If you want to start a great startup, don't try to think about a startup. Get out of the present, visualise what can be vs the worlds current ideas. Breakthroughs happen when you disconnect your self from the present. What are the waves of change, that will be massive, that will allow you the entrepreneurs to change the subject of the future? Similarly when you build, hire someone who is the complete opposite of you at your startup aka complementary skills vs consensus with your beliefs.If you are an execution maven. Hire a perfectly planned strategy person to compliment you. Look at break through subjects in process, production , people & your payouts will be faster. When two people on a team always agree, one of them is irrelevant. When every one agrees on a product or idea some thing is broken. Add challenges and challengers to your startup journey. Best to internalise this vs waiting to go to market and be let down. Design by committee leads to average products. Business is all about relationships. And relationship is all about values you share with others. It's our shared values that shape a great relationship.

Outcomes

Whether you like it or not, you are faced with a barrage of decisions every day. Human beings are essentially decision machines, and the quality of your life hinges on these choices you make. The better you are at it, the better your life will be. Let's pause for a second. Just like we live with the outcomes of our decisions there is science behind getting people to decide.

I came across a profound concept this week.

Force a choice not a comparison

What does this mean. In simplistic terms if every ones building a fin-tech, don't go build an other fin-tech build a hydroponic tomato greenhouse. Why? Force people to make a choice, vs trying to compare you to every one else. It's one skill to compete for share in an existing market category, it's a whole other skill to design, redesign, or create the market category. Be the latter.

Forget the guy who wants better fin-techs. Instead go after people who value your advantage instead. Being, an other fin-tech is a commodity at some point; but entering and innovating in a new market space is where you find your inflection points and stray away from the obvious to deliver ground breaking ideas, products services & companies.

Startups create movements, get people moving first, then make them move some where different, not necessarily better. When you focus on better, you are a widget maker, one of X. Instead focus on Founder Future Fit. Identify some thing as a founder, that has potential in the future and build to find a fit. When you do, you are forcing choices vs comparison.

As a founder, to enhance your outcomes, learn not to imitate people, also don’t compare your self to others, don’t have heroes, be a hero instead.

To have legendary outcomes force a choice, not a comparison. Don't be Pepsi in a Coke world, be a RedBull instead.

One(Many) New Thing(s) You Likely Didn't know

Courtesy- Reddit Post

Boring stuff that scales

Evidence has shown that innovative businesses are twice as likely to report increased productivity compared with businesses that don’t innovate. Todays hot topic is the builder, construction, architect, skilled trades group as a vertical or industry that is ripe for innovation.

Doesn't sound exciting?trust me it can scale.

Literally nothing has changed when we look at the consumer house building space in Pakistan. There are 2 ways to go about building a house.

1) Contractor led, owner supervised, based on engaging an architect + civil engineer

2) Architect led, contractor built, full turn-key

One is super common, every one has a "thaikaydar" contractor, people ask friends and family for recommendations for a good thaikaydar + architect. They engage an architect, come up with the design, find a guy who can build, they go see his former construction projects, interview the guy as best as they can, look to the architects for references if they've worked with the guy in the past and then settle on a construction price/grey/civil structure.

So where is the innovation? How does this scale?

If this is the chosen path as it is for those who are fortunate enough to be in a position to build a home, most of the time their first home, there is enough friction in this process that the outcomes is seldom worth raving reviews.

Whats missing?

1) The ability to take design and do accurate costing

2) To have a variable model, that inputs cost of construction and changing market prices to provide a real time output of increased/decreased cost during the build-out period

3) A budgeting tool that reports variance from agreed architectural plan

4) A tool to track build changes(moving of a wall, a light socket, an additional door) and adds traceability to what was decided when

These are quick fixes built in a day on a pre-existing no code tool. Yet none exist for our market, you don't even need the contractor to input the items or the architect, as a neutral third-party "building tracker as a service" is some thing that people(potential home owners) would pay money for. Not just here, but all if not most frontier markets.

The eureka moment?

The above are table stake items that don't exist in our country either for model 1 or 2. The real innovation is Project Tracking & Project Management, in the form of an owners dashboard. Every job with either models, has sub-contractors, suppliers, lead time, project delays, estimation errors, yet we have 2 bench marks, remodelling 6-8 months, new construction 1.5-2 years.

We don't measure the cost of our time, opportunity and delays. Especially folks who are doing this turn key and are not your proverbial thaikaydars. Construction management as a service with the right domestic tools and b2b supplier databases, pricing inputs and even a market place to connect all on going builds and people wanting to supply to BOQs are innovations that are neither new nor ground breaking. They are just missing in our market.

The hidden opportunity?

All the sub-contractors, trades, electricians, carpenters, plumbers, fitters, brick and tile layers are the real heroes in this story. But ones that shall not be named. Couple of things wrong with this equation. You will live in your home, but you do not know the real qualification of the guy thats wires up your electricity. Did they make the right choice in wiring? Are there any hazards? We have no licensing for trades, in the absence of which, field work and experience should be captured, these sub-contractors should be listed as part of "free agent network" with the ability to write and post reviews by home owners and builders alike and the ability for the contractors to own their listings for free, via a phone call to the sponsors of such a project. Over time there should be trade, licensing bodies to formalise the structure. Huge amounts of cash exchanges take place, most of it is not financially inclusive for the end worker or sub-contractor but capturing the value chain once we can identify the players this becomes a deep ecosystem of good players vs bad and a curated list of services, products, timelines, project management and execution.

