Insights & Thoughts on Product Development, Life Hacks and Team Dynamics — Clips of Logic — T.S. Lim

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Getting it right vs Not getting it wrong

Both might sound the same but I think they are really two entirely different approaches to learning and solving problems. The natural approach to learn about something is to experiment and try out new things. You might not get it in the beginning but eventually and hopefully after a few tries you'll get it right.

However, there are some that are so worried about failing and getting it wrong, their approach is instead to not make any mistakes. I'm all for minimizing mistakes but this doesn't work if you don't even understand how something work.

Man greatest inventions and innovations are found through countless experimentations and relentless trials and errors. Thomas Edison tried thousands of times before he finally got it right and invented the light bulb. Imagine if he were to worry about getting it wrong.

Lose small, win big

In many situations, you'll noticed that all you need is one big break that pulls you out of a string of failures. The huge win that wipes out all your losses. You see this in investments, businesses and games. But of course, it also works the other way round more often than it should. You probably know someone who lost everything in a bad bet. After all, losing is part of the game so someone got to take the hit.

It is best to expect losses and aim to reduce its damage but Nassim Nicholas Taleb took it a step further and used the inevitability of losing as his strategy to win big. He planned his investment strategy around the fact that sooner or later a financial disaster would occur and aims to cash in on that.

He used a financial instrument known as options where you can make bets against the future of the stock price. You can obtain options to buy or sell stocks at a certain price. He systematically purchase options to buy stocks at a price which is most likely higher than it will be during a market crash.

Obviously the market doesn't crash that often, so most of the time he is slowly losing money. (due to the transaction cost of trading options) But when the day comes, he will exercise his options to recoup his losses and more. He limits the money he can lose while leaving the opportunity to make a much larger amount.

I think this is probably the best strategy you can ever adopt. You should try apply it not only to your investment portfolio but to everything in your life. We can't prevent failures and losses. So losing is fine as long as it's small but remember to leave the door open for yourself to win big.

Love makes your work irresistible

Mark Sanborn says that the way to make yourself and your work irresistible lies in the four-letter word, LOVE. If you are passionate about your work, others can feel it. It shows up in the product you design and the service you provide.

Our lives and work are marked by love when we seek to give instead of receive, focus on how we do something rather than just doing it, see a task as a privilege rather than an obligation, make relationships a priority, and move beyond simple action to the accompanying emotions.

He also provided an acronym to infuse this irresistible ingredient into your work. He calls it P-R-A-C-T-I-C-E-S. Patience, Recognition, Appreciation, Counsel, Time, Instructions, Compassion, Encouragement and Service.

When we deliver them with love, our products and services become more attractive, leading to better customer response, greater employee retention, and more.

Read his manifesto to find out more about how you can make a difference in your work by loving what you do, who you are doing with and who you are doing it for. LOVE is the difference you need to stand out.

Stay low while you can

The first thing most people do when they are starting out on a new venture, idea or project is to tell the whole world about it. It's not bragging or showing off. They are genuinely excited about the whole thing and wants to share with the rest of us. I think talking and discussing about your new idea with as many people as possible is the right approach. You want to find out everything you can about it and rarely anyone is going to steal your idea. It comes down to your execution anyway.

But there are some advantages to staying low profile when you are starting out. First is that it gives the ability to fail without being noticed. You can try a million different approaches in obscurity without worrying about what your neighbors think of you. To the rest of the world, it is as if all those failures had never happened.

When no one knows about you, you can make mistakes quietly. Learn at your own pace. Fail without the fear of failure. Failing in obscurity helps protect your ego and you’ll need your ego later on when you are successful. - Embrace Obscurity from 37signals

The other reason to work on the sidelines is to allow you to improve it until it's ready for the limelight. You get to decide when to reveal yourself to the world and your competitors will have less time to react. It's hard to prepare for something when you don't know what's coming.

New early-stage start up trend: get big quietly, so you don’t tip off potential competitors. - @cdixon

Businesses and ideas that appears to be overnight successes aren't what they appear to be. Most of them been through countless iterations and difficult times before anyone noticed them.

