Product & Startup Builder

Things I Want To Teach My Kids

Added on by Chris Saad.

These are good basics. I'd add a lot to the list starting with...

- If you're confronted by something that seems wrong, consider there might be something new to learn

- If you learn something new, be curious and dig deeper

- If you love something, share it

- If you see something broken, fix it

- If you're upset, figure out precisely why and change it

- If you feel like you don’t deserve it or are afraid of it, lean in and take it anyway (That's the only way you grow and level up)

- If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands

FOCUS

Added on by Chris Saad.

yes, Yes, YES! Stop covering (and reacting) to bullshit and focus on the things that affect people. Who cares if he made an off-handed remark about being the chosen one (it was a totally benign brain fart about a specific issue with China) and FOCUS!

Tell Your Own Story

Added on by Chris Saad.

I come across a lot of startups who have a go-to-market strategy predicated on sales and marketing partnerships with partners.

The reality is, however, that in an early b2c business, If you can’t sell your own sh*t then it’s unlikely a partner can do it for you.

Partners are usually a great way to spend endless hours in negotiation and ongoing alignment struggles only to see a middling success when the partnership is executed.

Even then, all they usually do is magnify your own process. So if your process produces poor results then a partnership will just multiply that out. 0 x 10 is still Zero.

Instead, figure out how to tell your own story with a gorgeous website, explainer video, self-serve onboarding and training flow and more. Then figure out how to scale it with low hanging fruit like ads, content marketing, mailing lists, etc.

Then, and only then, lightweight co-marketing partnerships might be useful to supercharge these activities. Deep integrations should typically be left until later.

Originally posted on Facebook

Inspirational Speeches of Trek

Added on by Chris Saad.

People may dismiss it or scoff at it, but this show has an important message and it has shaped my morality, perspective and ideology. It broadened my horizons and helped make me who I am. I’ll be watching it until I die and along the way I’ll show it to my children and their children. It’s important - now more than ever.

Optimizing The Happiness Algorithm

Added on by Chris Saad.

Unhappiness is caused by the gap between your expectations and your experience.

If you expect coke and you get water you'll be unhappy. If you expect great service and you get bad service you'll be unhappy. If you expect loyalty and you get betrayal you will be unhappy.

The trick, then, is to calibrate both your expectations and your experience to minimize the distance between them.

In many ways this is a large part of the work of becoming an effective and successful adult who is in control of their emotional and practical journey.

Further, I find that, not only is my happiness inversely proportional to the size of the gap, but I also get a great deal of extra happiness in playing a little game of gap optimization. It gives me extra joy when I manage to make the gap consistently smaller though intentional work over time.

How?

I intentionly and continiously work on both sides of the equation. Expectation and experience.

On the Expectation side:

- Maintain good perspective and empathy about people's strengths, capabilities and incentives. This includes remembering that everyone is the hero or their own journey and going through their own internal emotional roller coaster ride that I can't possibly understand.

- Avoid people who consistently fail to meet my minimum bar expectations

- Avoid conflating my ideals and my "what I would have done" with what I actually expect to happen

- Quickly and consistently recalibrate my expectations based on the actual experience I'm having with someone or something

- As a last resort, I recognize that my expectations are still too high and simply lower them

On the Experience side:

The only way to consistently improve your experience is by effective communication and execution in the world. This includes (but not limited to).

- Pick the right people, projects and processes. Pay more if you have to. That's half the battle.

- Clearly communicating and getting alignment on my expectations with others. This includes clear contracts and project management tools

- Ensure incentives are aligned (recognizing that people will usually act in a way that they believe is in their best interest)

- Take ownership of my part in any failure

- Breathing and pacing yourself - having patience and endurance with yourself and others

- Quickly learn and adapt based on the feedback I'm getting from people and processes

What did I miss? How do you maintain your happiness?

Edit: It's interesting how many people have replied to this post arguing that you can only control the expectations side of this equation. The reason I wrote the post is precisely because I think too many people are ignoring their complicity with the experience side. By "just lowering your expectarions" you're essentially blaming others for "not being good enough" and you are not taking enough responsibility for your management and participation in an experience.

Originally posted on Facebook

Uncanny Ability to Make Friends

Added on by Chris Saad.

While having breakfast at the hotel restaurant...

Random lady to my wife: "See you later" *big smiles*

Me: "Who's that?"

Wife: "My friend!"

Me: "What!? When did you meet her?"

Wife: "Over there" *points to the buffet* "She was picking things and I was picking things so I said hello and we became friends"

There's no one my beautiful wife does not immediately connect with. One of the many things I love about her.

Originally posted on Facebook

Movie Recommendation: The Lion King (Live-Action)

Added on by Chris Saad.

The "Live-Action" The Lion King (there's actually only 1 real shot in the whole movie apparently) remake was everything the Aladdin remake was not.

It was an almost perfect shot-for-shot, sound-for-sound recreation that only deviated from the source material when it had something materially better to say or do.

Those deviations were almost uniformly brilliant and made the overall story better.

In particular, I noticed and really appreciated how they...

1. Improved/fleshed out the core motivations of Scar and The Hyaenas (control over the hunting grounds).

2. Better explained why Scar's rule resulted in an imbalance in the circle of life (over-hunting vs. maintaining the delicate balance)

3. Highlighted how Timone and Pumbas's nihilistic world view differed from the principles of interdependence and duty that Mufasa tried to teach his son. ("Simba, it's not a circle, it's a line - and we all come to the end of it. Nothing matters")

4. Made Nala a more pro-active character. In particular, I liked the way they showed how leaving the Pridelands and finding Simba came at considerable risk (by showing her departure and the threats she had to navigate)

5. Illustrated the connectedness of things (the theme of the movie) by showing the sequence of events that lead to Grafiki finding Simba's hair. (rather than the mystical "smelled it on the air" approach in the cartoon).

6. Gave the secondary characters more agency (and resulting hero moments) in the final battle.

7. Tidied up the 'Royal blood-line" "Devine right" themes by making it about leadership as service vs. leadership by "might makes right".

Perhaps the only criticism from me is that the realistic nature of the animation didn't always allow for the full range of emotions needed to convey the gravity of some of the situations. That being said, I'm not ashamed to admit that certain parts had me tearing up.

What's more, I really think the two movies stand on their own as distinct works of art. The remake is perhaps a little darker and more realistic - making it better for older audiences. I can't wait to show my kids the cartoon and then the remake when they are a little older.

There is ultimately only 1 story to tell. Who. Are. You?

Must watch.

Poor Communication Makes Relationships Harder

Added on by Chris Saad.

Poor communication makes relationships much, much harder than they need to be.

Whatever it is, whatever you’re afraid of saying - Just say it with love and the intention of *creating* shared understanding.

Similarly, whatever you’re told, whatever you hear from your partner - receive it as a gift (all truth is a gift) with the intention of *finding* shared understanding.

If you argue to win, then you’re destined for a very, very hard life. If you react to hard truths with defensiveness and recrimination then you will have a hard time getting the truth again.

Originally posted on Facebook