👥 Active users: 1412 📝 New Developments: Streak System 🔥 ⏰ Time it took to write: 6 hours 58 minutes
I had a big realization this week that could change the evolution of BookBase in a major way. 😯
I couldn't understand why we work so hard, yet it takes weeks to months to develop 1-1 Feature. 😓
Then I realized that I had been looking at things completely wrong... 🤔
I didn't know about the Iceberg theory! 🧊
But before we get started, let's see... 👀
🚀 How's the challenge?
🎬 OM Documentary Premier - Friday 18:00
I can't believe it's done!
I'm super excited to see how much you'll like it. It's a completely different style to the previous ones, but we put our hearts and souls into it! ❤️🔥
In the meantime, here's a Trailer of it: (HUN)
🍻 Team meeting will be with the boys
They are coming today and we will watch the Premiere together! It's going to be an active weekend of relaxation, thermal baths, a bit of football and I think we'll be looking down into the night! ⚽️
A team event like this always consists of 3 parts:
🧠 Brainstorming Sessions
💆🏽♂️ Recreation
🥇 And the inevitable competition, in anything, anywhere, the main thing is to compete with each other!
🐐 GOAT Formula is available again
It's been 10 months since the last launch and now we're reopening for 7 days. 🔥
GOAT Formula is our most complex video course. It's specifically about how to start a business step-by-step. 👣
It contains all the knowledge I've learned in almost 7 years of entrepreneurship. 📚
The GOAT formula will NOT teach you how to make 100 million, but it will teach you perfectly how to get started and HOW to get your first paying customer! 💰
Officially launching on Monday, but I'm reserving 10 spots for those who read the newsletter. 🔟
So, if you're interested in the business and want to finally get started, you can buy on this page! (HUN)
🔥 The Streak System is also in the final stretch
Kokesz already showed 1-2 designs of it and I must say it's going to be serious! It's going to hold its own in the international market! Streak is the easiest way to maintain "Retention". 📈
Retention = How long someone uses the app and stays a subscriber.
The higher the Retention, the more secure your business can be built on a solid footing! 🧱
This is what the Streak Calendar - Kokesz's masterpiece will look like! 🎨
And this will be an inspiration for Streak rewards, I think it will be familiar to many of you!
🚂 Edu working hard on Backend
We are trying to completely switch to Stripe for web payments, because Sales autopilot, is not designed for what we do and we keep having trouble with it! Not to mention it's getting surreally expensive... 😕
And OTP is perfect for Hungary, but it's not taken seriously in the international market. If you go to the international market you have to play by their rules. 🌍
An ultra-big pain to retune the whole system, but you have to do it now because it would be even worse later.
💡 Side note: Those of you who have existing subscriptions on the web will not be affected, those subscriptions will be kept in that system!
🔥 Streak Society
We are working on building a VIP community of Power Users. So those who have at least 30 Streaks would be included in a Discord channel, where we would organize 1:1 Networking and they could get to know each other! 🤝
👾 Discord Server
We had a proposal in the past to have a Discord server for the members of the BookBase, but it died out quickly because there was no one to organize programs. ❌
So, there was no real Community Manager, which has now changed. 😉 Because Zsolti - an OM follower - wrote to me asking if we could think about something like that, because he would love to manage this part of the community, he loves doing it and it would be a good community to be part of! 👀
I immediately got the opportunity, so get ready, because the Discord server is getting a complete makeover. There will be networking, there will be presentations and even a channel where I will post things and will only be visible for 24 hours. 🤩
All my little tips and tricks will be posted there! 🤫
Okay, it's time to get down to business, because I think you're already wondering what the ... the Iceberg theory is! ❄️
I'm not dragging this out!
🤨 What is this theory?
The Iceberg Theory is used in a lot of segments.
What it really means is that there are a lot of things that we are not prepared for because we don't anticipate them. 🧐
It's called the Iceberg Theory because most of the Icebergs are invisible since they are underwater. ⬇️
And that's what happened to me, I always just saw the Feature, but not that:
🔗 what-what it was related to,
❓ what systems are needed,
🤖 how to automate it,
🪲 how many potential errors it brings,
etc.
