Jawwad Farid Profile picture
Jun 22, 2020 14 tweets 6 min read Read on X
0/ On #rebooting or starting again

Why is it so difficult to start again. A thread on #running, #startups and #founders.

Understanding founder mindset through road running.
1/ The difference between #stamina, #endurance and speed endurance

Stamina, the ability to perform a task at certain capacity, rate or pace.

Like running 5km in 30 minutes or 10km in 60.

Stamina is focused on maintaining a rate or pace for a certain duration or time
2/ Endurance is the maximum time you can sustain an activity without worrying about pace or rate.

Like going for a long slow run. Here distance or pace is not important. Maximizing time on road is.

Liking a 90 minute run. Focus on 90 minutes. Not distance or pace.
3/ Speed endurance is a training tool.

Coaches use it to build stamina. Repeats of shorter faster runs with short breaks to build up stamina for longer runs.

Like 5x1km repeats with 3 min rest in between, at faster than normal race pace.

Feels as if you are dying.
4/ What do you lose first when you stop training?

Endurance is the last to to go. Speed endurance is the first.

Most runners can start running after a break of 4 weeks. 8 weeks is the longest you can stay away before losing it all.

Re-building speed endurance is painful.
5/ We lose speed endurance within ten days.

You can build it back it up if its been a short break. Anything longer, you will have to start again from zero.

To get yourself back in shape, to run a sub-6 min/km 10k is not just painful, its going to take a long long time.
6/ How fast you can get back depends on how active you were during your break.

I put on an excess 5kgs during mine. Till that melts away, I can forget about speed or speed endurance.

If you want to keep speed endurance, you have to keep at it.

Use it or lose it.
7/ Like runners, founders often work in bursts of short intense effort.

Our skill set is specialized.

Ideation, discovery, customer development, growth, scale and a strong sense of self belief.

Like cycling, swimming and running it comes back to us when we restart.
8/ Like rebuilding speed endurance, it takes time to get a startup, an idea or a team up to speed again.

There is also excess baggage that has to be shed.

Without shedding the baggage, you can forget about speed, agility or nimbleness.
9/ Repetitive cycles of short intense failures are similar to speed endurance training.

Feels like you are dying. During and after.

But with training you get better at handling the pain.

You can handle it, but its still pain. Hurts like crazy.
10/ Whether running or starting up as a founder, you need to step up your game.

That step up is not possible without repeated failures and the pain that comes with it.

Because we know what is coming, we don't want to start on that path again.

Use it or lose it.
11/ I know I no longer have it in me to do another startup.

I have given all that I could give.

I can no longer handle the training curve. And I don't want what's waiting at the end of the rainbow.

But luckily, I haven't hit the same threshold with running.
12/ On #rebooting and starting up all over again. A thread on #founders #startups and #running.

@faizansiddiqi
@jehan_ara
@alinawab
@TalhaIzhar
@Huk06
@babushka99
13/ Context. A student asked last week if I would do it all over again, one more time.

I said no. He asked why. This thread is for him. You know who you are :)

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Jawwad Farid

Jawwad Farid Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @rebootdude

Jan 31
Had two insightful chats with two fellow academics and educationists yesterday.

The topic? What is it that we need to change to improve state of higher education in universities we teach in.

Here is a quick summary / the cliff notes edition of the conversation.
The purpose of undergraduate education?

Help our students discover, explore, develop and acquire interests.

A more ambitious goal? To get comfortable with personal performance windows and envelopes.

What are you really capable of? What is it that you want to do? Who are you?
The "who are you" question has been a key question in my life.

Self awareness is a powerful personal attribute that simplifies decision making and goal setting.

Because once you have answered this, you can also answer where do you want to go and what do you want to do?
Read 22 tweets
Sep 19, 2023
SWIFT MT 103. Foreign Currency Wire Transfers.

A single customer credit transfer made on the SWIFT network.

The bane of remittance/ free lancer / tech founder challenge across banking sector in Pakistan. More so for small businesses / founders that receive sub $ 1,000 wires.
Once upon a time in a different life we wrote, ran and supported treasury systems that generated MT 103 messages for local banks.

Given how treasuries front / back offices are structured and how all $ payments are consolidated and cleared via NYC, workflow was simple.
Collect all outgoing payments, bundle them together into one balance for one market / relationship / target account.

Send a shorter message to primary US$ Nostro account targeted for out going transfers for one amount.

If there is a shortfall, move money around.
Read 21 tweets
Feb 28, 2023
If you work with risk, insurance, trading or pricing, loss distributions are a key concept.

Traditional or introductory statistics courses don't have time to do justice to them.

We took a deep dive with automobile claims data (80,000 rows) in the ADA course.
With insurance models we are interested in two key parameters.

a) Frequency - the likelihood or probability of a claim.
b) Severity - the size of a claim, when a claim occurs.

Loss distributions focus on b).

If a claim occurs how big or bad is it likely to be?
Actuarial teams use data analysis to identify common attributes across high severity claims.

A large majority of motor insurance claims are within pricing limits.

A small percentage are 25 - 50x larger.

If we could identify the profile, we could price/underwrite better risks.
Read 10 tweets
Nov 12, 2022
How do you encourage or foster creativity?

Cross pollination and collaboration of ideas from different worlds and backgrounds?

We learn more when we

a) Work with individuals and teams with different perspectives.

b) Remove crutches that we use without thinking about them.
How would you design a high fidelity prototype for a game without using technology or standard art?

You level the playing field in one stroke. No developer, artist or designer would have an edge.

Only creativity would rule.

Welcome to @ibakarachi @Mindstormstudio @RaptrGames
Open to all undergraduate and graduate programs in Karachi.

If you are:

a) Avid game player
b) Aspiring game designer
c) Care about creative expression
d) Curios about what make games playable, addictive, instant hits, or
e) Love real time community feedback
Read 5 tweets
Nov 11, 2022
Fun talk today by Dr. Alnoor Bhimani @ibakarachi on data as a product, monetizing data, qualitative insights, and decision making processes.

And what all of the above implies for business school education.
My favorite takeaway?

If the data is the new oil for the knowledge economy, and we produce a lot of it, how do we productize and monetize it as an economy.

If we don't, someone else will. No one had put it down or explained it this clearly.

Data is our new edge.
Dr. Bhimani also made me a convert to the NFT cause.

I don't think he realized what he did but he said something so profound and powerful that it finally connected the dots for me.

"We may not be willing to pay for art produced by an AI today, but one day we will."
Read 4 tweets
Nov 9, 2022
The most fun engagements in my senile years are ones where I pick a new skill, crack a difficult problem or learn stuff I didn't know before.

Easier to do this type of work when you run a small specialized shop without distractions of a large team.

Small shop. Large footprint.
2018-19.
IFRS 17.
Teaching Portfolio Optimization Models + Algorithms + Financial Modeling.

2019-20.
First and second half marathon.
Remote work + Zoom Cohort based live training.
Founder Puzzles. Product launch.

2020-21.
Surviving Covid + recovering.
Close call.
3rd half.
2021-22.
Context switching. Fixing my knee.
Growth and Economic Complexity.
Raising 6 at 18 post.
Scale multiples and idea selection framework.
The Pakistan dataset.
Ed-Tech and crypto deep dive.
Teaching Venture Capital + Fintech and Financial Innovation.
Shipping FP, 2nd Ed.
Read 4 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(