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Today, I want to share an idea — the idea of giving yourself permission to experiment and try things out. Under the burden of our daily lives, we forget that all good things in life are a function of iteration. I recently interviewed two founders. One founder started a company providing enterprise AI solutions. Another founder is building a coworking space in Dhaka. A common thread in both of their work that surprised me is the pervasive and necessary presence of experimentation and iteration.
Every aspect of a company requires iteration. Take the idea of company culture as an example. You start with a highly flexible culture where people are empowered and given a lot of autonomy to operate and perform. While such a culture can be hugely inspiring, you can also forget the fact that everything has a shadow side until you find out autonomy is not empowering for everyone. Some people need guidance and handholding.
One founder told me that after trying one approach for quite a while they found out that it was not working. They took time to review the process, learn the lesson, and make changes to their recruitment and internal communication approach with people. At the heart of any improvement and progress is this willingness to try things out, find out what’s working and what’s not, and then apply the lessons to do better the next time.
In the growth hacking language, this is called the high-tempo framework where you generate a bunch of growth ideas, experiment with a few of them, learn from the outcome, and repeat the whole cycle again. We can apply this idea of continuous experimentation, reflection, and learning across our work and life, from building a company to building a good life. See what are some of the practices and approaches in your life work and what are not working and then replace the ones not working with some new ideas and see what happens. Give yourself permission to experiment, make mistakes, learn, and improve. See what happens.
That’s about it. Now, on to the updates.
These are a collection of articles, essays, and readings from around the internet I enjoyed last week. This week’s collection has a theme: how to live a life that you want to live.
The first essay is a birth reflection that goes deep into the tension between the life that we have and the life that we want.
The second essay explores how stating the obvious and accepting our dominant inclinations and fascinations can lead to a better and happier life.
The final essay explores ideas around why we must leave the flatland and elevate ourselves to some higher dimension in order to find and do our true genius work. Genius doesn’t occur following earthly logic, we have to find the divine connection to achieve a true breakthrough.
1. 32 Minutes and 29 and a half years
1. Don’t Accept Failure Too Easily
The fruit of our desire almost always lies on the other end of a dragged-out long and rough trail of action. However, our doggedness doesn’t make things any easier, it simply enables us to endure challenges to cross the chasm.
2. Review + 14 Powerful Quotes from Born To Run by Christopher McDougall
A regular guy plagued by running injuries embarks on a quest to understand the science and art of distance running without pain.
3. 10 Ways to Boost the Productivity of Your Team
Startups often are resource-constrained entities and need to make the most of their time and effort. A set of ideas to achieve greater team productivity at your startup.
4. Matritto Launches Affordable, Non-judgmental Counseling Services for Women and Mothers
Matritto, an online platform that provides content, courses, and services for mothers in Bangladesh, announced a new mental health service for women and mothers.
The stories of building an organization from scratch, shedding light on the challenges of entrepreneurship, how to survive and thrive entrepreneurial journeys, the critical work of building culture, and much more.
That's all for this week.
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Thank you for reading.
Ruhul
On behalf of Team FS.
