Another Excuse Newsletter

Welcome back to the Another Excuse Newsletter. It isn’t just another excuse, but a reason to start that thing you’ve been putting off.

What to expect this week:
👓Perspective - Doors
🔨 Tool - Culture
🍿Consume - Gen Z Marketing
📖Concept - Farm for Dissent

Latest Podcast Episode

This week’s guest is Jason Valenti.

Jason is the co-founder of Astrix AI, an adaptive learning platform for professional level exams. And the first exam they're focusing on is the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Level 1 exam. We discuss how it all started and what's wrong with the current way exam prep is done.

In this episode, we discuss:

• How Astrix works
• Why Jason is tackling this problem
• The importance of pivoting
• How the LLM boom influenced how they make decisions for the future of the business
• The Importance of Deliberate Practice and Instant Feedback
• Taking the Leap and Overcoming Fears
• Ambitious Milestones and Future Plans for Astrix AI

And so much more...

You can check out the episode here.

Perspective

Doors

In an investor letter years ago, Jeff Bezos shared a framework around decision-making.

He referred to it as 1-way and 2-way doors.

Some decisions have consequences that are nearly irreversible. He calls these decisions 1-way doors.

You have to make these decisions carefully, with great deliberation and consultation.

If you haven’t realized why it’s called a 1-way door, it’s because there’s no turning back. Once you’ve made your decision you have to live with it.

Very few decisions are actually like this.

Most of them are 2-way doors. You can change your decision, go back, and start again.

If you don’t like the outcome of your decision you don’t have to live with the consequences for too long.

His point about 2-way door decisions is that they should be made quickly by high judgment individuals and small groups.

Larger companies fall into the trap of 1-way door decisions even when they shouldn't be.

This causes the company to move a lot slower than it should and be less innovative.

Make reversible decisions quickly, you will outfail your competition.

Tool

Culture

Today’s tool is slightly different from the normal website or app.

It’s something to refer back to, to make sure you’re on the right path when building a team.

Building a good team is so important and that’s exactly what Netflix focused its attention on to grow them to the company they are today.

Back in 2009, their culture deck went viral.

They made the decision to share it with every candidate and of course, that caused it to go public.

It used to be a 100-page deck, but now it’s a straightforward page on their website.

It’s a greater resource to get ideas and understand what language they use intentionally to signal what kind of company they are to the people they want.

They focused on the term high performance team, not family.

They wanted to get the best out of their employees and help them understand the culture they wanted to build.

They also had a 4-month severance package so people didn’t feel that they were left out to dry when they left.

If you want to check out their current culture “deck” you can check it out here.

Consume (Read / Watch / Listen)

Gen Z Marketing

Gen-Z and Millenials shop differently.

And because they shop differently they need to be marketed to differently.

The path to purchase has completely changed over the years, but marketing has been slow to adapt.

This study helps highlight how Gen Z and Millenials make purchasing decisions.

If you’re looking to enter the market with a new product, taking a look at this study could be helpful in deciding which channels you should be prioritizing.

It tells you where they spend the most time, what kind of research they do before purchasing and how they prefer shopping.

It’s important to understand the consumer.

If you don’t, you could be left scratching your head asking “Why is no one interested?”

Check it out here.

Concept

Farm for Dissent

You can tell where I got my inspiration for this week’s edition from.

Netflix founder Reid Hastings felt that failure was extremely important to Netflix’s culture.

He feels that many high performing employees don’t tell their seniors if they’re wrong.

Either out of fear or because they believe that because of their success, they must be right.

Of course, this isn’t one side.

Most of the time it’s the other way around.

The arrogant CEO who calls the shots and isn’t really willing to listen to the people they’ve hired.

That’s why it’s even more important to farm for dissent.

If there isn’t any structure or requirement for it to happen, it won’t.

He suggests a public Google doc, and telling everyone to pick apart your ideas.

Another way that Bezos uses is making sure he speaks last in a meeting.

If everyone speaks in reverse hierarchy, no one is influenced by what someone previously said.

There are many ways to do it, but the point is, you should.

You can feel like you have to make all of the decisions, but if you give the people you hired some autonomy and trust, great things will happen for your business.

Thanks for Reading

Now start something!

P.S. Feedback is welcome and needed! If you’d prefer to send me an email and not respond, you can do so here: [email protected]

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