Mercenary & Missionary (In Business & Entrepreneurship)

Kleiner Perkins Chairman, John Doerr, defined the two entrepreneurial types 20 years ago through a series of comparisons:

• Mercenaries are driven by paranoia; missionaries are driven by passion.

• Mercenaries think opportunistically; missionaries think strategically.

• Mercenaries go for the sprint; missionaries go for the marathon.

• Mercenaries focus on their competitors and financial statements; missionaries focus on their customers and value statements.

• Mercenaries are bosses of wolf packs; missionaries are mentors or coaches of teams.

• Mercenaries worry about entitlements; missionaries are obsessed with contributing.

• Mercenaries are motivated by the lust for making money; missionaries, while recognizing the importance of money, are fundamentally driven by the desire to make meaning.

So what type are you? What works best? I like to think about this from the perspective of the Fast Company founder Bill Taylor who says "you should have a “values proposition” as well as a value proposition. He explains that a value proposition defines what you sell, whereas a “values proposition” explains what you believe in."

The lesson I think is that whether you identify your business as tech centric or not, your success may well be determined by the intensity of your motivation. You have to choose where you lean and for what reasons. Just be clear with your intentions else the price to pay would not be commensurate with the outcomes.

Outcomes

I came across a fantastic tweet around social interactions being impacted by traffic. For all the things we think we can control in our lives, some thing as simple as traffic has the ability to impact our outcomes. So where we live or work may define how many friends/acquaintances we end up having.

As I dug deeper I found out Livable Streets offers a thorough examination of the struggle between automobiles, residents, pedestrians and other users of streets, along with evidence-based, practical strategies for redesigning city street networks that support urban livability.

In 1981, when Donald Appleyard’s Livable Streets was published, it was globally recognized as a groundbreaking work, one of the most influential urban design books of its time.

Unfortunately, he was killed a year later by a speeding drunk driver. 

The book, linked above is a fantastic read and available on the site.

One New Thing (That I Learnt today)

TIL that in Finland, knitting is part of the school curriculum.Crafts as well as knitting have long been an integral part of Finnish culture, hence why it is a part of the school curriculum and part of the tradition that has long been passed from one generation to the next. The Finns have long been keen knitters before it had a chance to become trendy, in Helsinki the art of knitting has been interwoven with charitable acts, lifestyle as well as wellbeing. Not only is knitting engaging and a fun way to unleash your creativity, it comes with a number of benefits that the less inclined have been unaware of thus far. There are many benefits to learning knitting: it’s good for your health, a relaxing pastime, brings joy to those around us, and is incredibly versatile.  In Helsinki you are bound to bump into at least one knitter in every other café, meeting or the metro. 

Boring stuff that Scales

Effortless knowledge. Over the years my curiosity seems to be never ending. Mostly because of the fire-hose that is the internet. No less finding sources to help with that are rare. The most boring thing to do, potentially listening to a pod cast is on key element that may seem boring but can scale proportional to the time you have. I am talking about no ordinary pod-cast. If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered by their incredible pod-cast Stuff You Should Know.

What you should be Reading

During World War II, Project Pigeon (later Project Orcon, for "organic control") was American behaviorist B. F. Skinner's attempt to develop a pigeon-guided missile. The control system involved a lens at the front of the missile projecting an image of the target to a screen inside, while a pigeon trained (by operant conditioning) to recognize the target pecked at it. This is some of the most incredible reading on behavioral psychology.

Monetize your time

By learning how to validate business ideas. How do you validate that you have a business idea that has a great chance of succeeding in the marketplace?

Here are some thoughts

By using this formula in an evaluation sheet for quickly validating ideas.

Reading this book : Testing Business Ideas, which explains how to increase the success of any venture by providing a practical guide to rapid experimentation.

Try taking the 1 Day MVP course on Udemy.

& when you are ready....

Watch this great video from David Fogerty about how he launched a new brand.

Made in Pakistan

#Pasoori cross 100+ Million views on Youtube. The song is currently a hit globally playing in the malls of Japan, the clubs in Sweden, the cars in India and all over Bangladesh. It hit the Spotify global charts weeks ago & was in top 20 on Singapore Spotify.

One Last thing

Life Hack Like No Other