🌱 5 new insights for product builders (#79)

How to outsmart yourself; 20 quick "80/20 principles" for founders; Taking advantage of context switching; To go broad, go deep; and 10 simple rules of communication

Jaryd here! 👋 You’re reading 5-Bit Fridays—your weekly ~5-minute roundup of 5 actionable insights that can help you build and grow your product.

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Friends, good morning. ☕

Three quick notes before we get started…

1. I want to apologize to all of you for how long it’s been since my last deep dive or From The Garden essay. My mom passed away unexpectedly, and I’ve been struggling to write and feel very creative over the past 2 months. Each time I’ve sat down for the long-form stuff, I’ve become quite overwhelmed. But, our next deep dive will be next week! And I’m feeling better about returning to our regular programming. Thank you for bearing with me.

2. On a lighter note…WE DID IT! Apple is scaling back production of their Vision Pro headsets. Some sources say they could stop making the existing version entirely by the end of 2024. For everyone who read my essay and call to action to stop the madness, Who even asked for spatial computing?…well, let’s take some credit for dampening demand. 🤝

3. A few months ago, I spoke to the GOAT of Finance (

   CJ Gustafson
   ) and the GOAT of media and newsletter businesses (
   Reid DeRamus
   ) in Reid’s new podcast. Two 🐐’s in one episode…well worth the listen if you’re curious about the mechanics behind how newsletters get started and grow.

The Making of Mostly Metrics with CJ Gustafson

Okay…today’s roundup covers:

• To Go Broad, Go Deep

• The "80/20 principle" for founders

• How Your Context Changes Your Life

• To Beat the Market, You Have to Outsmart Yourself

• 10 Simple Rules of Communication

5 big ideas; 5 calls to action

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(#1) To Go Broad, Go Deep

“I asked Priscilla Chan about how she balances depth of impact vs. breadth of impact.

To go broad, she told me, you have to first go deep. When she was working at UCSF Medical Center, she said, she noticed something interesting: the number one determinant of whether her patients got care was a factor she wouldn’t have expected—it was whether the BART public transit system was running on time. If the BART was delayed, patients wouldn’t make the trip to the hospital and risk missing work.

That experience gave Chan an important insight: she should invest massively in improving the BART, which would have trickle-down effects through the city and the health of her patients. This insight informed her philanthropy and work with CZI. “I never would have had that perspective,” she told me, “if I hadn’t worked in the hospital. You have to go deep before you go broad.”

—

Rex Woodbury

• 🫰 Why it matters: Depth creates unique insights that are hard to replicate and hard to fake. When you see something only because you went deep in a space/trade/domain, you understand the nuances and root causes of things that other “PowerPoint founders”—people who whiteboard out markets and look for opportunities—can easily miss.

• 🔑 Bottom Line: The more time spent in the weeds before zooming out is what gives you the necessary perspective to build what you know.

• 🥇 Applying it: Ask yourself, “What’s my unique lived or work experience that has given me an insight (depth), that could inform a vision for a broader business (breadth)?”

Go deeper—To Go Broad, Go Deep

(#2) The "80/20 principle" for founders

Scrolling through LinkedIn yesterday and I saw this absolute gem by

Greg Isenberg

…

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(#3) How Your Context Changes Your Life

“We are more than just our minds. In fact we’re more than just our bodies. What we do, how we think, and the way we feel are all intimately connected to the context in which we exist. But for so many people now, that context is reduced to a 5-inch screen, with serious neglect to anything further than an arm’s length away.”

—

Zan Tafakari

• 🫰 Why it matters: When we feel stuck and caught up in our heads, it’s often because we actually are stuck—we’re stuck in the same context. We’re sitting in the same place. We’re doing the same daily stuff. We’re operating on autopilot. In many ways, as we conform to a standard week, we all fall into a very similar environment. Except, as Zan calls out perfectly, different minds thrive in different environments.

• 🔑 Bottom Line: Often the antidote to fear, frustration, procrastination, powerlessness, or overwhelm (be that at work or in our personal lives) is taking action. Taking action can often feel like the last thing we want to do in that situation, but almost 100% of the time, it’s worth doing. Action changes the context you’re sitting in and operating from, and that can change everything.

• 🥇 Applying it: Ask yourself, “How can I, even briefly, change up my context and environment?” What little experiments can you take? Maybe that’s going to work at a coffee shop today if you never do that. Or planning a weekend camping trip if you haven't been outdoors in a while. Worth thinking about.

Go deeper—How Your Context Changes Your Life

(#4) To Beat the Market, You Have to Outsmart Yourself

“The ‘scientific’ aspect of investing is alluring, even enticing—the prospect of a grand formula that can distinguish between good and bad investments might seem like the holy grail for a capitalist. 

However, at least in venture capital, it is a goal that continues to elude the smartest and hungriest minds in the field. Even if we get the science right, it’s only part of the formula of good investing.

The second world of study is inward-facing—the study of one’s own judgment, intuition, incentives, and our natural tendency to want to outsmart ourselves: We can fabricate rationales that we know we will accept because we know ourselves.”

— Chris Paik

• 🫰 Why it matters: While inward-facing study can seem less exciting than learning some new market or trend, especially considering if taken seriously it can bring up some uncomfortable truths, “debugging ourselves” is the most important thing we can do. If never done, your algorithm for navigating both internal and external obstacles can develop and run completely unchecked.

• 🔑 Bottom Line: Every single person on this planet is subject to multiple mental biases. If you think you’re not…that’s a mental bias. And the more you understand and have awareness about what they might be for you (AKA, your meta-level dynamics), the more logical, consistent, and sound decisions you can make about everything.

• 🥇 Applying it: Would you let some software you built never be tested? Of course not. So, let’s not slip into a mental bias that stops us from doing that to ourselves. A good starting point is writing down a list of emotions, motivations, instincts, and behavioral patterns that you think go into your decisions. When you’re trying to find a meme coin to put $100 into, what’s driving that? Greed? Impatience? For me, it’s a combination of both of those things. As Chris says, “In order to strengthen the muscle of self-improvement, we must hold strong opinions but listen carefully for contradictory evidence.”

Go deeper—To Beat the Market, You Have to Outsmart Yourself

(#5) 10 Simple Rules of Communication

A very wise list of wisdom curated by

Kpaxs

. What would you add?

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3 bits of bonus content for the curious….🧑‍🎓

(1/3) Featured tools I’m currently using to grow 🛠️

• I use Open for guided meditations. I like to test new mindfulness apps out, and this is one that’s really been sticking with me. (Learn more)

• I use Circeback as my AI notetaking co-pilot. I hardly write notes anymore during meetings, and it’s a beautiful thing. (Learn more)

• I use Perplexity as my new defacto search. I very seldom Google something anymore, it all goes into Perplexity. A huge research unlock. (Learn more)

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(2/3) How I can help you grow 🤝

Are you a founder looking to grow your business without breaking the bank? If so, I’ve invested in a company (Athyna) that can help you find incredible talent and build out your global team in less than 5 days. Their product, service, and worldwide talent pool are just amazing (and so affordable). Learn more here ↗

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(3/3) Other interesting things I came across 🕳️🐇

• Why Valve has no managers

• The Meme to End All Memes: The Top 100 Reasons to Oppose Trump—in One Image

• How long can we sustain economic growth?

And that’s everything for this week’s edition. If you enjoyed reading today’s letter, feel free to forward it to someone! Or if you’d like to both (1) support my work, and (2) unlock premium essays like these, consider upgrading to paid.

Otherwise, have a great weekend, and I’ll see you next time. ✌️
—Jaryd

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