The week rule to prevent failure.

(a thread on this mental model)

🎊 It's the 13th chapter of my book: invertedpassion.com/the-week-rule-…
1/ Entrepreneurs are always in a hurry. They want the product to be out so that they can get customer feedback sooner.

This hurry is understandable yet misguided because it prioritizes getting the idea out in front of customers over everything else.
2/ The initial excitement about an idea can easily lead to months of wasted development effort.

Imagine discovering major flaws in pricing, distribution, design, or market *after* all that effort.
3/ Isn’t it much better to flesh out ideas with a few weeks of research than to spend months developing them?
4/ The suggestion to research an idea before launching is obvious and most people will agree with it.

However, in practice, the rush of bringing an exciting idea to life biases towards development and against research.

To prevent this, follow the week thumb rule.
5/ The week thumb rule suggests that no matter how exciting an idea seems, rather than dive headlong into development, it’s wise to spend at least a few weeks researching the competition, customer needs, pricing, distribution channels, and development challenges.
6/ The more time that’s spent during research, the more obvious mistakes you’ll later prevent.

Why pivot after months when you can pivot within a week? So, be patient.
7/ But don’t be too patient.

Although it doesn’t happen often, it’s possible to do too much research.
8/ Entrepreneurship requires a dash of ignorance about the difficulty of solving some problems in the market.

Do too much research and you may get dissuaded to even take the first step.
9/ Most successful entrepreneurs would say that they wouldn’t have started if they knew how difficult it is going to be.

So, finding the right balance of doing just the right amount of research is important.
10/ In my experience, for most software / consumer products, research on the order of weeks is enough.

After all that research, if you’re still excited about the opportunity, go for it.
11/ 🧠

Remember: doing a thorough scan of customers and markets before development significantly increases the odds of success by helping drop non-viable ideas early on.
12/ That's it!

The entire chapter is here: invertedpassion.com/the-week-rule-…
13/ I'm posting ~1 new mental model for entrepreneurs every week.

Here's the entire list of 60+ mental models that I'll cover in a year or so: invertedpassion.com/free-book-ment…

Make sure you sign up for email updates on the book page.
14/ Previous mental model is in this thread:

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More from @paraschopra

16 Mar
Can an economy keep on 📈 growing?

(a thread)
1/ Imagine an economy that keeps on growing indefinitely.

It's essentially a non-zero-sum economy - as the pie becomes bigger, *everyone* becomes better as even a small percentage of a really large number is substantial.
2/ A capitalistic economy is a fantastic invention - entrepreneurs compete to give consumers more value cheaply.

Markets create incentives for innovation, and innovation helps the world become richer as over time more and more human desires are satisfied.
Read 56 tweets
11 Mar
How did language evolve?

(a tiny thread)

Also, it's my 8th podcast:
1/ I interviewed Micheal Corballis who is a professor at the University of Auckland.

He backs up the idea that languages evolved gradually and some version of it existed much before Homo Sapiens arrived on the scene.

🤯 Mind-blowing, isn't it?

Watch it:
2/ We cover a lot of ground in this interview.

With just 1 hour of investment, you'll get to 💡 learn all this.

Some of my key insights follow below in the 🧵 thread.
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3 Mar
Ever heard of meta-science?

I interviewed @profjamesevans on:

- how 🧪 science happens
- why small teams do big scientific breakthroughs
- similarities between startups and 🔭 scientific endeavors
- what research shows about the path to success

1/ @profjamesevans is the Director of Knowledge Lab, and faculty at the Sociology department at the University of Chicago.

He uses machine learning to understand how scientists think and collectively produce knowledge.

Watch the entire podcast here:
2/ Here's all the topics we cover in this interview:
Read 55 tweets
1 Mar
Been thinking about computationalism - that our universe is a computer and/or that we're in a simulation.

There seems to be a contradiction in the argument (below).

Can someone help answer?
Since a simulation of water doesn't wet anything or simulation of a black hole doesn't create a black hole, why do we believe that a simulation of consciousness will itself be conscious?

If a simulation can't be conscious, is computationalism false?
In other words:

I get that consciousness can be a property of certain arrangement of physical systems, but what I don't get is how it can be property of certain computations (since the same computation can be implemented in many ways - microchips, pulleys, vacuum tubes, etc.)
Read 5 tweets
28 Feb
How bitcoin is different from gold.

(a tiny thread)
1/ The most important bit is that gold outcompeted preexisting currencies as a medium of exchange.

Before gold, people used shells, salt etc.

Gold was unique because it was non- consumable and infinitely divisible.

Not many existing currencies shared that.
2/ Unlike bitcoin, gold properties wasn’t adopted because it was theorised to be better.

Its superiority was discovered gradually through market transactions, not through white papers or theoretical arguments.
Read 8 tweets
22 Feb
A short thread on Venture Capital.
1/ VCs are a portfolio of uncorrelated, risky bets that entrepreneurs take.
2/ Essentially VCs underwrite business risk - they let entrepreneurs take the risk that has a small chance exceptional returns.
Read 9 tweets

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