Some times, being early is the same as being wrong. American cinematographer and inventor Morton Heilig described his vision of a multi-sensory theater in a 1955 paper entitled "The Cinema of the Future."

In 1962 Heilig built a prototype of his immersive, multi-sensory, mechanical multimodal theater called the Sensorama, and created five short films to be displayed in it. On August 28, 1962 Heilig was granted U.S. Patent 3,050,870 for a "Sensorama Simulator." This invention is considered one of the earliest functioning efforts in virtual reality.

But it took decades for this vision to be realized. He was too early. His work did become foundational in understanding the nature of the beast, but he didn't benefit from it.

Moral of the story, try as we must but if we are too early, too innovative, to bleeding edge, some times we just die trying. In the current economic scenario if you must give your self a fighting change, look to explore the boring the mundane & what doesn't need to be explained too hard to find a market product fit.

This doesn't mean we write off innovation, so long as we understand the pros and cons of building the future, vs building for the future.

Outcomes

As time passes, I am learning a key fact that I used to take for granted. Most people continue to not know how to do first party/primary research of any kind. Its a phenomenal skill to have to boost your outcomes. Yet we continue to dwindle and rely on others. Have we become too lazy to even Google?

I feel we have, but Google is not the end all of all things research. Far from it. A key trait Ive observed in teens is the complete dis-regard for wikipedia, calling it fake.

So heres a top tip. Don't take wikipedia at face value. But scroll down, for most topics or controversial takes, the benefit wikipedia has is the foot notes. What? Well its a fantastic place to start, people to prove their case or point link to all kinds of web sources. Wikipedia is a treasure trove to that pandoras box. Start clicking, making a list and reviewing the sources other people cite. You will be pleasantly surprised. Every time I think i've found some interesting background on a topic wikipedia links prove me wrong and point me to more/different data. 8/10 that happens so its become a go to source for me.

Next, we come to an other not so hot take. Google is great but Wolfram Aplha is incredible?

It's not like Google and thats why it's incredible.

One New Thing (That I learnt recently)

That dentistry was practiced 9000 years ago in Mehrgarh, Pakistan, when a a flint point was used to drill holes in molars to remove rotten tissue.

Teeth from a Neolithic graveyard in Mehgarh in the country's Baluchistan province show clear signs of drilling.

Analysis of the teeth shows prehistoric dentists had a go at curing toothache with drills made from flint heads.

The team that carried out the work say close examination of the teeth shows the tool was "surprisingly effective" at removing rotting dental tissue. More details here

Boring Stuff that Scales

I read a document by Morgan Stanley around the best businesses. A quick list below and the detailed link here:

The kind of businesses that interest me are the ones people don't know about, that are generational, have held the test of time and circumstances. What scales well is the desire to build vs the desire to sell or exit. An operator mind set that has to live with the consequence of ones choice vs a builder that builds to exit in my view is far more valuable to have especially in a market like ours.

Nothing wrong with either but when you focus on the boring parts of building for the long term you view and businesses outlook typically becomes more resilient vs a fad.

Heres a quick history lesson on some of the oldest business in the world by Geography and the lessons learnt.

What you should be Reading

Catch-22, satirical novel by American writer Joseph Heller, published in 1961. The work centres on Captain John Yossarian, an American bombardier stationed on a Mediterranean island during World War II, and chronicles his desperate attempts to stay alive.

The book follows a form of logic called "Catch-22." It's a paradoxical law that means you're circumstantially screwed – no matter what choice you make. Since the publication of the novel, the term "Catch-22" has been used to describe any unsolvable logical dilemma or deadlock. The protagonist of the novel, Yossarian, often finds himself stymied by his own Catch-22: he's caught up in situations that prove life-threatening, but he can't legally escape them.

The novel was originally titled Catch-18 but changed when another WWII novel with the number eighteen was published around the same time. So Heller decided on 22 because the repeated numbers parallel some repeating events in the book and describe the déjà vu type occurrences

A fantastic read, that I read far too late in life.

Monetize your time

By looking at niches/collectives of talented people who typically work offline but could work online. I continue to be blown away by the art/architecture/interior designers that we produce & there aesthetics. As a country that builds houses for the rich and little to no public spaces/infra, the best of this lot are locked in to drafting and other back office roles, where in their real passion lies else where. Not every one has the capacity to go and grow on their own solo and become successful architects or interior designers yet, these skills are insanely in demand in the West. If you are an entrepreneur who knows how to navigate the world of online work, its time to build a collective of available talent in Pakistan even if its a list, a landing page or a pre registration and build a data set of this talent thats willing to work on free lance projects.

You become the sourcing agent. You find/identify the work and outsource it, when folks start getting work they will start taking you seriously. This perhaps is not the most optimal way of doing it, but since no one is active in this space at scale domestically first to market and first to revenue producing results for free lancers will win this battle. It would be slower to get others to look for and familiarize themselves with finding online projects, if you already excel at that, monetize your time by making their time billable across a new genre that you aren't skilled in by using the one you are skilled in.

Made in Pakistan

Champion Clock Company is the Leading Clock manufacturer and Supplier in Pakistan since 1954. An interesting business that seems to have survived the test of time and cheap Chinese imports. To partake in supporting local commerce their site is here 

One last thing

The only we get there is by working on our outcomes, evaluating our inputs and our relationship with time and our ability to change the course of the day after the point we wake up in the morning to the points in between leading up to when we go to bed. We cant change fate, we cant change whats happening around us, but we can change our reaction to all of these things. Control your reactions to better & faster positive outcomes.