Tag: fail

Multiple versions

FabrizioLeave a comment

We are ready to go great lengths to reinstate order in our life when someone or something does not adhere to our version of the world.

If somebody does not behave the way we expect, they certainly have some hidden agenda. If something happens that we have never experienced before, it’s probably a mistake or somebody trying to frame us. Even when we witness – with our own eyes – something that does not fit with our story, we just go to what we know, and try to make it big enough that the anomaly can go unnoticed.

The moment we are put in front of the facts, the moment we realize that there’s actually nothing wrong, the moment we accept that multiple versions of the same world coexist at any given time, that’s a moment to cherish. It’s the moment when we open up, when we are welcoming, when we grow.

We just have to make sure that moment does not at an horrendous cost.

And if it does, apologize.

Do, measure and adjust

FabrizioLeave a comment

There are many different ways to address any case. Unfortunately, you probably have resources (attention, money, energy, motivation) to try one or two of them at the same time.

The point is then to avoid lengthy discussions about which way is the better (not to mention pointless scenario-building that change the rules of the case), and put some effort instead in identifying what successfully addressing the case looks like.

And then just do, measure and adjust.

Targeting millennials

FabrizioLeave a comment

Few years ago, during an hiring process, I was asked to come up with ideas to improve how the company was presenting the product to prospects. I decided to title the presentation I put together “targeting millennials”.

The presentation featured few suggestions that still today I believe would have benefited the company, but of course the very same idea of “targeting millennials” is nonsensical.

“Millennials” is a wide group of people that has in common only the fact of being born between 1980s and 1990s. Sure, there are some similar traits, a shared cultural background, some icons everyone from those years can relate to. And yet unless your product is really, truly a mass product, targeting a generation is as ineffective as and article about knitting on the front page of the Financial Times.

A better way to approach the assignment would have been asking “why do people buy this product?” (instead of “what type of people buy this product?”, as it typically happens when targeting based on demographics).

I was out of the hiring process after this stage, and to be honest I think they did take a sensible decision.

Valuating

FabrizioLeave a comment

Buzz is a misleading distraction.

More than 9 out of 10 venture capitalists think that unicorns (startups worth more than $1bn in the private market) are overvalued, no matter if they have one in their portfolio or not. Lyft‘s and Uber‘s stocks have lost respectively 43% and 28% of their value since they went public last spring. WeWork (and its investors) thought the company was three or four times more valuable than the higher point public investors would consider for its stock.

Buzz is misleading, because it generally focuses on one single thing. You always get what you reward, and so if all investors care about is valuation, the company can get to a high valuation (at least in the private market). And it is distracting, because it takes focus away from things that are more important when building an organisation that impacts millions of lives. Things such as the company culture, the business fundamentals, the effect of the product or service on society at large.

Companies can be built without raising money, without a pitch deck, and without a title in the front page of the financial newspaper.

It all depends on what you want to achieve in the long term.