We’re blinded by our daily work. We see the trees, not the forest. We focus on an idea that we've had for a year, the familiarity of repetition undeservedly increasing its importance. We find it difficult to think past the last seven customer interviews or sales calls and while these are great for generating usable ideas, they only lead to small increments. Extreme ideas can help you out of tiny thinking. Some ideas are so extreme that they border on nonsense, but the different perspectives can reveal distinctly new ideas.

Brainstorming is hard

If you were forced to increase your prices by 10x, what would you do to justify it? <ul><li>What type of brand looks and feels like something that is expensive? How would the design of both the website and the product need to change?</li><li>What part of your market would you have to target? Do they have different problems or needs?</li><li>What expensive services might you need to supply? </li></ul>

10x prices

If you had to earn your growth and brand from scratch, what would you do? We often become complacent with our marketing, or we never get around to having a truly compelling unique positioning statement. <ul><li>How would you distinguish yourself with a unique compelling message? Would you use a different pricing model?</li><li>Would you throw out some features? Would you build some new features that would make you more competitive?</li></ul>

New customers

If you were never allowed to provide tech support in any form, what would you have to change? <ul><li>How would onboarding need to improve?</li><li>Where would the product need to provide the user with more control, since they can’t ask?</li></ul>

No tech support

What would be the most fun thing to build? What feature do you think would be cool for customers to use? What technology would be fun to work on? It has to be something that makes your product better, not random or unrelated.

Maximize fun

If your biggest competitor copied every feature you have, how do you still win? Creating a bigger and more emotional distinction is a powerful way to win. <ul><li>Is the answer inside your product, in something other than the utility of the features? What is it, and how could you make more of that?</li><li>If the answer is outside of our product, where is it? Is it a higher purpose or brand promise that your customers buy into?</li></ul>

Complete rip-off

What if you had to have a new feature in just two weeks that would delight and surprise a fraction of your customer? Every bit of complexity has to be stripped out, the scope needs to be reduced to a minimum. A 1000-page book can be summarized in a 40-page Cliff’s Notes. The key lessons of Cliff’s Notes can be summarized in a 1-page blog post. The main theme and one unique perspective of the book can be summarized in one sentence. If we trade things off, It can always be smaller.

No time

What if you were forced to charge customers in a completely different manner? If you’re usage-based, you’re forced to charge a flat monthly rate; if monthly with tiers, you’re forced to measure and charge daily with some formula. Business models force you into certain thinking structures about how to monetize the value that you create. Shaking up the business model shakes up the value/cost equation. Sometimes a different business model is actually better for everyone. <ul><li>How would you change how you position the value you deliver?</li><li>How would costs change?</li><li>Are there features that you’d need to build?</li></ul>

Flipped business model

If you were not allowed to have a website, how would you still grow your business? <ul><li>Could you grow by word-of-mouth?</li><li>Could you create advocacy, as in channel partners or ambassadors?</li><li>Could your product be marketing?</li></ul> Your advocates are already using your product, the product is already a platform for growth. What if “in-product marketing” is more impactful on growth than any useful feature?

No website

What if you don't have synchronous meetings ever again? <ul><li>What if you had to onboard new employees without meetings, operate the software, or find where things are located? What systems would need to exist, and what materials would you need?</li><li>What if you had to make decisions without meetings. Is it possible that brainstormed ideas could be even better without meetings?</li><li>How would you create social ties and inside jokes and 1:1 as well as group relationships if you’re never in the same space at the same time?</li></ul>

No meetings

If you could never talk to your customers again, how would you figure out what to build? <ul><li>Could you measure their behaviour so well that you could quickly measure whether any change was positive or negative? Are there clear signs of value or happiness that you could use?</li><li>Could you be even faster at testing new ideas?</li><li>What could you use online in what customers or competitors are saying, that would inform your strategy or product?</li></ul>

No customer contact

What if it didn’t matter how unprofitable you were? How much value could you deliver if you thought of the product as an exercise in philanthropy? It can be surprisingly difficult to convert money to real customer or business value, If there is a way, it might lead to a new pricing tier.

Cost is irrelevant

What if you could change anything, regardless of what anyone thinks? <ul><li>Terminating an entire product line would shake the organisation and possibly cause layoffs. What if it’s the best thing to do, regardless of that?</li><li>Pivoting the entire company could break the organisation, destroy trust in leadership, and cause people to leave. But what if that’s what's required to fix the strategy?</li></ul>

Sociopathic CEO

What externality has the potential to kill the entire company? <ul><li>Can you think of a security breach that is so significant?</li><li>Or what if most of the customer base leaves within a year? </li><li>How could the economy change so that no one would buy your software?</li></ul> Is there something you could do to mitigate the effects? Or something that pivots the company such that it is no longer a threat?

