Essay 1 - Newsletter Launchpad

Today I am starting with three areas of interest to try to write consistently:

• token engineering
• category of one
• marriage and parenting

Let's see how it goes.

Token Engineering

Token engineering often overlooks demand creation.

Perhaps I haven't read as much about it.

But when looking at successful and creative token design within projects, such as Helium, Ocean, The Graph, and Hive Mapper, the success has been in bootstrapping supply.

This is not a small feat. Many of these incentivize individuals to front-load the capital expense to deliver a service.

But in many instances, even with a robust network of suppliers, the demand remains a trickle. Perhaps this is a case of "build it and they will come" but, in general, that hasn't always been true in the 'web2' world.^[1]

Thinking about demand earlier is better.

I write about this further when looking at developer tools.

Traditionally, these tools were considered to be a bad market, mostly because developers don't buy much, prefer to build instead of make a purchase, and don't have much budget.

That has changed and the presumption of building for developers to build a large business has carried over.

However, developers weren't always a good market. The demand side of the equation was built over a decade ago over a long cycle by consultants and very large ISVs who convinced executives to undergo digital transformation.

That was not an easy lift. But once a critical mass of decision makers and large enterprises saw the necessity of digital transformation leading to more efficiency, automation, and new business models, the demand was unleashed.

This, then, made developer tools an entry point to tap into this demand for digital modernization.

In the next essay, I'm going to look at the demand pull for some of these projects and ask two question: 1) what would be different if demand were factored in from the beginning; 2) can the same incentive mechanisms apply to building demand.

Mutant Unlock

I have been working on a concept describing a choice many individuals are facing for themselves and parents for their children.

I mocked it up here.

I frame this life-choice as "NPC versus Mutant."

Society is entering a phase of greater and faster mutation. In this case, a mutant is someone who's following the society's programming. An NPC is a non-player character found in video games who follows a script and has no real agency.

The pace of mutation accelerates, in part, because there's more awareness of the mutant lifestyle; and with awareness come adoption and acceptance.

However, there are challenges with this, as I'll talk about through this series. The biggest challenge, I believe, is for a potential mutant to become a viable and thriving mutant.

There's this uncomfortable "in between" state where someone knows they do not want to be an NPC; but awareness is not sufficient.

Here I want to delve a little bit into the realm of why some people seem to succeed and others don't.

And I am in that latter camp. I have been in pursuit of full-fledge mutant hood for a decade and have lots of failed experiments to show this. I then went into the career mode of tech and, thankfully, joined two unicorns in their pre-IPO phase through IPO. Had I stayed longer or done this for a longer period, I probably would have benefitted further. But that's for another essay.

This is a common psychological condition that has different names and aspects. The closest and more general one is "self-introspection" -- a term I use because it borrows from computer science.

Most people, including myself, initially believe they have this full capacity to thoroughly introspect themselves. Meaning, to examine their bias, weaknesses, strengths, and threads across their experience and psyche. This, unfortunately, is very hard.

Some of the studies include cognitive bias, consistency bias, as well as psychological blindness to both faults and strengths.

Mimetic desires is an example which is subtle and, actually, widespread right in front of our own faces as we try to craft our own path forward.

For example, people have seen the financial and creative freedom of newsletter writers, and they desire to copy this. This is fed, in turn, by others who have this same financial and creative freedom by teaching others to get this, so other copy and pursue this same path.

This creates a crowded channel, but it is irresistible.

In the start-up context, you have Uber, and then you have Uber for dogs, Uber for dessert, Uber for swimming pools, etcetera.

Some of these may be successful. In the case of newsletters, it is also possible fast-followers can also be successful.

But they still need to break free from the mimetic constraints and truly mutate in the Cambrian explosion of fast-followers.

You really don't want to go into anything where other people are copying the first movers. That's always the worst. What you want to be is you want to be yourself.

Doing so successfully makes you uncopyable and that adds unique value. That is the purpose of being a mutant.

If you're a mutant and yet you're trying to copy someone else's mutation you will inevitably fail.

What then is the missing link for most people?

It's actually truly understanding oneself and doing so by oneself.

The successful entrepreneurs who are able to do this are remarkable because they are able to turn off the mimetic desires and introspect thoroughly to come up with valuable perspective.

Our natural reflex is to avert our eyes and to distort what we see.

The rest of us actually will need someone else to not only hold up a mirror, but shine a flashlight in the good and bad parts while keeping our eyelids open.

I talk further about why this is necessary in the next essay, as well as one of the most important attributes for a successful mutation: the Point of View.

Briefly, the Point of View makes sense for businesses, but even more so for individuals who wish to not only carve out their "Category of One" but effectively attract the right customers and deliver a compelling product.

Here's a teaser: my POV is just a small variation of what many other people believe and market.

But "NPC vs Mutant" is different and gives me design space for marketing and product development that is way different from a typical "positioning statement."

You're reading this. What do you think?

Am I intriguing you by saying that there is a mutation within you that, if properly harnesses, can yield your own superpowers?

But I also lay the framework that, in the same way, X-men needed a Professor X and the Danger Room to properly prepare, you, too, will need a unique experience to make the transition from NPC to functioning mutant.

Would you want to know more details about "Mutant Unlock" for yourself. Subscribe to find out.

Marriages and Parenting

The last area of sort of interest that I've been exploring, really, is something completely unrelated, but it's about relationships, particularly marriages.

The questions of a) who is the best fit and b) how to make it work once the decision is made is a complex one.

I think one of the missing concepts is the concept that a marriage is a "We".

This is not culturally widespread, but for a number of reasons, is the right objective function: what is best for the unit.

You filter in how you handle arguments, to how you make big or small decisions, to how you frame the other person should always be in a sense of what is best for we, what makes the unit best, not what makes best for the other person, not what makes it best for you. This, to me, I think, is a very powerful primitive that I hope to share further.