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Resting B*tch Face

Back to whale oil I suppose!

I love that the filing begins with "A Florida man was arrested this morning..."

Florida Man strikes again!

I was one of those people who had endless lists of business ideas, but struggled with analysis paralysis. It was difficult to know whether an idea was good enough to invest resources in before starting.

Throughout 2020, I was wrapping up my MBA at NYU Stern and received a fellowship from NYU’s Innovation Labs to work on new startup ideas. This led me on an academic journey to study the frameworks that make startup ideas successful.

It’s like mental models for startups. Some of the frameworks are well known. Others were developed through my own primary research and include case studies you won’t find from searching the web. Favorite frameworks include:

The Export Framework: How to find proprietary tools used within the businesses that developed them in order to pursue a broader market.

The Luxury to Commodity Framework: How to make expensive things cheaper and more available.

The Second Order Effects Framework: How to identify an event and extrapolate new business opportunities that are several steps ahead of the present.

Each lesson includes a framework + case study + exercise to help you apply that framework to come up with relevant ideas yourself. Case studies range from well known companies like Peloton to lesser known ones like Alto, AirGarage, and Jamf. Not every case is tech focused. One of my favorite case studies covers how Chobani went from unknown startup to the #2 yogurt maker in the world using one of the lesser known frameworks in the course.

To build this, I leveraged Arist’s (YC S20) platform to create an engaging course delivered via daily text messages or WhatsApp. It’s a really interesting approach to creating engaging learning curriculums.

Each day, you receive a text with a new framework + case study + exercise. Why text? Because the open rates are way better than email. This way you WILL learn and not give up. So if you are actually trying to learn and remember the material, this is an effective format to do so.

Learning about Stamets and reading his books opened up a whole new appreciation of nature for me. Starting with learning how to identify wild edible mushrooms, you then have to learn about different types of trees, seasonal patterns, weather, etc. It’s a great hobby that helps you learn about the interconnectedness of everything in nature while benefitting from delicious and healthy treats along the way. One of the most fun memories of this last year was stumbling across a patch of morels in the spring (one of the rarest and most delicious mushrooms that can only be found in the wild for a few weeks in early spring). I’ve even started making some of the extracts described in this article at home (tinctures of reishi, chaga, and lion’s mane) and enjoy sharing them with friends and family.

Another argument for justifying the run up in price is that investors see the promise of TSLA being more than just a car company. The future of the Solar City division means that part of the company can be viewed almost as a utility co. There is a data play too. With an ever growing volume of Teslas on the road, all stocked up with the very latest in sensor technology, the company collects tons of valuable data not just for maps but also for Real time road conditions and traffic. At some point, they may find lucrative ways of monetizing that. Then we look at just the trends for their core product, the cars. The crazy thing that Tesla is doing is turning all other luxury cars into Cadillacs (ie products for old people). They are doing the same thing to Mercedes and BMW that the Apple Watch did to Rolex. If you want to signal that you are part of the new rich, you buy a car that shows off power + environmental friendliness. With the flight out of major cities in the US, Tesla is going to be a pretty popular choice for new car buyers that just landed in the suburbs.

But isn't this the case with any religion? You could say the same thing about the Westboro Baptist Church to Christianity and Radical Islamist Extremism to Islam. Every religion I can think of has instances of groups co-opting the religion for evil means. All major world religions have multiple instances of this happening throughout history. One could say that you don't have a legitimate religion if there isn't a group of crazies trying to use the religion for evil means.

If only this worked in the other direction where Kohl's Cash could be used on Amazon... you've heard of Bitcoin Billionaires, but my mom is a Kohl's Cash Billionaire!

I grew up not far away from Bell Labs, very close to the Jersey Shore. Growing up, I remember friends' parents who worked in telecom refer to our area as Silicon Shore.