Do you remember what you learned last week? How about last month or last year?
If you are like most of us, then you probably donât remember much. That is a significant, unfortunate limitation of our brains: we are wired to forget most things. Â
The Forgetting Curve
The Forgetting Curve is a popular theory that explains how we forget, and it paints a bleak picture. According to the theory, our retention of any memory reduces exponentially with time. So in just a week after we learn something new, we forget nearly 80-90%. And we forget nearly all of it in a year. Sounds about right?
Spaced Repetition
Luckily, there is a way to counter the Forgetting Curve - Spaced Repetition learning. Simply put, this technique just requires you to review what you learned at specific intervals. With each review, your retention period increases even more and your Forgetting Curve grows flatter.Â
Spaced Repetition is a very effective and rewarding technique. But itâs hard to practice and requires discipline. Youâll have to keep track of what you learn and then schedule timely reminders. Nuggets app solves that by automating your reminders. You simply record what you learn in 200 chars or lesser, Nuggets takes care of the rest for you.Â
Give it a shot to make the most of what you learn!
A Cartoon of the Brain! Pixarâs Inside Out presents a simple, fun and fascinating model of the brain. This lays out the various concepts and their relationships as described in the movie.
Cultivate a group of friends who are high energy, talented people who can be potential cofounders. Build your crew.
Being your own boss isn't as gratifying if it your aren't building something valuable or just building for others (consultants)
Don't just build what people want or market fit, build something for you, something that you'll love forever, a company that you want to keep and be your life's work.Â
Be innovative about the main thing you do, do the rest by the books. Don't be clever about org structure or legal etc.
If you build sth you love, there are probably millions who will also love it. Unless you are super weird.
Dan Siroker, Optimizely
Feedback loop is important
Build something you are a customer of. Otherwise you can't pick what's important.
Focus on the few things that make your product unique.
To pick investors, pick someone who can ask the right questions. Have mock board meetings.
Hiring formula - are they better than the mean?
Press - find a story (like David vs Goliath) that the press will like.
Startup algorithm - Get feedback and constantly try to get better.Â
Ron Conway, SV Angel
People remember and reward if you are a person of character.
VCs invest in people first.
Pick investors who can add value; not just the valuation.
Get one term sheet ASAP. Use it as a forcing function on other investors.
Recognize your deficiencies and hire people who compensate them.
Chris Dixon, Andreessen Horowitz
Good ideas left over for startups are mostly good ideas that look like bad ideas - that's the sweet spot for startups. Good ideas that seem like good ideas are already being worked on.
Secret - Know the tools or the problem better than anyone else.
Characteristics of good ideas - often seem as hobbies, it's from direct experience, they challenge social norm.
Diane Greene, VMWare
First milestone (and every other) should create value for somebody.
Have a big vision.
Balaji Srinivasan, Counsyl, StanfordÂ
You have an option to voice/reform or leave/exit.
Silicon Valley is more powerful than DC, LA, Boston & NY combined.
Technology is about reducing prices the paper belt is about raising prices.
Built an opt-in society run by technology.
Build stuff that helps people make an exit.
Chase Adams, Watsi
Talks are informational or motivational.
It's possible to both do well and do good.
With non profits, you have to be more introspective as it's hard to measure success. Not enough feedback or wrong signals (good for short term, bad in long run)
Being small lets you do whatever you want. There's no risk.
Circular structure - everyone's responsible to anyone else.
No founder titles in Watsi. Everyone contributes to founding, it's a continuous process.
No one says no to non profits, but that doesn't mean they are going to contribute.Â
Focus only on one metric.
For non-profits, different people donate for different reasons.
Sell a vision.
Find something you care about. Pick a problem that just trying to solve will make you feel better.
Jack Dorsey, Twitter
Books to read - 'Art spirit' and 'The score takes care of itself'.Â
When the artist is alive in any person, whatever his kind of work may be, he becomes an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressing creature. He becomes interesting to other people. He disturbs, upsets, enlightens, and he opens ways for a better understanding.
We are not here to what has already been done.Â
The craft is as important as the end product.
You have to be a master of your tools.Â
The object of any picture is not exhibition. You paint for yourself.Â
You cannot do anything significant without a shared motive or purpose.
Start first with a philosophy or purpose and then find people to implement this.
Setup a standard of performance. Set expectations on how people should act.
Good luck is a product of good planning.
Be near sighted and be far sighted.
Be organized, be fair, be firm.
Be a leader, by showing and not telling
Remember that praise is more valuable than blame
Workplace should have a good balance of fun and tension.
Be demanding, do not relax.
Mastery is a process, not a destination.
Daily review your list of do's and don'tsÂ
Create something that resonates and delights.
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook
Pick one thing that matters most and focus.
Hire people you'd like to work for and learn from.Â
You are going to make mistakes; be determined and don't give up.
Nathan Blecharczyk, Airbnb
How hard it to train and win Olympics? It's the same for being successful in anything else, including startups.
You need to build confidence, with small victories early on to help you on the long journey.
Worst thing is to have a partner who doesn't work as hard as you.
On your journey, every experience should prepare you for the big thing.
Choosing your partners is the most important thing.
It's better to have a few users that love you than many that kind of like you. Make your early users root for you.
Think of every experience as a building block.
Most people will likely forget all of this within a week. We're building Nuggets to help you remember.
Every day, we learn so much through experiences, interactions, classrooms, and of course, the Internet. And every day, we also forget most of the very things we learned, due to our brainsâ limitations. This realization, that most of what we learn is fleeting, bothered me and my buddy, Nate. We are avid learners, spending hours on sites like Coursera, TED, Wikipedia, Quora, blogs, books, and podcasts;Â
What is the point of spending so much time learning if we were going to forget most of it within a few days?
We, as humans, possess the superpower to rapidly learn from the world around us and to use that knowledge to evolve, become the best possible version of ourselves, and make a profound impact. To fully tap into this superpower, we must first be able to remember the stuff we learn. We decided to tackle this retention problem by developing Nuggets.Â
In high school, I was introduced to a memorization method called âmemory diaryâ. Every day, I used to write a summary of what I had learned in school in my diary, and every morning Iâd spend 15 minutes browsing the entries from the past day, week, month, and year. Amazingly, I was able to remember most of what Iâd learned. It wasnât until very recently that I found out that there was actually a brain theory to back up this method - Spacing Effect. Spacing Effect asserts that if you revisit what youâve learned at the right intervals, you can remember it; and with each recall, the amount of time you remember is extended. Nuggets is the digitized, appified version of this proven learning technique.
Nuggets users can capture everything they learn into nuggets of 200 characters or less via a mobile app or within a browser plug-in. The app gives users the ability to break down, synthesize, and record what they learned, quickly and with little effort. It then intelligently reminds users to review the nuggets at the right intervals to make sure they remember what they learned.
After months of work, Nuggets is now nearly ready to launch as a personal learning tool. We are excited. We hope it will make learning effective and peopleâs lives richer. We are eager to share Nuggets with you to help you remember the things that youâve learned better than youâve ever before.
- Aswath and Nuggets team
PS - If youâd like to be one of our early users, please sign up.
tangentwithtanner