4-stages Framework to start lying down in the direction of goal productively

This is a framework for dealing with uncertainty in a form of unclear and unshaped projects. So you can efficiently communicate about them with different parties and deliver results in the end of a journey. As we all know, one can only eat an elephant one bite at a time, so here is a breakdown to get things going.

1. Lying down in the direction of goal. There is a clear appetite or intention for the project, initiating a process or introducing changes to the existing one. There might not be any traction, or traction might be hardly noticeable.

2. Crawling towards the goal. Irregular attempts are made to pursue the goal or exploratory steps being taken to understand the appetite and landscape better.

3. Walking. In this stage, a process is beginning to take shape with distinct deliverables or artifacts being produced. There is more focus on experiments and getting first results.

4. Running. A clear process has formed and metrics or KPIs are being established. The goal is in sight, progress is accelerating and is trackable.

 

Short Summary of Four Steps To The Epiphany

This is a book about how to build a company around product which solves a certain problem. How to find, validate such problems, how to build a proper product adressing all the issues, how to talk to initial customers and how to build a team which will thrive following such an approach.

The book became classic and this is actually definition of something becoming classic: it doesn’t get outdated. This book is still valid good 17 years after being published and, even more, it still serves as a good book to reflect on.

In very general way it is similar to Venture Deals in regard of providing a thorough and extensive framework to understand and manage complexity in a certain field. It allows to build a system of coordinates for understanding processes and, more importantly, to understand what might be actually happenning in a company given certain facts. Of course it also covers the part what to do with such an understanding.

Another really valuable finding is the Bibliography which may serve an inspiration for a reading list for someone looking to expand the knowledge in areas of business strategy, marketing, law, finance and enterpreneurship in general.

Worth reading to anyone who learned about customer development through articles, courses, lessons and videos and hadn’t read this book yet.

 

Short summary of Venture Deals

This is a thorough and definitive book giving an overview of how actually venture capital works. It covers fundraising process from data room preparation to M&A deal details (or tips on dealing with Investment Bankers).

But it wasn’t the details on various points of Term Sheets nor prospects of JOBS act or Rule 506 (b) which I find most useful and insightful. It was an overall vision of Deal which emerged in my brain after reading this book. Now I can definetely see the Deal as a beautiful construction of risks, expectations, negotiations and paperwork finlazing the vision which can be rigoriously discussed and bargained about.

Now I see whole story of common and preferred stocks, liquidation preferneces, venture debt and warrants as tools for laying out the prioritization of interests, which are connected to risks which parties are taking on on different stages of a company lifecycle.

And on top of that, authors mention that it can make total sense to play a Fornite match during dull negotions while adversary might be trying to drown you in details.

Worth reading to anyone who’s going to be involved into one more venture deal anytime soon.

 

How to tell media about a startup

Q: How to get free publications and coverage in the community project is interested in?

A: Media and specially news media interested in providing the hot news first. They need to be the source of new information in the world, so first step is not to release any news if you want media to publish somethin about you. Second, media loves novelty and interesting, entertaining content, so it might be useful to think about news / project in terms of novelty and interest of the audience.

One might review posts and media style to figure out the demand and how to deliver value to audience.

More ideas on how to write such a post can be found in a book Contagious: how do things catch on.

 

Очень краткое содержание книги «Джедайские техники»

Прочитать эту книгу мне посоветовал Антон Потапов, который очень емко и удачно характеризовал эту книгу как «это одну из наиболее практичных книг по тому, как можно вести дела, когда их больше, чем времени». Еще он сказал, что максимум пользы от чтения этой книги можно извлечь если сразу пробовать на практике то, про что в ней написано.

Этому совету я и последовал. И самое полезное, что я для себя вынес — это подход к очищению головы от мыслей с еще одной стороны. Не в смысле регулярной медитации, а в смысле регулярного очищения списка задач и выноса мыслей, которые можно не держать в голове.

Книгу можно читать чтобы получить практические советы по привидению своего списка дел в активный инструмент, а не такую штуку, которая есть у всех для галочки (pun intended). 

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Staff I don’t get

This is a brief list of things I can grasp, but can’t fully accept or relate to.

  • Hype about adding dark theme. Like it doesn’t make a lot of difference.
  • Window management concept except for the tmux / screen.
  • Watching video on YouTube fullscreen. Like, most of the time it is the same amount of visual information.
  • What’s funny of little kids miss-using words like using ‘ancient’ instead of ‘adult’ / ‘grownup’ or ‘old’. Adults are still able to understand and correct them.
  • Why people can’t discuss unpleasant stuff during the meal. Like I can discuss whatever I want to, why do many people have problem with that?
  • People watching bridging.
  • Wearing long nails manicure. This is ugh.
  • Fireworks. Those are not spectacular for me since I’m 14.
  • Circus. Never actually liked it as a kid.
 

Как я читал «Рациональность от AI до Зомби»

Goodreads подсказывает, что Рациональность: от ИИ до Зомби я начал читать 31 января 2018 г, и очень рад что закончил её в декабре 2020-го. Книга не настолько скучная, или объёмная как может показаться с первого взгляда, просто скорее это не книга, а отправная точка для дискуссий, экспериментов и размышлений. Как хороший собеседник об которого можно подумать или от которого можно услышать мысль, которая заставит тебя пересмотреть вещи, к которым ты привык.

Эту книгу стоит читать если вам нравятся парадоксы, фильмы Нолана, загадки завернутые в ребус, спрятанные в шараду. А также если вы любите неожиданный и честный, циничный (в хорошем смысле слова) взгляд на вещи или искать спрятавшихся в деталях дьяволят. Еще совершенно точно стоит читать, если вы пользуетесь (ну или добавили себе) набором стикеров «Ошибки аргументации», или если вы зависали на странице List Of Fallacies Википедии и знаете что такое ad absurdum и ad hominem.

Мне книга помогла систематизировать знания о логическом и рациональном мышлении, а также найти несколько реальных красивых идей.

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Fixing psycopg2 python package on Mac `ld: library not found for -lssl`

If you ever get

ld: library not found for -lssl

You should:

  1. Check you have openssl installed with brew install openssl
  2. Make sure that openssl-bindings are available in PATH: brew link openssl
  3. If the installation still fails and you are using poetry, you can try installing package with pip directly from the virtualenv.
 

Django way of serving apple-app-site-association

Key for solving was looking up how facebook does it at https://facebook.com/.well-known/apple-app-site-association.


path('.well-known/apple-app-site-association', TemplateView.as_view(
template_name='txt/apple-app-site-association',
content_type='application/json',
)),

Note: apple domain association can be verified at special site.

 

How to build and install RGF (Regularized Greedy Forest) on Mac OS

Regularized Greedy Forest was introduced in this article. And now it is one of the approaches for efficient boosting training. However, building and installing it on Mac not yet (for November 2018) is as simple as pip3 install xgboost. So, this short note is about how to build and run RGF on Mac, if you have any troubles with it.

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