The Half Century. 50 issues... 50 Weeks of being committed to something. I meant you, the readers. Thank you. It takes lot to be committed to some thing, producing or consuming both take up mental calories. 350 days of thinking if not writing every day has been a rewarding experience for me too.

The pursuit, commitment & willpower to doing some thing is half the battle for fantastic outcomes in life because it leads to curiosity. Giving up is really easy, any one can give up and not be curious, instead start believing what ever is easiest.

If there is one major tendency currently shared by both the political left and the right, it may be the devaluation of curiosity as virtuous. More and more folks are choosing to celebrate their confirmation bias instead of overcoming it.(Psyc Today)

To be curious means to take a risk that you may encounter a distressing idea. But this type of behavior can be a prelude to innovation, as failure and error are no longer dirty words.

Research proves, once curiosity has been triggered, we make fewer errors. This result is explained by the fact that if we are curious, we are subsequently less likely to fall prey to confirmation bias.

Curiosity and creativity go hand in hand, as the curious hold a deep-rooted belief that things can be better. So work on being curious, work on being self reliant, work on being committed and your outcomes will get 10x better.

Outcomes

The Orangutan Effect

"If you sit down with an orangutan and carefully explain to it one of you'r cherished ideas, you may leave behind a puzzled primate, but will exit thinking more clearly yourself."

Teaching others actually teaches yourself.

2022

The Faulty Premise Framework

“A horse that can count to ten is a remarkable horse - not a remarkable mathematician.”

Beware you'r comparison set.

Are you judging crappy relative performance or absolute results?

1985

Pick the Right Business Boat

The business boat you get into is more important than how effectively you row.

“When a brilliant management team tackles a business with a reputation for poor fundamental economics, the reputation of the business usually stays intact.”

1985

Hire Giants, Avoid Dwarfs

"If we hire people who are smaller than us, we become a company of dwarfs.

But, if we hire people who are bigger than us, we become a company of giants."

Great hiring makes you the dumbest in the room.

1987

Whats all of this? A selection of Sage Advice from the annual share holder letters that one Warren Buffet writes annually for his investors. Some nice soul did a summary here. I picked out some of my favorites. If you want to learn from the outcomes of others, this treasure trove is by far the most worthy item to invest time into reading. 50 years of pure gold.

If you are up for a good read, start here:

One New Thing (That I Learnt today)

19% villages report having cable facility but 77% have Mobile Internet

Cable television channels in Pakistan are now absolutely stranded with depleting audiences especially in rural areas. Time for a re-think re-boot to capture audiences and grow commerce activities using these insights.

Boring stuff that Scales

This week I will share an idea. Not really mine but some thing that should fit the bill given our population size and give you reason to evaluate and think about a boring business.

We live in urban jungles. Even if you look at Karachi, we have far higher vertical density than horizontal. What does that mean? Most people live in buildings. What if any thing has changed as a service to those buildings? Not much besides a lot of deliveries coming in during the day from packages, to water, to corner store, to many other things.

Typically buildings have a watch man or a designated handler at the entry level, for more upscale buildings you may have a reception, for others there may be no one, just direct access to getting up to the top floor and finding the resident missing or not available. There are no apps for allowing or disallowing visitors—guests, delivery agents, cabs, household help—and communicate with the resident. But there could be. Present day most buildings don't have working intercoms or buzzers, it's a constant challenge to get in touch with the resident or even building management or to manage whose paid their dues, who hasn't, which uncle is shorting the tanker wala charges etc. Do you see where this going? The idea nor the product is new, it exists today in other parts. The easiest one to check out and emulate is https://mygate.com/ .

It has evolved from what Ive described above into now being a completely different animal. In the last year or so, I have used it to book cabs to the airport and schedule at-home RT-PCR tests. It also offers a host of other services like AC service and repair, bathroom cleaning, pest control, salon, and relocation. There's also a peer-to-peer marketplace, where you can buy and sell anything within your society and nearby societies. Recently, it launched a property search marketplace called MyGate Homes. The sky is the limit. If you are looking for a boring idea to build, this is one to try out. The market is so large that even reliance entered it with a JIO branded app.

From our context, if some one did a pilot in Karachi, got 10 buildings /associations to use it in a vertically dense area like Johar, they could add, bill payment, delivery companies and a host of other door side services via in-app enablement and make a killing on bringing bulk audiences to large pre existing businesses. Let this be the boring idea you get serious about building. If you build an MVP and get 10 buildings signed up, ping me for growth capital and 1 to 1 chat on next steps, should you want to.

What you should be watching

The “internet wave” was available to billions of people. He won the game. Hard truth is that you've got to be obsessed, if you want to be great....at just about anything. Worth the watch.

Monetize your time

I have been thinking hard why most people can not monetize their time. They don't know the basis for reverse engineering success. How do you do this? I read a great book recently "Decoding Greatness: How the Best in the World Reverse Engineer Success" Since most of us are lazy but I still want you to benefit from it, so I am including a podcast on the subject from the author. It is worth every ounce of time to read or at the very least watch the video.

Made in Pakistan

Local product for local problems. A water cooler/condenser solution that you need to run 1 hour to get water cooled for 24 hours. 35L, 55L, 70L, 100L, ++ variants. Simplicity trumps sexy every time.

One last thing (that could truly be the last thing)

Simple insight yet profound.

Play the game

"Name 3 Roman Emperors"

Most folks wont be able to name one.

Once Emperor of "the world", now unknown by 99.9% of people.

Now imagine the number that will remember you or me?