marketing cost
      2. cost to be given to the universities

      These are variable costs.

      Fixed costs -

      1. tech + program building costs - one time..
      2. salaries, iutilites, rent
    1. This makes Slack far stickier and indispensable to companies—a new form of bundling that the likes of Microsoft leveraged for years to maintain its hegemony.

      completes the Job-To-Be-Done for user.. bringing in feeds from other tools into Slack, so 1 stop shop to help users fulfil their needs

    1. As of March 2018, DailyHunt recorded a turnover of Rs 34 crore ($4.7 million) and loss of Rs 101 crore ($14 million). A year-on-year comparison suggests that the company isn’t doing so well. As of March 2017, the company had a turnover of Rs 48 crore ($6.7 million) and loss of Rs 81 crore ($11.3 million); A year later, its turnover has dropped more than 20% and losses worsened.

      how come even after so many years in business revenue is so less ??

    2. s of March 2018, Google India Private Limited recorded total revenue of Rs 9337 crore ($1.3 billion). A significant jump over the company’s previous year revenue of Rs 7239 crore ($1 billion). The company is profitable, too. It recorded a profit of Rs 407 crore ($56.8 million), as of March 2018.

      how come just 5% profit margin for google india?

    3. Facebook made $40 billion in annual revenue in 2017 globally with a net profit of $16 billion.

      40% margin! FB

    1. Franklin's learning time consisted of:Waking up early to read and writeSetting personal-growth goals (i.e., virtues list) and tracking the resultsCreating a club for "like-minded aspiring artisans and tradesmen who hoped to improve themselves while they improved their community"Turning his ideas into experimentsHaving morning and evening reflection questions

      structure for product... each element is a functionality

    1. That, though, is not how new markets typically develop: usually an integrated solution comes first, because the all of the solutions aren’t good enough, and it is easier to make something passable if one company is doing everything. Only later, after scale is achieved and standards are decided, do modular systems, buoyed by lower prices and competition up-and-down the stack, take over
      1. 1 company builds vertical products, controlling end to end experience, better UX.
      2. users starts buying this better UX product.
      3. demand increases, supply increases, prices fall, more companies come into fray. Modularization happens, companies building differnt parts of the value chain.
    2. companies like Amazon and Google have understandably sought to build modular ecosystems — that is what they do.

      What is modular ecosystem ?

    1. It’s the idea that if we do the right things consistently over a long period of time, the future we want becomes more and more inevitable because our actions compound upon one another.

      habits!!

    2. Replace all-or-nothing sprints with a marathon mentality

      habits. suistenable action. not 1 time stuff.

    1. Similarly, mobile was thought to monetize even worse than the (desktop) web until Facebook provided a centralized point that aggregated users and could be sold to advertisers

      when people in diff places, hard to monetize through ads. cumbersone, frictionfull process. But when demand concentrated in 1 place, much easier for suppliers to give ads

    1. This is because nail biting is done to relieve stress. Standen interviewed Carol Mathews, a psychiatrist of UCSF and a specialist of all things nail biting, and Mathews explained the “reward system” that nail biters engage in.

      nail biting relives stress.. how ?

    1. "It's a way of responding to stress, a way of relieving stress,"

      biting on the flesh in fingers is a way of responding to stress, way of relieving stress...

    1. Briefly, an integrated approach wins at the beginning of a new market, because it produces a superior product that customers are willing to pay for. However, as a product category matures, even modular products become “good enough” – customers may know that the integrated product has superior features or specs, but they aren’t willing to pay more, and thus the low-priced providers, who build a product from parts with prices ground down by competition, come to own the market. Christensen was sure this would happen with the iPod, and he – and his many adherents – are sure it will happen to the iPhone.

      Flaw - assumption that buying decisions happen only on price. Then people would never buy big brands like Gucci, Armani, BMW, Rolls Royce.

      HUmans are emotional (feelings) beings. Logic + emotions both drive our behaviour.

