Or Why Metaphors are Dangerous Language is imprecise. Language is especially imprecise and imperfect when it comes to describing scientific concepts. And the irony of using the tools of language to write about its own shortcomings is not lost on me. Think about the oft repeated phrase – “survival of the fittest” and how it…
Gratitude
I love good teachers and classrooms. Something about the act of learning – sitting in a room, completely distraction-free and being a complete sponge – listening intently to a teacher at the peak of their craft, sparring with your fellow students and building new neural connections – lights me up like the Rockefeller Center Christmas…
Side Quests
I often find myself thinking about the Greek hero Odysseus (and NO – this is not one of those Elon Musk things where he claims he thinks about the Roman empire daily or how men supposedly think about the Roman empire multiple times a day. In the last year, I’ve only thought about the Roman…
Doubt and a Miracle
Sometimes all it takes to part the clouds of self-doubt and let the rays of confidence shine through is for Novak Djokovic to lose at the Australian Open. Djokovic does not have bad days, especially at the Australian Open. Since the beginning of the 2019 tournament, he had not lost a single match in the…
The Mahabharat Mega Thread
I tried something a little crazy on Twitter: narrated the entire 18 days of the Mahabharat war as a mega Twitter thread. At 149 tweets (which I posted over 6 days) – this was exhilarating and tiring. Go ahead, click on the tweet below and jump in.
Do Transformers Hallucinate of Softer Skin?
Cover image generated on Dall-E with the prompt: “A robot similar to Optimus Prime standing on a barren landscape looking at his human hand, cartoon style” All new technology in its early phase is highly disruptive to the status quo. I call this the “dynamite” phase – you can use it to blow things to…
Why Manage?
The single biggest mistake every first-time manager makes in tech companies (especially product, design and engg) is in believing that they no longer have to contribute as ICs (individual contributors). It doesn’t matter where you are on the spectrum of company size – a handful of people fighting for survival and trying to launch a…
What Users Want
Kapi Pe Charcha #005 – Venture Highway “What do users care about? What do they need?” In our previous posts, we talked about speaking to users and validating our ideas (https://lnkd.in/dHdft3x7 and https://lnkd.in/dc2vVnBk). The Hierarchy of User Needs by Aarron Walter is a model that explains the needs users have when using products or services. This hierarchy…
Design Sprints – Short-Circuiting the Development Cycle
Kapi Pe Charcha #004 – Venture Highway “Do I need to set up a team, raise money and build a fully functional product to validate my ideas?” Building a product is costly. One can spend months setting up a team, raising money and creating a product that has a high chance of failure. One needs…
Speaking to Customers
Kapi Pe Charcha #003 – Venture Highway “Would I need to speak to people/ users/ customers?” In our last two posts, we have discussed ways of coming up with new ideas and then creating a shortlist out of them: 1. https://lnkd.in/gXHstMvM2. https://lnkd.in/gngtAunA A skill that will help you throughout your entrepreneurial journey is user research. It’s a…
Shortlisting Ideas
Kapi Pe Charcha #002 – Venture Highway “OK – so I have a set of ideas now. How do I check if they are any good?” In our last post, we came up with a set of methods to help us constantly come up with new ideas. We weren’t worried about originality, quality, feasibility or the…
Generating Ideas
Kapi Pe Charcha #001 – Venture Highway I am often asked: “How do I constantly come up with new ideas?” While coming up with ideas, do not worry about their originality, quality, feasibility or the opportunity size that they represent. Forget all that. Focus on idea generation. Keep reminding yourself – there are no bad…