Time-Bound vs. Timeless

I have been thinking a lot about time-bound content vs. timeless content, and this recent post from Nathan Barry helped me frame it well. The former — if presented correctly — can improve and even inform the latter.

Instead of considering short form posts an annoying requirement to stay relevant, we can think of them as opportunities to test and refine our ideas—opportunities that also happen to build our audience.

If you have a decade of experience, hard skills, and a refined idea already ready to share, sure, write the book.

But most of us have ideas that would benefit from further refinement. Shorter form content doesn’t have to be a distraction from the deeper, “more important” writing or something you “need” to do to stay on the hamster wheel of relevancy. It can be a chance to workshop your ideas.

When you share short form versions of your ideas in public, you’ll discover new references and get feedback that will hone your idea into something even better.

The problem is when the only thing you’re doing is shorter form, ephemeral content with no focus on longevity and impact. Having a bigger vision gives purpose to your daily habits and ensures you’re building toward the plan you have for the next decade.

Nathan Barry Newsletter

Talking to Customers

This is just straight up stolen from the James Clear newsletter this week. It’s smart, and I have found it to be true.

Entrepreneur and investor Paul Graham on the common mistake made by entrepreneurs (and anyone hoping to make something new):

“What you will get wrong is that you will not pay enough attention to your users.

You will make up some idea in your own head that you will call your “vision”, and you will spend a lot of time thinking about your vision. In a cafe. By yourself. And build some elaborate thing without going and talking to users, because that’s doing sales, which is a pain in the ass, and they might say no.

You will not ship fast enough because you’re embarrassed to ship something unfinished, and you don’t want to face the likely feedback that you will get from shipping. You will shrink from contact with the real world, contact with your users. That’s the mistake you will make.”

A Conversation with Paul Graham

Journaling Three Wins

I have started writing three wins down in my journal at the end of the day. This is good because it reminds me of what was done in a given day, but it’s also good because it encourages me (even subconsciously) to have something to write down at the end of the day. I get excited to write interesting things down at the end of the day, which pushes me to get off Twitter and get to work in a given day.

Leveraging What You Cannot Control

My friend Joseph LaMagna writes an excellent newsletter on golf strategy, analytics and gives terrific insight. His most recent post is about aiming away from trouble and being smart with course management. This sentence stood out as one that could also be applied to life.

There is only so much that is within your control. Appreciating and leveraging what you cannot control is far more valuable than fighting against it.

Joseph LaMagna

On Subscription Sites

I found this on Techcrunch’s subscription process interesting.

Matching those revenues was a structural advantage in terms of traffic. As one of the most venerable sites covering tech on the web, major announcements from Elon Musk, Tesla, Apple, Facebook and other big technology companies drove heavy traffic to TechCrunch. Most of this was relayed via Google Search and Google News, and at times, more than 90% of the site’s traffic came from just those two sources. Critically, this coverage was eminently affordable. Writing up an article on the latest ravings of Elon Musk might take about 15 minutes (there usually wasn’t that much to say other than his statement, after all), but that one article could drive 100,000 page views or more. That was the secret treasure that funded the real in-depth reporting: cheap coverage of a big tech company coupled with the lucre of comparatively extraordinary ad revenue.

Lux Capital

I find the above to be true broadly for most media companies. I also find it to be a horrible long-term strategy. You are not building any affinity for your product or your brand or your reputation. You’re simply submitting yourself to the machine.

The most important challenge of modern media is balancing an audience’s desire for certain types of stories with a human reporter’s ability to deliver them. Unlike a tech company building an app or a cloud service, this is not an easy product to iterate. If you want to improve coverage of the automotive industry, an editor must seek out and develop a reporter who loves cars and understands how they get manufactured; what points of competition exist between companies; what auto economics are and how they are changing; and what disruption might look like for the industry in the years ahead. Passion plus perspective plus precision is asking a lot of one person or even a small band of reporters.

Lux Capital

It might be asking a lot (it is), but Passion plus perspective plus precision is also a worthy mission statement for any media company or individual.

Abnormal Behavior

I really enjoyed this from the George Mack newsletter. It got me thinking about how to stand out in a crowded media world.

Unconventional behavior costs a social price in the short term — but the actions live on as story assets in the future.

  1. If you pay for the bill at everyone in the table – the short-term reaction is shock and confusion. But in the long term, it’s everyone’s favorite memory of you.
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  2. If you travel across the world for a friend’s birthday, the friend’s initial reaction is: “You don’t have to do that” — but it’s the story they tell at your funeral.
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  3. If you’re 100% honest with your feedback on people’s business ideas, the short-term reaction is anger — but in the long term, you become one of the few people they trust.
George Mack

Consistency and Performance

Possibly the two most important inputs for success over a long period of time. This excerpt from a recent ESPN article on Saban with old coaches talking about working him was really good.

“He’s the epitome of an elite CEO, and one of the greatest things you learn from him is that he has a relentless attack on human nature because his belief in upholding the standards of an organization is as prioritized as it can be,” Cristobal said. “He made it very clear to us that once you don’t hold people to that elite standard, an entire organization could fall to pieces. He made sure he kept us on edge, and he challenged us all the time.”

Saban never deviated from his core beliefs, but he was continuously self-scouting, tinkering and trying to gain an edge.

“I appreciated the level of detail, the competitive spirit, the constant search for improvement and the ability to be flexible and to always be evaluating things and trying to get better and staying ahead of the curve and thinking outside the box,” Napier said. “You don’t do what he’s done unless you’re just a little bit different.”

Dantonio, elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in January, coached defensive backs under Saban at Michigan State.

“He always talked about two things: consistency and performance,” Dantonio said. “He’s been consistent throughout, and he’s built something that lasts. That’s his legacy, and I think that’s what everybody wants to do. I can still hear Nick saying something that stayed with me throughout my coaching career: ‘If you’re not coaching it, you’re letting it happen.’ There’s nothing he didn’t coach.”

ESPN

Why to Live Slowly

This is so unbelievably good. I hope our kids internalize it. I hope we live it out. I would add to “live slowly enough,” “live clutter-free enough …”

On Scaling Slowly

This is really good.

MKBHD on how running your own business almost necessarily means moving away from time spent doing the thing you fell in love with originally, which is what led to the business getting created.