    2. Christensen’s second concern is that although integrated approaches in technology can be quite successful for a period, in the end modular approaches to technology always defeat integrated approaches.

      Why ???

    1. There is a certain symmetry to Dollar Shave Club and Donald Trump: both began by targeting niches and leveraging social media, but more importantly, the companies and institutions most invested in stopping them found themselves powerless to do so because their point of leverage had been circumvented by the Internet.

      level playing field

    2. And, just as Facebook’s breakdown of the media broke down the political parties, Amazon’s break-down of physical retail will have its own knock-on effects: carrying household supplies is a major reason to own a car, for example, which means Amazon is a laying the foundation for a service like Uber to shift from being a car supplement to a full-on substitute

      2nd order effects !

    1. The rub of the matter though is that most Indians don’t seem to particularly care for privacy—there is likely to be a large segment of folks who would gladly barter their personal information for a free movie ticket

      great insight ! indians dont think about privacy much.. free stuff >> privacy for indians!

    2. . The closest comparable global peer is a Chinese startup called 51 Credit Card that recently went public. Like CRED, 51 Credit Card is a credit card management app but goes beyond just facilitating payments. It offers user access to other financial products, most notably loans.

      Seems like revenue model -

      1. sell finance products to them based on their finacial info - how much money they pay each month, salaries, what they buy, what categories they spend on - travel, hotels, food etc..
      2. Finance products like - Loans at lower rates ? Insurance products special for them > what else can they sell ?
      3. Sell finance data to Insurance companies ? To other companies who would value this financial data ?
      4. Also to release a credit score like CIBIL ? but if they already filter on basis of CIBIL it cant be.. plus also their TG is just 40 mill at present since CC holders is just that..
    3. Not only does CRED get access to a ton of permissions on your phone, but the app is also seeking full access to the user’s Gmail account. If granted, quite simply, CRED can read all your mails.

      how can they read the emails ? how will they automatically parse and understand just those emails about credit cards ?

      They can read people's others emails also then.. !!

  5. Jan 2019
    1. Steelcase, an office furniture manufacturer, set up video cameras at various businesses and analyzed the tapes, looking for patterns of behavior and motion. The company concluded that employees who work in teams function best if they are able to work both collaboratively and privately.

      observing user behaviour to understand their needs.

    1. physically-limited lowest common denominator winners from the “good old days.”

      what does this mean ?

    2. It used to be that publishing a piece of software was only partially about creating said software: just as important, if not more, was getting said software onto shelves where customers could actually pick them up, and a publisher was lucky to keep 30% of the retail cost for the privilege.

      publisher (manufacturer) got just 30% !!

    3. Of these four the most difficult and expensive — and thus, the greatest barrier to entry (i.e. the biggest moat) — was place. Actually getting your product in front of customers required relationships with wholesales and retailers, not to mention significant investments in logistics. Indeed, the companies who controlled distribution were often the most profitable of all.

      since hardest was distribution, distribution companies made most money

    1. As we’ve grown so rapidly over the past 7 years, we have occasionally confused our value-add services for our core product value. That might be because we generate revenue from our value-add services rather than our core product value

      generate revenue from VAS and not from product value.. this is similar to what we tried to do before, with test prep being revenue generator... ..is this similar to F2P games ? core value is gameplay is fun.. and VAS is buying accesories.. but its not core gameplay.. ??

    2. In short, (1) Snapchat needs to add different kinds of users than it has added previously, and (2) the different kinds of users it needs to add are completely different from each other. That’s not a good sign! It speaks both to the saturation of the core market and to a company that still doesn’t know where it should go next.

      does a continue to keep growing ? Cannot it not say that SnapChat has fulfiled the initial problem it began solving for our chosen user ?

    3. Many older users today see Snapchat as frivolous or a waste of time because they think Snapchat is social media rather than a faster way to communicate. Changing the design language of our product and improving our marketing and communications around Snapchat will help users understand our value.

      do adults really need these many ways of communicating - FB, Whatsapp, messenger, Insta, SnapChat ?