So, if you aren't famous or popular yet, that's fine. Work on that idea first. Being in the spotlight can wait.

A better way

Too often we think some things can't be improved or changed. There are millions of excuses to keep things the same. It's been that way since the dawn of time. Why change something that works? You can't do this because no one ever does that. Akshay Kothari and Ankit Gupta obviously don't agree with that and created yet another RSS news reader for iPad. It made reading news on the iPad more visually appealing and fun. News are presented in a scrollable mosaic with images extracted from the post.

Cultured Code, a software firm from Germany decided to build a better to-do list management software even though there are probably thousands of them out there. Things for Mac, their version of to-do list, won multiple design awards and are now available in iPhone and iPad. You can check out this video to see how it works.

We built Showtimes.my believing that there has to be a better and easier way to present movie showtimes. The site highlights show that is coming up next and de-emphasize those that are in the past. It makes it easier to spot the upcoming showtime. It's probably better than most movie showtimes out there but definitely not the best yet. After all, there's always a better way to do it. You just have to keep pushing the boundary.

Asking for help

As someone who is rather shy when it comes to talking to strangers, asking for help can be quite an unpleasant experience. Often, I choose to just skip asking for help and attempt to solve whatever issue I have by myself. In trying to not look stupid, I did probably the most stupid thing you can ever do when you need help. Not asking for it. Think of the time and effort I could have saved if I opened my mouth and ask.

Most people are willing to offer their knowledge and expertise if you ask nicely. We inherently love to share things with others. Those that don't are often shunned and avoided. It's okay if someone refuse to help you. You just need to ask someone else.

The most important about getting help from others is that you get to learn from their experience. There's no reason to make the same mistake by yourself to learn from it. You can learn by asking too.

You want to learn from experience, but you want to learn from other people’s experience when you can. - Warren Buffet

Obviously, you can't rely on others all the time. At the end of the day, you still have to do the hard part yourself. But it can make things easier and it doesn't hurt to ask. Just remember to show your gratitude and offer help to those who need them.

Be a starter

This is one of my favourite essay in the book REWORK. Many people thought that only entrepreneurs get to create and start something. The rest that doesn't have the qualifications, the resources, the talent or the risk appetite wont be able to make it.

rework-cover-front-big.png

The thing is, you don't have to be identified as an entrepreneur to start a profitable company or create a remarkable product. All you need to is to start doing it. Start executing the idea you have since you were a kid.

So let's replace the fancy-sounding word with something a bit more down-to-earth. Instead of entrepreneurs, let's just call them starters. Anyone who creates a new business is a starter. You don't need an MBA, a certificate, a fancy suit, a briefcase, or an above-average tolerance for risk. You just need an idea, a touch of confidence, and a push to get started. - Excerpt from "Enough with entrepreneurs" from REWORK

Everyone should be encourage to start something on their own. You might not have all the "prerequisite" skills yet but you just need the most important one. The ability to start something. The ability of a starter.

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It's not about the mistakes

In many games, due to the complexity and randomness of it, the winner is mostly determined by the one who makes the least mistakes. It's a battle to reduce the amount of errors in your game play. Similarly, unexpected things can happen in life so we are bound to make some mistakes. It is pretty hard to go against the Murphy's law so it's alright if you screw up from time to time.

But I don't we should care all that much about mistakes. Yes, you need to try to minimize them and learn from them but ultimately, our lives aren't about tracking the mistakes we made.

Your life shouldn't be a score card for mistakes you made but a list of achievements and accomplishments you have. Don't let mistakes drive the story of your life. It's about what you did not what you did wrong.

Starting first

In most games, starting first gives you a better edge because you get to dictate the pace of the game. The effect is even more prominent in turn based games. However, life isn't a turn based game, so acting first can be extremely scary (to the lizard brain) and very uncomfortable for most people. It seems safer when we are being lead by someone and if anything goes wrong, we got someone to blame.

But if your aim is to do something remarkable, different and revolutionary, chances are you have to be the one to take the first step.

There is no guarantee that by starting first, you will stand a better chance than the rest. But at least, you'll be the pioneer and if you do make it, the rewards are definitely worthwhile.