This led to a lot of half-finished Features being included...
For example, Referral, which counts the invitations but doesn't automatically give the gifts... 🎁
💡 Side notes 2: Relax we know no one has reached 10 yet, so far maybe 5 is the highest if I remember correctly. We do give out rewards manually, so if you already have an invite but haven't received a reward, just drop a message to Edu or me.
A fitting proverb:
"Kristóf couldn't see the forest for the trees!" 🌳
Here's a topical example.
What I thought we needed for the Streak System:
🔥 Streak counter at the top right of the screen
📟 A system that counts
What I actually need:
🔥 Streak counter.
📅 Streak calendar, if you click on it
🤖 It's pre-programmed like a calendar
📟 A system that counts
🚨 Sends you a notification
📧 Sends an email
🎁 Gifts after Streaks
🔍 A page where you can view the gifts
🎅🏼 An automatic system for distributing gifts
⚒ Preparing the gifts
😪 And about 3-4 more things I don't know right now...
So, you can see these things mostly when you start doing them.
💡 Side notes 3: The biggest suck so far was when we made our own Dashboard, we thought 1-2 weeks, cutting it even now isn't quite done! 😅
And 1-1 "small" Feature, can take a lot of time, as you discover new obstacles while working. 🚧
Let's see...
💭 Why is the Iceberg Theory important?
It's good to be aware that there will be unpredictable factors. 🤓
I have a very good chart that describes our situation 100%:
And it really can be applied to anything!
🟢 There are things we know - how to accelerate and brake in a car.
🟣 There are things we know we don't know. How to drift.
🟡 And then there are the things we don't even know we don't know. - Some atomic racing technique for starting off that I don't even know exists.
Just understanding this diagram and being prepared for it will help you in whatever new project you start. 😎
This brings us to our next point...
🧐 How do you turn this into a benefit?
You need to understand two mental models and I promise you won't fall into the mistake I "successfully" fell into. 🧠
One is the good old 80/20 rule or otherwise known as:
💭 The Pareto Principle: Which states that 20% of our actions produce 80% of the results.
So, it's important to look before every project what is the 20%, we need the most.
📕 Book recommendations: The 80/20 Rule, by Richard Koch, is an insanely useful book if you want to dig deeper into this topic.
And the second model relates to exactly that, which is:
💭 Lean Thinking: Which states that you should focus on the essentials at first and then slowly develop your idea.
So, it's good to have a list in front of you and go through what are the things that are essential to make your product successful. You can even highlight these and then focus on them! 📝
📕 Book review of "Lean Thinking" - by James P. Womack. A good read, but be forewarned that it's dry as hell. It's also up on BookBase, but there it has a nicer "robe" and is more clearly written, in just 13 minutes. 🎧
Even so, we can be sure that there will be things we don't foresee and are not prepared for. But thankfully it's significantly less than trying to do all the items on the list. 🍀
If you have no idea what to do, then simply write a list with ChatGPT. I'll show you what to type 🤖 (in English, because it will give better results)
"Act as an expert whose expertise is in the Pareto Principle, 80/20 rule and Lean Thinking. I will write you a goal and your job are to list all the possible to-dos for that tasks in a to do list format, even those small ones, that I would forget about and sort them in order of importance based on the 80/20 rule.
[Goal] = Write here the goal you want to achieve"
Or you can write one like this if you want to specifically address the Iceberg Theory. ❄️
"Act as an expert whose expertise is in clear thinking. I will write you a goal and your job is to list all the possible to-dos for that tasks in a to do list format, even the small ones. In every project there are tasks that are invisible, your job is to make those tasks visible for me and list them all, so I don't get surprised when I meet them.
