No Day Without A Thought

For people who have some sort of writing practice (i.e. journaling, a blog, etc) know how beneficial it is to give words to your thoughts and actually express what you are thinking. It is liberating and so powerful.

When writing, it actually works best for the reader (not saying that there needs to be one) when the written word sounds like the author speaking about that topic. Through writing however, you might find that you want to use more precise and eloquent words (not for the purpose of being arrogant, making other people feel dumb or losing readers interest because they simply don't understand what you are talking about - especially important for industry language). 

Not only will your writing practice effect that your mind is clearer and that you can actually express your thoughts and what you are thinking (because you already took the time to process the thoughts), it will also help you to bring across the point(s) you are trying to make.

So, not only is it best for you to write as you speak, you should also adapt to speak as you write and appreciate the beneficial loop writing provides you with for both outcomes.

Growth hacking here, growth tactics there, silver bullets over here - buzz, buzz, buzz.

Growth hacking is a big hype as every new super cool thing which some of the successful kids do / others get successful as well without clearly giving someone the title 'growth' in their team. And after the hype is over, some aspects will get cut off of it, people will understand it more and accept it, as a new function within a team, you can install or not.

Sometimes, growth hacking is put into the same category as marketing, sometimes it gets mistaken as product. Basically, growth can and is likely to be different for every product or service. Mainly it is the combination of lean startup methods with data. You have assumption which you test as fast as possible to generate user growth (either new users or not loose activated users; more below).

There are different steps and stages of the consumer lifetime circle you can build in 'growth mechanism'.

It starts with what marketing channels to choose - if any. Or rather finding a unexplored path to reach your users that is rather a user mine that you can harvest. The next step often is the sign up, so you 'acquired someone's interest' and now you better make sure you manage to make them sign up. Here it is mostly about removing frictions: either 1) physically (every process needs to run smoothly and needs to be clearly designed) or mentally (the user should get the right information in the right time and not having any uncertainty or doubts that stop him). 

Well, congratulations, you have a new user. Better make sure that you activate this user. "Activate a user? He just signed up!" Yes, he did. But unlike you, he likely never heard of your product and has no idea what to do. In a world with an attention span of minus 10 seconds, your job is to expose him to the USP of your product as smooth as possible. This is as well highly depends on your service. If it is a B2B software, the new user might spend some more time to get to know what you are offering and is willing to spend some time. On the other side, most of the consumer facing apps don't manage to hold more than 20% of their sign ups after the first week. Well, competition right here. Provide them with value right away.

If you manage this, you have an activated user. But that doesn't mean he will stay engaged forever, you have to make sure that his/her need constantly gets fulfilled - maybe this even changes over time. Plus, the use case from the first sign up/login is likely different from everything else the user will do in the future. Think about it and run reengagement mechanism to not loose users. If you acquire lots of users, but don't manage to retain them, what good is your acquisition efforts?

And now we come to the one line I actually had in mind, when I started this post.

New users - churned users = growth

Super simplified, but that's it. You can work on both variables. In fact, you need to work on both, otherwise, no growth, no satisfied users, no business.

btw. growth comes after product market fit. Meaning, in my perspective you need to start with churned users. Yes,obviously you need to attract some users, but don't start the acquisition engine before knowing that the users stay. Thus, how to make sure the users don't churn? Well, any activation or retention efforts won't help, if you don't actually solve someone's problem => product market fit.

In addition to that, if you manage to have a clear product market fit and have your first users, those are your best marketing engine anyway. Here again, remove friction, or rather: enable sharing mechanism and incentives. Don't make it hard for them to share your work, rather help them with the right tools at the right time to do it for you. Ideally, you offer them something for it and the persons they invite. This is called the viral loop and should be >1. So for every person, they bring more than one new person with them.

Here is how most growth teams are positioned:
1) acquisition
2) sign up
3) onboarding
4) retention

If I mentioned anything that is wrong from your perspective or you would like to continue the discussion and add something, feel free to teach me @nodwat. In fact, I want you to, as I just write to learn, not to be right.

Thank you for reading.

Earlier last year, I stumbled upon this blog post: I'm not sorry

Main take away: you should cut down the amounts of saying sorry and only use it when you feel like you didn't act accordingly to your values.

Many people say those three words (I am sorry) way too often in a context they are not even responsible for the situation. Like when it is actually someone else's fault, but they still apologize for it. Situations could be in a work environment, but also in the personal life.