Mortal wound

What if you could only ship one thing this year? <ul><li>What single initiative would make the most difference? </li><li>What would generate the most revenue? </li><li>What would be so exciting that customers would stay even if other things are missing?</li></ul> When you look back over years of a business, often the whole trajectory comes down to 1-2 big decisions per year.

Only one thing a year

How to come up with fresh transformative ideas

It is difficult to brainstorm fresh, transformative ideas. Telling everyone that “no idea is a bad idea” isn’t enough of a prompt. These questions will stretch you beyond your daily experience; if you’re lucky, they could even lead to a unique business model and a long-term competitive moat.

Stashed ideas

Extreme questions to trigger new, better ideas

We miss the point that the ability to develop any skill as swiftly as possible, with the least amount of effort, and even to experience inner peace and joy in the process, is in fact a skill itself, and one that requires constant practice to become an effortless part of who we are.
When we subtly shift toward both focusing on and finding joy in the process of achieving instead of having the goal, we have gained a new skill. And once mastered, it is magical and incredibly empowering.

Effortless Effort

If you are not in control of your thoughts, then you are not in control of yourself. Without self-control, you have no real power, regardless of whatever else you accomplish.
If you are not aware of the thoughts that you think in each moment, then you are the rider with no reins, with no power over where you are going. You cannot control what you are not aware of. Awareness must come first

The Normal, Accidental Mind

The practising mind is quiet. It lives in the present and has laser-like, pinpoint focus and accuracy. It obeys our precise directions, and all our energy moves through it. 
Because of this, we are calm and completely free of anxiety. We are where we should be at that moment, doing what we should be doing and completely aware of what we are experiencing. There is no wasted motion, physically or mentally.

The Practising Mind

We have a very unhealthy habit of making the product — our intended result — the goal, instead of the process of reaching that goal.
When we practice something, we are involved in the deliberate repetition of a process with the intention of reaching a specific goal. The words deliberate and intention are key here because they define the difference between actively practicing something and passively learning it (similar to deliberate practice, see Peak).

The Journey, Not The Destination

<ul>
<li>When you focus on the process, the desired product takes care of itself with fluid ease.</li>
<li>When you focus on the product or goal, you immediately begin to fight yourself and experience boredom, restlessness, frustration, and impatience with the process.</li>
</ul>

The Process Matters, Not The Goal

When you remain aware of your intention to stay focused on the present, it’s easy to notice when you fall out of this perspective. At such times you immediately begin to judge what and how well you are doing, and you experience impatience and boredom. 
When you catch yourself in these moments, just gently remind yourself that you have fallen out of the present, and feel good about the fact that you are now aware enough to recognize it. You have begun to develop the Observer within you, who will prove so important in your self-guidance.

Stay In The Present

We consciously or unconsciously pick a point of reference in whatever we do and decide that nothing will be right until we get to that point. If you step back and observe your internal dialogue from time to time during the day, you will be amazed at how hard you work against yourself with this type of thinking.
In Zen, this state is referred to as “beginner’s mind.” When you are a beginner in any activity, accomplishing it takes all your concentration, and your mind is empty of chatter.

The Beginners Mind

<ul>
<li>If your mind races off, you're like a chariot without the reigns. Take the reigns and be in control of your mind.</li>
<li>Your goals are a compass, not the buried treasure. The goal is not the destination or where you end up, but rather the compass that guides the journey.</li>
<li>The greatest part of entrepreneurship is breaking down your limiting beliefs. It has nothing to do with money.</li>
</ul>

Your Beliefs And Limitations Are Only In The Mind

All of life is practice in one form or another. Actively practising something is very different from passively learning. You will never reach a level of performance that feels complete, so learn to love the art of practicing your skill.

Examines the process of practice as it relates to learning, and shows that it can build discipline and clarity, and be a fulfilling process in and of itself.

The Practicing Mind

Great brands are not an accident — they're built early and by design. Yet, storytelling and branding are two often misunderstood elements of building a great company. 
When we think of “branding," most of us envision the Coca-Colas of the world, spending millions of dollars to pick the right shade of red. This isn’t entirely false — it’s just one of the elements that are most visible.

The Branding Part That is Visible

Branding for early-stage startups matters a whole lot outside of the consumer vertical. A well-crafted brand helps its founder across three main categories: hiring a great team, raising money and building partnerships. 
These audiences, as much as any, are composed of people who want to feel connected to your mission and your brand when making a life-changing decision to work with you.

Early Stage Branding

An easy way to wrap your head around building your brand early is to think of a branding road map in connection with your product road map. 
Think of a brand as the interface between your product, business and market. It’s critical for the two — your brand and your business — to be in sync.