[Goal] = Write here the goal you want to achieve"
It expanded my basic list to 17, so I still had blind spots... 😳
I've written 1-2 concrete examples here, but you know that you can't miss the usual Checklist! 😉
💡 Side notes 4: I will gently note that GPT4 returns significantly better answers than 3. If you don't already have a GPT4 subscription, on the one hand I think it's worth it and it's not affiliate, on the other hand, go to this site and you'll get 1 free answer a day from GPT4 either this or that. But about that psst... 🤫
So, let's see...
✅ What exactly do you do?
I'm not saying I've set myself an easy task with this checklist, but I'll try to make the most of it! So...
[ ] First step, set a goal you want to achieve! 🎯
[ ] Step two, write a list of what you think the tasks will be. 📝
[ ] Step three, ask ChatGPT to add to your list of tasks that you don't even know exist yet. 🤖
[ ] Step four, prioritize your to-do list based on Lean Thinking and the Pareto Principle. 🥇
[ ] Step five, start implementing it all and follow the rules of the Pareto Principle. Really focus only on the most important 20%! ⚒
And remember, there are bound to be tasks that you have no idea about, but will still take up a lot of your time! 😳
I can't even estimate how much this blog post would have meant to me if I had read it 2 years earlier, but it sure would have saved a lot of headaches and stressful hours! 🥳
🔥 Challenge
The biggest challenge is to incorporate this Iceberg theory into my Mental Models. Sometimes I just write down "ahh this would be nice to develop", and then 1 minute later I realize that this little thing would take the guys about 3 weeks. 😰
And I immediately cross it off the list! ❌
What's more difficult is to reprioritize the development list based on this, so what's really important and can be done relatively quickly! 🥇
There were also the AI Mentors and the talking books, which we didn't give up on at all, I just realized that they would be huge sucks and I don't want to release half finished. 🙏🏻
💡 Side notes 5: They are already in beta on the web anyway and you can talk to them, but I don't want to fall into our Referral mistake again.
So now we're doing a simultaneous overhaul of the old system, new features and innovation... 🤯
Yeah, that's why we are a bit spread out! 🥺
If a team is disjointed it is largely the responsibility of the leader, because he can't outline his ideas in a nice and clear way. He doesn't know what's really important and what can wait. 🫡
I need to change that to be a better leader for the guys! 💪🏼
📖 What have I just read?
I've read a lot about AutoGPT, it's very close to AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) and I think it's completely Open Source. I will link it here for you. 🤖
The essence is that this AI can now write commands for itself. You just give it a name and what it wants to do, and it runs until it reaches it or runs into something intractable. It's got some really cool stuff! ✅
Here's a demo video of it, be warned the Indian accent is guaranteed! 🎥
I should also note, I was in a very serialized mood now, I couldn't find anything interesting on HBO Go or Netflix, so I subscribed to Disney+, which in hindsight might not have been a good decision... 💸
Mandalorian totally sucked me in, it's a Star Wars series that might be about Boba Fett, but I'm not sure yet 🔫 (I'm not a big Star Wars fan, but this series is cool).
I felt like for the past few months, I've only ever watched series that have been progressing me. Now it was time to watch something for relaxation! 💆🏽♂️
⚠️ Important Disclaimer: It's always predetermined which day, how much time I can watch, so it won't be that I'll be grinding it all out in 1 day! 😉
🎧 What did I just listen to?
I was listening to a podcast about how to organize get-togethers and trips so you can meet as many people as possible. 🤝
It's been called Conscious Networking; he gave some good tips but it wasn't a breakthrough Podcast. I list them here. ⬇️
It actually matters WHEN you travel to a particular place from a Networking perspective. You can travel to Berlin in January, but, if you want to meet programmers, late July is recommended. Why? ⏰
Because that's the WeAreDevelopers World Congress, where all the "big dogs" are. You can also meet 1-2 people in January, but the chances are much lower. ⚖️
Same with crypto events, and even parties. Just because you see a good place on the net doesn't mean you shouldn't check out WHEN to go. 📅
I'm looking for these events and conferences in Europe right now, where it would be worth for me to go. If you know 1-2, don't hold back, write to me on Instagram! 📮
✍🏼 Top quote
"True knowledge is knowing the extent of your ignorance." ~ Confucius
