đź’ˇ You are probably not one feature away from success
Hello friends đź‘‹
Well, this is neat. I used the long weekend to finally switch my RSS-to-Email platform from Mailchimp to Buttondown, and I'm so happy I finally did that. Buttondown is cheaper, it's run by a lovely human named Justin who answered a bunch of my questions over the weekend, and it lets me add a custom intro (like this one!) before the email goes out. So that is just fantastic. Strong recommend, would switch again.
On a personal note, I know writing has been pretty sporadic around these parts. The reason is that I started a new job at Jeli.io in August, and then a couple of months later the company was acquired by PagerDuty, and I am still knee-deep in onboarding and learning.
But! I do want to get back into writing—and more than just the blurbs and quotes I mostly share. I'm telling you this so you can yell at me if I don't start writing more regularly again. You have my permission to @ me.
With that... enjoy some lovely reading material from the blog over the past week...
-Rian
You are probably not one feature away from success
I like this perspective from Ed Sim on recognizing that you can’t always build yourself into product-market fit…
There is no easy answer for a lack of customer traction, but my one suggestion before you commit to the idea that you are one feature away from success, is to go back to the basics and first ask if this is the right user or customer. If you believe you have that nailed, try multiple messages and keep learning from every interaction. You may have the right product today but for the wrong user. Or you simply may just have a cool technology in search of a problem to solve in which case you should start completely over.
The 10x Exercise for Entrepreneurs
I don’t like the “10x” terminology in tech, but The 10x Exercise for Entrepreneurs is not that. It’s about a thought exercise for entrepreneurs as they start to reach product-market fit:
What does our employee org chart look like with ten times the scale? What will our customer mix look like at ten times the revenue? What types of funding sources and capital stack will I need to fund the growth of the business to achieve this scale? What types of partnerships, infrastructure, and geographic locations will be necessary to 10X the business?
Still uncool, but finally useful
I wholeheartedly endorse the RawSignal team’s take on performance reviews:
A great performance review is not an evaluation conversation, it’s an alignment conversation. It shouldn’t be a conversation about which things happened, it should be a conversation about which things matter. It’s an opportunity for you and your person to get onto the same page about where you’re seeing the work differently, because that is informative in terms of how the next year is going to feel.
Algorithms Hijacked My Generation. I Fear For Gen Alpha.
This is a bleak take, but I have to admit that I am also concerned.
I believe we have some personal agency. I also believe that a 12-year-old’s mind is no match for a giant corporation using the most advanced AI to manipulate her behavior. Gen Z were the first generation to have our vulnerabilities and insecurities fed into a machine that magnified and refracted them back at us before we had any sense of who we were.
Thanks for reading Elezea! If you find these resources useful, I’d be grateful if you could share the blog with someone you like.
Got feedback? Send me an email.
PS. You look nice today 👌