      How is SnapChat better than FB Messenger/Whatsapp/FB for communication ?

    1. Now at over 130,000 subscribers, Blevins will earn at least $350,000 this month and potentially millions by the end of the year.

      how ??

    2. I know many of you are rolling your eyes — selling digital clothes for a digital avatar, and to the tune of a billion dollars? How silly must you be? Well, how silly must you be to carry a $5,000 handbag with far less functionality than another a fraction of the price, or wear a $10,000 watch or $200 necktie? What about flying first class or staying in a five-star hotel — you can’t take either with you! It’s completely irrational.

      if virtual things for game are irrational so is buying 5000 usd bag and iphone at 1000 usd. !!!

      physical doesnt only mean valuable.. assumption its how it makes u feel

    3. fully embraced games-as-a-service a

      ??

    1. Or, to put it another way, if you want to know where in a value chain an Aggregator is likely to form, figure out what and where the “job” is.

      ??

    2. Secondly, the Internet has made transaction costs zero, making it viable for a distributor to integrate forward with end users/consumers at scale

      how ??

    3. Distribution is free

      What does this mean ?? How can it be free?

    4. third model of startup that has emerged: the so-called sharing economy, or Assets-as-a-Service (AaaS). When you spend $10 on an Uber or Lyft ride, around $7 goes to the driver; when you spend $100 on an Airbnb, $85 goes to the host

      So Marginal Cost (cost of providing service to 1 additional user) is linked to the Marginal Revenue as fraction of revenue goes to host/ car owner...

      Unlike Byju (SAAS), where once course content built, Marginal Cost is low, since product already built. Only variable costs is Sales & Marketing.

    5. Spotify has to get Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and Merlin (the representative for many independent labels), which own 85% of the music on Spotify as measured by streams

      Just 3 groups supply to Spotify... that is why they have bargaining power..

      But for each of those groups, where else do they sell their music ? if they stop selling on Spotify, what % revenue will they loose ?

    1. P&G built strong relationships with retailers that let them dominate finite shelf space, the scarcest resource for an industry producing relatively bulky inexpensive products

      distribution

    1. Amazon could start to backwards integrate into its suppliers’ business; there are hints the company is already exploring pharmaceutical sales,

      Backwards integrate - Suppliers Business. Start making what their supplier does.

    1. It turns out seeing and accepting reality are powerful differentiators.

      embrace the truth! Acceptance.

      noEgo

    1. leaving the Cloud and Enterprise team and Applications and Services Group free to focus on building their businesses on top of all platforms

      windows platform slowing down, so if other things subservient to that, miss out. launch services on other platforms - iOS, android.

    2. Smartphones first addressed needs the PC couldn’t, then over time started taking over PC functionality directly

      disruption. innovators dilemma. starts small in some small mkt, not targeting mainstream user (big) or their needs. better in some dimension - size, convenience, user experience. But weak in some critical dimensions that mainstream customer care about - power. But over time, get good in that "power" dimension also, so can perform jobs for customer in mainstream mkt.

    1. there is no more important feature when it comes to widespread adoption than being “free.”

      because free, can have huge audience. if paid, # users would dwindle. hence, no ads.

    2. A common theme across all this is we are working hard to give users back time. We’ve always been obsessed about that at Google. Search is obsessed about getting users to answers quickly and giving them what they want.

      giving users a currency they value - time.