On the other side, you should acknowledge when you messed up and sincerely admit it.

With that we come to the next step: If you follow this mindset it depends on how often you don't act accordingly to your own values and that amount should ideally cut down to 0.

In an ideal world you are in inner peace, have your emotional state under control and are not influenced by external triggers. That doesn't mean you are unaffected by them, but that you are aware of them and know how to handle them. Like when you had a really bad day, come home and get angry at your partner because of an misinterpreted behavior in which case you would usually just ask what she/he meant, but not this time. Afterwards, you honestly feel sorry for how you reacted and should say it.

However, that should happen in the first place and comes with a lot of work.

Get to know yourself, reflect on previous situations, acknowledge your emotions, don't judge them, and learn how to handle them - so you don't need to say 'I am sorry' ever again.

Final note: I personally don't value when people say they are sorry that much. I rather want them to just acknowledge and admit if they messed up and instead of focusing on the past, work on that it won't happen again in the future. That way we can both take a step forward, as I won't hold any grudges against someone who is straight about her/his actions.

Considering that I think a lot about habits and personal improvement, one question doesn't leave me alone.

Do you need to know for what you are doing a specific action or does it not matter and the effect will be there anyways?

Rephrase:

Will it be more effective when you know what you are doing something for? (actually, by phrasing it that way, that seems like the obvious answer. And there comes the power of leading questions.)

What I mean is that I have installed a few habits for a specific purpose or know what certain actions trigger within me.

1. Every day after I wake up, I make my bed to feel a first accomplishment and cleanliness in my room. Then I open the window and drink a glass of water to get my day started. Additionally, I spend 5-10 minutes with short exercises and/or stretching to give me a feeling of self respect. By doing those I set myself up for the day and already had a good start no matter what happens. Plus my mind is usually better structured and I am therefore more focused and not that easy to distract from unimportant things.

2. Sports, especially running. I've done a lot of sports and would consider myself quite sporty as in I can compete on a decent level across different areas. However, only running makes me feel lean and eat healthy to stay there. 

Question: do I eat healthy afterwards because I know what it triggers in me and that is just a known behaviour afterwards like a chain. Go running -> eat a healthy meal. Or would I also eat that way if I wouldn't know it.

I guess I found the answer. It is rather depending on how far you are already into it that you know or don't know it.

For example for the running situation: Let's imagine I would start, then I don't know what it triggers but I find myself eating healthier after sports and feeling leaner. After a while I will associate those to feelings and therefore know what it is for. 

Thus, to come back to the original question: the benefits will manifest themselves when you don't know them, but it sure helps to motivate yourself when you know them before.

For the purpose of explaining this concept I will make use of the well know example of loosing weight.

How many people do you know that haven't managed to loose weight. Or maybe lost weight, but gained it again or haven't managed to pull it through to actually use a significant amount of kilos? Maybe even you belong to that group?

I've been gaining too much weight recently. In the end of September I ran a marathon - even though my body was actually not fit. Yes, now there might be some of you who say 'wtf, you ran a marathon. Saying that you were not fit is kinda ridiculous.' Well, indeed, I managed to run a marathon, but my body didn't feel fit and also in terms of body fat I was not in good shape.

After the marathon it got even better (irony). Considering that I just ran a f*** marathon, I thought I can easily deserve some time out and did even less sports but more eating instead.

Now I am at a stage where I am close in not fitting into my last pair of pants. Yes, you read correctly.

It is tough going back. It is getting winter. When I wake up it is not sunny outside, the motivation is low and blablabla (insert excuse of your choice). A Trojan Horse in that sense is one single change that will secretly affect other areas of your life.

For example: taking the stairs might help you get the desire for more exercise. Lucky that you want to get the most out of your exercise, thus eat better. And boom, 3 months later you are a machine (ok, that was a quick jump, but you get the point).

My Trojan Horse is actually sports. As soon as I do sports I feel better, more athletic and an athletic person gives everything to improve, instead of throwing everything away by eating a pizza afterwards.

Or maybe your Trojan Horse is not doing something small, like not smoking the last cigarette of the day. Just by leaving out the last nicotine push at night for a week, might work wonders.

What small change can you think of that you can change about yourself? Or maybe trigger other people in doing which they are more willing to take, instead of tackling the big obstacle directly?