The power of (building construction) technology:

Adjacent business models to supplement this space include,

1) Tool rentals to building construction projects

2) Using modern techniques and process over old school and dated skills. (Simple example is cutting out standardised lock inserts in doors vs installing doors then manually cutting them out)

3) Process workflows to execute things in parallel vs sequentially

4) Avoidance of rework by attention to detail by ensuring all sourcing is documented and against BOQs. Right now all parties aren't connected besides WhatsApp there is no track and trace of what was decided in past meetings.

5) House moving services, products and service moves(internet/cable/water-bottle subscriptions/Mail re-direction)

You heard(saw) it here first(not really) ...

This is my all time favourite collage of images. The actual favourite being a bear, yes ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, a real bear in a taxi and if you look close enough a goat in the front seat with the passenger. By being in Pakistan we are taking an outsized risk every day, because we live around people whose ability to take risks(calculated or otherwise) completely makes us not-in-control of our outcomes. As a society we need to start taking the right risks and controlling outcomes.

So whats the right risk for the person driving into oncoming traffic. Could the threat of loosing their job if not at work on time, result in taking this risk? Yet the same person, doesn’t consider leaving the house 20 mins earlier to make it in time to avoid doing this dare devil feat. So the risk they are willing to take is battle traffic, which by their mental model is some thing that they do any way and have trained them selves to not get worried about. So Job loss is a bigger loss than loss of life or personal safety? Same thing for the guy fixing a flurry of electrical wires, almost without protective gear. Which any where else in the world would be near impossible to fathom. But it is our daily reality and we have stopped blinking. We are doing our selves a dis service when we don't blink. With the passage of time we are re-training our brain to compensate and we ignore stupidity, negligence, risky behaviour and force our brain to accept it as the status quo. We need to break that mould to succeed.

Simply stated, look around you, look at the stupid risks you take all day, be it lying to your co founders, your family members, kids and re prioritise what matters in your life. Starting with "bas main paanch min main pohanch raha/rahi hoon" lie. Every day you take this risk, stop, it's not worth it, if you are genuinely interested in the right risks to take, I wrote a detailed blog post on the subject. Take a little risk, go read it instead especially if you are a founder. You have nothing to loose besides the 5 mins, in which you clearly aren't getting to your manzil-e-maqsood any way.

What you should be reading & why

Akyol's reasoning can be applied to any religion. When open discussion is shutdown, when questioning becomes heresy, when fundamentalist stifle theological studies, any religion can become some one else's point of view. This is great book, the less I say about it the more you will be able to make your own deductions. All I can say is, its never too late to read this and get an insightful perspective of where we have been, where we can be headed and where we are actually heading. It is always good to challenge our own thinking and this book will certainly challenge a host of things, that doesnt mean every thing the author says is right/accurate/or some thing you should subscribe to. Part of learning is understanding why other, points of view exist. Worth a read.

Monetise your time

The idea behind monetising your life is pretty simple – take the things you're already doing and figure out how you can make money doing them. By doing this, you earn extra money without having to use up a lot of your time. It's truly not as simple as it sounds. But it's much simpler than it used to be.

Todays top thought is to build in the real world. Meaning Physical products. Content hype is over rated, most of us do not have the language proficiency to really be at-scale content creators, far less have any thing valuable to put out. So why not take a real skill, product and put it in the physical world?

Whilst the product can be any thing, once you decide what you are good at. You need to see if there are others already at play in the space? Force a choice not a comparison. So don't be an other frozen burger patty and other cheese board an other person who does desserts. Give people more choice..A different choice.

You need to understand how to tackle distribution. You will need to understand production to cash flow delays and looking at and understanding base line financing needs or capital to get started.

But before all this, get a solid product and market test it. It can be simple, all it has to be is different. A 1-2m$ vertical for individuals remains D2C splice and mix-in blends for cooking food.

A simple example. You are say from Sindh, but you love Kashmiri food, you have no way of cooking it or don't have access to ingredients. But you do like to cook. If a mix-in blend of fresh + dry spices/pastes arrived with a do-it-your self print out. Would you try? Why just focus on the burger patty business and be yet an other choice? Why not force the consumer to be different?

Made in Pakistan(made as Japan)

The YKK Group (YKKグループ, Waikeikei Gurūpu) is a Japanese group of manufacturing companies. As the world's largest zipper manufacturer, YKK Group is most known for making zippers. It also manufactures other fastening products, architectural products, plastic hardware and industrial machinery. The initials YKK stand for Yoshida Kōgyō Kabushiki gaisha (吉田工業株式会社, lit. "Yoshida Manufacturing Corporation"), which was the name of the company from 1945 until 1994. YKK produces fasteners and architectural products at 109 YKK facilities in 71 countries worldwide.

Japan / Pakistan, confused much? So read this first.

Two leading Asian corporations — YYK Corporation of Japan and YKK Holding Company of Singapore — have finalised a plan to invest $15 million in setting up a manufacturing plant in Karachi Export Processing Zone (KEPZ).(Circa 2006)

So we don't even make zippers under local brands? What was interesting is that we had to rely on collaboration which is a good thing, but with all the garment companies in PK this seems natural that wed have a local company making zippers and fasteners. Clearly we missed a local opportunity to diversify. Why do I think that? Because I read the following on their website.

Since 1998 zippers were being imported in Pakistan as there was local consumption, was missed by an entire industry segment, which led to a second office, which led to manufacturing. Whilst the FDI is great one time, it's not great long term every time, because we are beholden to non indigenous supply chains. Perhaps its these areas where the larger groups need to look to diversify. In my world view, the boring world of zippers is clearly a multi billion rupee opportunity for the right takers.

One Last thing

- Sam Altman (former President of Y Combinator and current CEO of OpenAI)