Bringing The Most Value

A common misconception is that a brand is essentially a collection of important artefacts — mission, vision, a tagline about making the world a better place and a logo. There’s hope that these individual artefacts will add up to a greater whole. Having a mission, vision and values written down is not wrong. At the end of the day, well-defined brands do have those. But more important than the artefacts is the substance, however, you decide to make it clear to your audiences.

A Successful Early Stage Brand

When thinking about your first stab at building a brand, keep your early adopters in mind — your investors, partners, talent — and answer these questions:1. What is my way of seeing the opportunity?2. What gives me the advantage to capture the opportunity?3. What is the job to be done on my audience’s behalf?4. Why does what I build matter?

Starting To Build Your Branding

In a way, building a brand is like scaling the best of you, the founder, so you can actually be in many places at once. 

Why Branding Brings So Much Value To Early Stage Tech

You can control whether or not you write 1000 words a day. You can control how many articles you choose to publish. This more than anything is what it means to create for an audience of one. Focusing on the things you control taps into the profound power of consistency.

What You Control Vs. What you Don’t

The beauty of the long game is that there’s less competition because the overwhelming majority of people (millions) are playing the short game: <ul><li>There are far fewer people attempting to write books than there are people composing tweets. </li><li>There are far fewer people attempting to make better art than people who are looking for more tactics </li></ul>

The Long Game

The paradox of Prioritizing mastery over Metrics is that it makes what you’ve created much more Scalable. If your product Sucks, no amount of "growth hacking" will cause it to go from lingering in obscurity to becoming a Unicorn. When you commit to mastery, you increase the likelihood of producing something with emotional resonance. If it has emotional resonance, it will continue to spread without hacks and tactics. If you focus on mastery, the Metrics will eventually move 

Commitment to Mastery Leads to Higher Quality Products and Perennial Sellers

In the end you have greater control over your actions than you do your results. Your results are created by your actions.

Because we’ve quantified nearly every aspect of our lives and made it nearly effortless to capture a person’s attention with selfies, tweets, and status updates, people overvalue metrics and undervalue mastery.Most people who have become masters of their craft did so long before social media ever existed and before they could quantify their value in artificial metrics:

Mastery Precedes the Internet

Very few people commit to mastery because it requires playing the long game. It takes years of deep work and deliberate practice.Why spend ten years becoming so good they can’t ignore you, when you can spend 20 seconds uploading a picture to Instagram or composing a tweet to be so average that they pay attention to you for a fraction of a second.

The Long Game Is Hard

The paradox of prioritizing mastery over metrics is that it makes what you’ve created much more scalable. If your product (book, podcast, app, etc.) sucks, no amount of “growth hacking” will cause it to go from lingering in obscurity to becoming a unicorn.

Mastery Over Metrics

A few days ago, I interviewed Danielle Laporte for Creative Live’s podcasting week. My host Drew asked me what advice I would give someone who is just starting out. My advice for anyone starting out…

If You Want to Build an Audience, Focus on Mastery Instead of Metrics

You may not see web development and software engineering as different positions. Both involve programming and craftsmanship, but software engineering adds to it the knowledge of data structures and algorithms, compiled languages, memory considerations, and understanding the impact of coding and architecture decisions on the machines where they reside.Large companies that hire for software engineering positions expect candidates to have this knowledge.

Web development and software engineering

<ul><li>Google rewards merit, encourages big ideas and gives employees the freedom to make good decisions for the user.&nbsp;</li><li>The hiring process is calibrated to bring in smart, passionate people.&nbsp;</li><li>Managers don’t micro-manage. They trust engineers to make the right decisions. Managers can’t unilaterally, hire, fire, or promote. Many of the important management decisions that could be perceived as office politics are handled by a committee to remove that danger.&nbsp;</li></ul>

Why Google?

<ul><li>Stop reading books and watching videos and start coding problems. This will make you able to spend more time applying the topics you've learned.</li><li>Spaced repetition is the key to memorization. Once you learn something, review it again later, and again even later. At each repetition, you reinforce your learning.</li><li>Spending hours and hours at one time on priority queues won’t make you an expert. You become an expert by revisiting and reviewing over time. If you do so, you’ll get to the point where can’t forget details.</li></ul>

Preparing for a Google interview

It’s true. I’ve spent thousands of hours reading books, writing code, and watching computer science lectures, all to prepare for the Google software engineer interview. I started programming in…

Extreme questions to trigger new, better ideas

The Practicing Mind

Why Branding Brings So Much Value To Early Stage Tech

If You Want to Build an Audience, Focus on Mastery Instead of Metrics

Why I studied full-time for 8 months for a Google interview

Martin Glenn