Every week, we put together a list of our top 5 articles of the past week. Happy reading!
We Don’t Sell Saddles Here Stewart Butterfield, CEO Slack (reading time: 12 minutes)
The best possible way to find product-market fit is to define your own market.
This is a memo written by the founder of Slack, Stewart Butterfield in 2013. It is a masterclass of writing that clearly articulates his vision for the company and the market. It’s a great read especially given how early it was written.
Compelling Communication for Your Strategy Roger Martin (reading time: 8 minutes)
If you are presenting a strategy that you can’t summarize in one page and describe thoroughly in five, chances are you haven’t thought hard enough about your strategy choices.
I keep learning so much from Roger Martin. His latest post explains the importance of communicating your strategy. I’ve seen this quite a bit in our line of work; if the strategy isn’t simple to explain, chances are the thinking behind it is not as crisp as it should be.
Compounding Crazy Packy McCormick (reading time: 28 minutes)
There’s one idea I can’t get out of my head recently. When we hear about software eating the world, what does that really mean? Are we really at the beginning of a massive technological shift that will change society as we know it? Packy McCormick seems to think so as well. If this is really the case, then it stands to reason that venture funding in technology companies is in its infancy. I also enjoyed the notion of compounding over time that Packy explains well.
Everything is changing faster and faster. Everything keeps getting crazier. It’s impossible to predict specifically what’s going to happen.
Operating leverage Alex Taussig (reading time: 8 minutes)
This is an interesting post about operating leverage. Operating leverage measures the degree to which a company can increase its profits by growing revenue. Alex Taussig explains the concept and then uses product vs. service oriented marketplaces to illustrate the differences between the two. This notion is quite applicable to other industries too and find more articles related to the topic.
Three Big Things: The Most Important Forces Shaping the World Morgan Housel (reading time: 22 minutes)
I love the saying, “amateurs talk strategy, experts talk logistics”. This quote points out the importance of understanding the more important matter at hand. In this great post by Morgan Housel, he writes about the big forces shaping the world today; demographics, income inequality and access to information. The last point really resonated with me. Free information has the power to improve outcomes for everyone.
