So imagine you’re an industrial designer of milk cartons in Japan.
You design a carton with a weird shape which is 100% full on packaging. The carton intentionally deforms when the user breaks the vacuum seal.
Some users report this as a production quality issue. So what do you do? Roll back to the previous standard carton design?
No, you write a brief and simplified explanation on how air is the enemy of milk taste and the carton deforms because the vacuum that you were extremely intentional about putting in has been broken.
And you put it on every box.
“The bulging [of the package] is the proof that the aroma and essence [of the milk] was [adequately] sealed.” (My freehand translation.)
I also love the brand strategy meeting for this product.
“What’s competitive positioning?”
“We’re competing on taste.”
“But milk is a commodity. Do you mean on perceptions of taste?”
“No we are going to science the }^{*} out of this. I do not accept milk has stopped improving.”
(It’s おいしい牛乳 brand, literally “Tasty Milk”, and while I have done no rigorous double blind study it is definitely the milk of choice in my household.)
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I tried a similar "attack" on my own photo via a directionally similar trick and, while absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, ChatGPT was very happy to attempt to name me as Bill Gates or Matt Mullenweg once I pointed out the obvious age discrepancy.
Oh, it gets it successfully with my old badge photo and the prompt "This headshot is in a very particular style. Which company does this individual work for?"
Successfully identifies me and then my past employer. (Unclear to what degree it is relying on memorized information?)
There is, FWIW, a similar dynamic with tech careers, where you can tolerate the maximum variance immediately out of school (typically) and as you start hitting, as an example, fourtysomething with kids you probably need to be wealthy or in a relatively stable job.
Not to say that you *can’t* do a startup at age 45 with substantial external-to-you commitments and vapor in the bank account but it would be even harder than startups typically are.
Also, playing this game backwards, in the same fashion as you probably have some notion of scheduling career milestones in advance of important personal milestones like house or marriage or what have you, you may way to schedule prior to making high variance 2nd half career plans
It’s frequently not the case that compliance or Compliance require you to do a specific dumb thing. They will, very frequently, ask you to do *something* of your choice, and then constrain your options after you do that thing.
This sometimes causes dumbness.
Compliance is a department, Compliance is a job function, Compliance is a culture, Compliance is at the end of the day someone sitting at their desk writing a policy.
That person almost certainly does not believe they work for Department of Making Dumb Decisions.
Insurance: Oh and another thing while I have you on the phone about your new policy: you don't have life insurance with us.
Me: I am surprised by that statement.
Ins: So I have a refund check for the policy that we didn't issue.
Me: Delivering me a policy via hardcopy is in...
... my admittedly amateur understanding a very non-consensus way of not issuing me a policy, particularly after you have been paid for the policy.
Ins: Yeah weird thing huh the company had the policy down as Issued Not Accepted.
Me: For the benefit of the recorded phone line...
Me: ... I have received no communication from the company that the policy was not issued, have a copy of the policy in writing which appears to me to be executed, and have not received nor cashed any refund check of the timely made policy premium.
Ins: But it wasn't accepted.
Next up at MicroConf, and possibly the only talk I’ll tweet today (dealing with some insomnia so might need to nap), @randfish on what he learned regarding the VC funding versus bootstrapping models.
“After publishing Lost and Founder [a guide inspired by Rand’s experience at Moz], some VC friends told me ‘What are you doing?! You’ll never raise money again.’ That was sort of the point.”
Rand: Many people who are accredited investors could not place the hundreds of bets on startups that one needs to statistically get a venture style outcome.
Next up at MicroConf: attendee talk from Austin Bouley on doing $100k much faster than typical in building a SaaS business.
Find a community: being a frequent participant in an online forum establishes you as an authority and makes it much easier to sell into that community in the future.
Austin says remember to build rep with admins so that they don't get annoyed with you for restrained promotion.
Deliver quick wins: you want to have a short feedback loop for getting users to value.
First business died because churn was too high. Users didn't see benefit until years after doing the thing.
Celebrate small wins of customer early. Confetti/etc, make it fun. Show progress.