I cant believe it. We are at issue number 30 today, 201 days in. It's taken a lot out of me to try and keep adding value weekly. Hope it's been worth the journey for you, the readers. The objective was to add value and subtract suffering:). What next? I was thinking of writing a book, it seemed like a horrible idea earlier. But I gave my self leeway to see If I can invest the time and understand what it takes.

It may take over 1500 hours of key research+writing+input. Likely makes no money now or ever, at the very least takes 12 months to get any results. My view was to break this process down, write in public, beyond my blog which was not weekly but rather based on inspiration. You can only improve what you can measure. This has been my measurement yardstick by committing the time to it.

In parallel I started writing a digital transformation book, you guessed it, its called "FAST". A 50 page book, guide of practical advice, insights, global and local learnings on the business of change, transformation and end states. The difference compared to white papers and academic knowledge, this is 20+ years of practical learning & interaction in over 40 countries, with tear our sheets, guides and match sticks diagrams you can use vs some elaborate circle jerk of acronyms or proving or establishing that I know more.

The idea is to volunteer what I know, in a bite sized delivery vector so any one who is starting off, or some one who is a CXO can use it effortlessly. Why fast/er? Because slow is boring, slow costs more money, time and effort than being fast. To get fast you need to be prepared. Take it from me use my 20 + year slow roll to get faster outcomes for your self.

Outcomes

Instant Every thing. I came across this video circa 1969. Our obsession with instant: coffee, tea, pudding, mashed potatoes didn't end there. Instant cash was ahead of its time, but it wasn't. There was a use case that changed the outcome of many industries, businesses and global economies. Credit/Debit cards all becomes outcomes of the cash machine era, there were people willing to build, try and bet on an idea ahead of its time.

Adrian Ashfield invented the basic idea of a card combining the key and user's identity in February 1962. This was granted UK Patent 959,713 for "Access Controller" in June 1964 and assigned to W. S. Atkins & Partners who employed Ashfield. He was paid ten shillings for this, the standard sum for all patents. It was originally intended to dispense petrol but the patent covered all uses.

In the US patent record, Luther George Simjian has been credited with developing a "prior art device". Specifically, his 132nd patent (US3079603), which was first filed on 30 June 1960 (and granted 26 February 1963). The roll-out of this machine, called Bankograph, was delayed by a couple of years, due in part to Simjian's Reflectone Electronics Inc. being acquired by Universal Match Corporation.

An experimental Bankograph was installed in New York City in 1961 by the City Bank of New York, but removed after six months due to the lack of customer acceptance.

The idea of a PIN stored on the card was developed by a group of engineers working at Smiths Group on the Chubb MD2 in 1965 and which has been credited to James Goodfellow(patent GB1197183 filed on 2 May 1966 with Anthony Davies). The essence of this system was that it enabled the verification of the customer with the debited account without human intervention. This patent is also the earliest instance of a complete "currency dispenser system" in the patent record. We are in 2021, still getting cash from a machine using a near similar concept. The interaction may have gone digital but the process for the act remains manual.

Not only did future entrants into the cash dispenser market such as NCR Corporation and IBM licence Goodfellow's PIN system, but a number of later patents reference this patent as "Prior Art Device"

What will you bet on today for your future outcomes? Also Patents enrich societies and their outcomes, we need to go from 0-100 in less than a decade in that space.

One New Thing

Ali Mohammed Abbas went to London towards the end of the Second World War to study law. He joined the All-India Muslim League in London and edited newspapers (Our Home and the Voice of Pakistan) from London. With the creation of Pakistan on 14 August 1947, Abbas used his flat in Tavistock Square as an unofficial Pakistan embassy until an embassy was set up. He remained in England after independence and practised as a barrister. With the help of local councils, Abbas set up twenty-eight schools all over England to enable Pakistanis to speak, read and write in English.

Making Britain, lists him as one of the Founders of Pakistan.

Boring stuff that Scales

David Ogilvy once said:

“Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals”

Research is slow and painful, but it gets you to a place, nothing else can a place called:

Triggers for scale.

Be a student vs a professor. People tell people things because most people like the sound of their voice. No one one wants to set aside time in their day to meet an other expert in their industry to share anecdotes. But they will tell an amateur every thing they know. Over index on amateur hour.

Pick an industry, any industry, that no one else wants to service. It would be great to be a digital agency for example for dentists in the country when every one is going after CPG brands or D2C players.

Unsexy is king.

Start in a boring industry because there's less competition there. When some thing is on the news, it's already typically too late to enter that space. When most of your friends are in the similar industry as every one else, that space is also saturated.

I want you to read this thread and be mesmerised about how you can take some thing boring and make it a multimillion $ business.

What you should be listening to

Paul English is a perpetual founder. Since high school, he's started 3 philanthropies and 8 companies—ranging from e-commerce, to gaming, to GetHuman, a site that helps users access human customer support. His best-known venture is probably KAYAK, a travel website launched in 2004 over two gin-and-tonics with co-founder Steve Hafner. Using a simple interface, KAYAK specialized in search; and it made partners out of potential rivals like Orbitz and Expedia by charging them a fee to send users to their sites. Eventually KAYAK became one of the most-searched "K" words on Google, and in 2012, it sold to Priceline for $1.8 billion. A few years later, Paul started yet another company, Lola.com—and says he plans to launch many more.

I came across this podcast and I think it is one of the most authentic creator stories Ive ever heard. Listen to it here.

Monetise your time

By learning how to sell

1. Every thing in life is a sale.

2. When you try to get your friends in Grade school to pick you on a team.

3. When you try to get the next promotion.

4. When you want society to like you.

5. When you go raise money.

6. When you fight for the love and affection of others.

7. When you want to be in control of the tv remote.

8. When you want to decide the music that gets played on a family trip in the car.

9. When you ask the flight attendant for a better seat.

Granted, some of these could be extreme and perhaps not very relevant. But the universality of outcomes is a "closed sale" meaning, if you are good at selling the end state you want, from one or any of the above, the preferred outcome is the same set of skills you need to close a sale.

Real salespeople tell stories. Monetise your time in learning how to tell better stories.

"If you give yourself 30 days to clean your home, it will take you 30 days.

But if you give yourself 3 hours, it will take 3 hours. This is called theParkinsons law.

The same applies to your goals, ambitions, and potential.

So give your self limited time, to monetise your outcomes faster.

Made in: Pakistan

The inspiration for the original Air India Logo "Mahraja" came from Pakistan. I was surprised too.

Back in 1938, Tata Airlines, India's first commercial airline service, began to fly. The same year, the marketing wizard Bobby Kooka joined the team too.

Soon after that, Sorab Kaikushroo (Bobby) Kooka came up with the idea of Maharajah to re-christen Air India. It also became the face of many Air India campaigns. The full story here

One Last Thing (That is fascinating)

The Latest COVID victim, Clowns?

A circus in Northern Ireland made headlines recently when it claimed that COVID-related visa issues have led to a critical clown shortage.

But the data suggests this long-lived niche is underserved, and could support a thriving business.

Never dismiss a niche, thats the moral of this story. Look for the boring and the un-sexy.

There are at least 4 professional clown associations (Clowns International its been around since 1947, we should check if the list any of our politicians as members, the WCA, CAI, and Shriners), each with thousands of members.

So whats the opportunity?

Check out the sites, they are dated, what if you became an expert in providing digital services to this space? Like dentists, there is no one who is actively waking up every day to say out loud that they will target clowns as their core market. You get the point?