    1. This is going to sound dumb to younger people, I'm sure, but for me Minecraft is a great way to treat depression and anxiety. There's something really empowering about having complete control over how you're going to play. If you're feeling high-strung that day, there's something very zen about mining for ores. If you need a distraction, you can get totally wrapped up in building complicated redstone machinery. And if everything is going to shit and you don't like the way your build is turning out, you can just pick a direction and start walking, then stop and start over at a new location. None of these have the ease or availability in the real world that they do in Minecraft. :) I know you have tons of readers so this comment probably doesn't matter, but I wanted to throw it out there that I've been watching your Hermitcraft 4 series and I've thoroughly enjoyed it. I think my favorite thing in the world is your redstone Tamagotchi. (And I just realized while typing this that you might be too young to have ever owned a Tamagotchi.... lol.) I'm glad to see that you're seeing such success with this channel. You're hugely talented and entertaining, and I really enjoy watching you build.

      minecraft to treat depression !!

    2. This is exactly why I love minecraft. Imagine a child growing up with a game like minecraft; there are no limits, just free creativity. You have ambition to build the grandest structure possible. Then imagine growing up with a battle royale game. Where there is so much pressure to be number 1, and to kill everyone. Not hating on battle royale games, just expressing my opinion. I feel like minecraft is such a good game to grow up with and build your personality with. And that's coming from a 12 year old who's been playing for 3 years!

      outlet for creativity and imagination. no pressure of killing others, missions. can build whatever we want.

      1. creativity
      2. progress & development
      3. social
      4. possession & ownership.
    1. Then make a public commitment to the group. Simply tell them that you are going to do the new habit (tell them what it is) every single day for a month, and ask them to hold you accountable each day

      ask your team to hold you accountable for it !!

    2. First pick a group — you can commit to other Sea Change members on the forum in general, or join an accountability team on the forum and commit to them. I suggest the latter, as committing to a smaller group who is actually paying attention to what you’re doing is generally better. You can also commit to friends, family members and/or co-workers via email, Facebook/Twitter, etc.
      1. committing to the big group in general - but they may not pay attention. so many people.
      2. commit to a small group of 6-8 people. your accountablity team. they will care. coz small group.
      3. family & friends & work colleagues
    1. We need a change of perspective on the way we see our re-commitment to a healthy lifestyle. Instead of thinking of it as a challenge, which implies a beginning and an end (that will have many counting down the days until they can chug a beer, eat a steak, snooze the 7 a.m. gym alarm, or indulge in whatever other lifestyle choice they have labelled off limits), think of it as a jumpstart — which suggests creating a momentum that will continue to propel you towards a goal, making it a habit that sticks instead of something you revisit fleetingly and then abandon.

      then every challenge one undertakes should be one which person is comfortable doing for long term ?

      both are possible ? do no alcohol for a month, just to see effects, try some new behaviour, then go back to old behavouur .. does this have no benefit ? isnt trying some new pattern also make life interesting and different ?

    2. A study published in the European Journal of Social Psychology set out to determine just how long it takes to form a new habit. The results were less than definitive: they found that it took anywhere from 18 days to 254 days for people to form a new habit. The average being 66 days (or two months).

      if 2 month+ is reqd for habit formation than after 1month will person forget the new behaviour ? than whats the point of doing this challenge?

    1. Another secret to success is having peer support, which is why workplace wellness challenges work so well. If your company is encouraging and rewarding healthy behaviours AND people all around you at work are doing the same thing - that’s a big push and motivator.

      peer support makes workplace challenges work well!

    2. We have heard from people that were really not exercising before this challenge and the feedback is that the goal (30 minutes a day) was attainable and once they got started they didn’t want to miss a day.

      investment. dont want to lose streak.

    1. In fact, you may be better off designing your own challenge. Then, you can ensure you're working toward a goal that will really enhance your life.

      desinging your own challenge is specific to ones needs and goals

    1. No matter what you are trying to quit in 30 days, there has to be something to replace the thing you’re removing or you’ll fall back into your old habits

      replacement reqd for removal !! ... but why ??

    2. Don’t just quit soda and go straight to water, replace soda with something like Lacroix, Perrier, or coffee/tea (not sweetened tea or sugary coffee drinks, sorry). By creating a replacement for soda, your chances of sticking with quitting it will become exponentially higher in 30 days

      replace thing being quit. makes chance higher.