- me: there was an event on tuesday i was thinking about attending... but LD is more importante
- Judy: lol. itll be really fun. im guaranteeing that
- me: you sound like the men's wearhouse guy
Collaborative Fund: Summer Heat + Collabfund Internship!
We’re looking for an intern to support Collaborative Fund’s content efforts for 8 weeks in the summer. You’ll get in-depth exposure to the startup, investment and technology space. Added bonus: we’ll encourage and help you execute on a project you are passionate about.
Ideally this is…
If we want to have a future better than our past, companies need to stand for something.
3 phrases ringing loud in my life
If not you, then who will? - Urbana Video
If I, who went to conferences, classes, sermons, discussion groups, meetings, and served a bunch of nonprofits, won’t go out and serve the disadvantaged or disenfranchised… who will? Who will care for God’s people if I, equipped with all these experiences, refuse to.
Willingness not readiness. - can’t remember
I’m called to be willing to try and do the work I’m called to, not called to be prepared for everything that may come my way.
Align beliefs with action. - Psalm 19, Kevin Hu
psalm 19:May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. You would not know the person I am from my actions. Applying to jobs, starcraft, hanging out with friends does not show that I believe in a calling to love my neighbor and love my God. Time to start getting my actions aligned with how God has transformed my heart and my mind.
Delivering Happiness
Two Sentence Summary:
Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, tells his personal story of early entrepreneurial feats, exploration into the world of raves and gambling, self-discovery, and his all out gamble on Zappos, customer service, and culture. Tony’s quirky storytelling hold true to the Zappos culture and brand as he reveals how customer service became the #1 priority at Zappos, how culture became ingrained through 10 core values and how Zappos went from $0 to $1,000,000,000+ in sales
Takeaways:
- Company Culture will affect brand. Get the culture right and you get the brand right
- Get the culture right by hiring/firing based on core values (which means the core values need to be measurable/actionable)
- Accelerate your business if the acceleration helps you fulfill your vision faster, not just make profits
- Profit is the equivalent of momentary happiness (or rockstar style). Seek to fulfill your mission/vision and you’ll find long-term fulfillment (or long-term profits)
Practical Applications (apply some of these Zappos core values):
- Deliver WOW Through Service
- Embrace and Drive Change
- Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
- Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
- Pursue Growth and Learning
- Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
- Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
- Do More With Less
- Be Passionate and Determined
- Be Humble
Concluding thoughts:
Developing a shared vision and finding alignment with co-workers/employees and investors is critical to creating a vehicle (aka business) to drive change and fulfill a vision. In that regard, what is God’s vision for this world and what is my role in contributing to that vision? What are his 10 core values that I should follow while getting there?
The Lean Startup
Two Sentence Summary:
Eric Ries, multiple-time entrepreneur and author of the “The Lean Startup”, applies today’s latest principles in business such as lean manufacturing, design thinking, and agile development, to describe how entrepreneurs (both in startups and big companies) need to update old ways of business with new “lean” techniques. Ries believes entrepreneurship is a process and therefore can be managed and he provides the tools to do so in his book.
Takeaways:
- Treat the startup like an experiment - all actions taken should be to prove/disprove hypothesis about what the marketplace wants/needs
- Build, Measure, Learn
- Build a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to test on the market and minimize waste of building things- i.e. barely functional product, sometimes super low tech
- Measure by A/B testing (think direct mail and using two different pitches to see which set of mail yields more sales) and using innovation accounting (get data from mvp, tune MVP into ideal product, pivot or persevere)
- Seek Validated Learning and use Validated Learning as metrics of progress - proving or disproving hypothesis will help steer the startup toward a product best accepted by the market
- Small Batches - what’s faster, stuffing 100 envelopes 1 by 1 or doing each of the 100 actions of folding the paper/stuffing/sealing. turns out 1 by 1 is faster, (due to less time spent organizing/moving things) especially if there was a mistake with anything.
Practical applications this week:
- Develop hypotheses for work and seek to prove/disprove
- Treat work like an experiment
- Develop 2 ways of doing my work (and A/B test)
- Accomplish tasks in small batches
Concluding Thoughts:
Much of the advice and recommendations Ries gives seems counterintuitive but makes sense for eliminating waste and achieving results quickly. Only with validated learning, when you actually know why something was successful, will entrepreneurs be able to confidently progress with their startup. Even learning that results in little $$ in the beginning of a venture can lead to big results later, especially because it allows the venture to not repeat actions that lead to little value.
Grade: A+ (a must read for entrepreneurs)
Authentic Happiness
Two Sentence Summary:
Authentic Happiness by Martin Seligman compiles his research on positive psychology to explain how to “realize your potential for lasting fulfillment” aka be happy or more like… be joyful. There are a variety of routes to improving happiness but Seligman outlines a couple major ones related to improving positive emotion in the past, the present and the future.
Takeaways:
- Improve positive emotion about the past by being grateful about the past and forgiving the trespasses of others
- Improve positive emotion about the future by dismantling pessimistic thoughts and building optimism/hope for the future
- Improve positive emotion about the present by 1) savoring, being mindful, and avoiding habituation and 2) by fully utilizing signature strengths (mine are faith, love, honesty, critical-thinking, practical-intelligence) in multiple dimensions of life (work, love, etc)
Practical Applications for this week:
- Past - Write down one thing I’m grateful for each day
- Future - Dismantle pessimistic thought with ABCDE framework (adversity, belief, consequences, disputation, energization)
- Present - Savor and be mindful of time spent reuniting with friends in Berkeley
- Present - Try to use faith, love, honestly, critical-thinking, and practical-intelligence at work this week
Concluding thoughts: How to live a “full life” and how that can point to God
The last chapter of the book wraps us by revealing what Seligman calls the “meaningful life” (as opposed to the “pleasant life” - a life that successfully pursues the positive emotions about the past, present, future - or the “good life” - using your signature strengths to obtain abundant gratification in the main realms of your life). The “meaningful life” is the choice of using your signature strengths and virtues in the service of something much larger than you are. However, in order to live the “full life,” one must employ the different aspects of all three lives (the pleasant life, the good life, and the meaningful life).
One of the most interesting parts of the book is Seligman’s comments on God. He states God has 4 properties: Omniscience (infinite knowledge), Omnipotence (unlimited power), Goodness, and the creation of the universe. Based on the findings of another book called NonZero, Seligman hypothesizes the world is moving in the direction of increased knowledge, power and goodness (aka in the direction of God’s defining characteristics). And so, Seligman suggests that basing our lives around increasing knowledge (teaching, learning, science, journalism), increasing power (technology, engineering, health services) and/or increasing goodness (law, policing, religion, charity) we can become a part of a greater movement toward God (who is all knowing, all powerful, and good) and thereby derive meaning in our lives. In Christian terms, Seligman is talking about being a part of the group of restorers seeking to transform a broken world to a world more similar to the Kingdom of God.
Grade: A
