The Digital Economist

Hi, I'm Sam Birmingham. I love startups, innovation and challenging the status quo. For the vast majority of my years, economies have grown, companies have profited and people have got richer on the back of a once-in-a-lifetime demographic shift and debt-fuelled boom. Those days are through. Economies must evolve beyond rampant consumerism and confront the demographic headwind that had been a tailwind until the Baby Boomers began retiring. Companies must become nimble, innovate and invent new products to address customers' ever-changing needs in this digitally-disrupted world. And as people, we must focus on solving problems and learn to do more with less. These are the challenges that excite me. They are what I want to get out of bed each morning and be a part of. This is where I share my thoughts.

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Fred Wilson at Le Web:

We don't think about technologies, we think about trends...

When I think about the most important trends, I think of three:

The transition from bureaucratic hierarchies to technology-driven networks;

Unbundling... everything is getting unbundled. People are starting to deliver much more focused services, best-of-breed services, and you can buy them a la carte;

We are all now personally a node on the network, because of smartphones.

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From Nivi at AngelList:

We care about:

Eliminating frictions so startups can change the world

Connecting startups with their ideal partners, fast

Building tools for investors to help startups

Telling startups and investors what we would want to know in their shoes

Building products that scale, instead of manual processes or throwing bodies at the problem

Having team members work on things they’re excited about, rather than what we think is important

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I worry about all these new companies. I’m glad that they’re easier to start, but the problem is, they’re just as hard to finish as they have always been.

Mike Olsen via Fred Wilson's blog on Starting and Finishing.

More from Fred:

The thing in Mike's quote that really speaks to me is the difference between starting and finishing. Starting requires an idea/inspiration, a team, some technical skills, the ability to iterate on the MVP and find product market fit. That's hard for sure, but what happens after you find product market fit is even harder. That's called building the company and building the business. And that is where I have seen all founders struggle. The ones that have done it before a few times seem to manage through this struggle better. The ones who are doing it for the first time really need a lot of help from mentors, coaches, and their team to get to the finish line. And many don't...

The skills that get you from idea, through initial product, past product market fit, and into a market leading company are very different from what it takes to manage a 200-500-1000 person global business that needs to exectute well across a range of dimensions and keep everyone aligned, motivated, and working well together.

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Ten Tips for Building a Killer Startup via Do Lectures

My favourite is Tip #2

"The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing"

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Tim Minchin's "occasional address" at UWA is the best speech I've heard in who knows how long... "So listen up, or you’ll get lost, like a blind man clapping in a pharmacy trying to echo-locate the contact lens fluid."

1. You Don’t Have To Have A Dream.

I advocate passionate dedication to the pursuit of short-term goals. Be micro-ambitious. Put your head down and work with pride on whatever is in front of you… you never know where you might end up. Just be aware that the next worthy pursuit will probably appear in your periphery. Which is why you should be careful of long-term dreams. If you focus too far in front of you, you won’t see the shiny thing out the corner of your eye

2. Don’t Seek Happiness

Happiness is like an orgasm: if you think about it too much, it goes away. Keep busy and aim to make someone else happy, and you might find you get some as a side effect. We didn’t evolve to be constantly content. Contented Australophithecus Afarensis got eaten before passing on their genes.

3. Remember, It’s All Luck 

Understanding that you can’t truly take credit for your successes, nor truly blame others for their failures will humble you and make you more compassionate.

Empathy is intuitive, but is also something you can work on, intellectually.

4. Exercise

Play a sport, do yoga, pump iron, run… whatever… but take care of your body. You’re going to need it. Most of you mob are going to live to nearly a hundred, and even the poorest of you will achieve a level of wealth that most humans throughout history could not have dreamed of. And this long, luxurious life ahead of you is going to make you depressed!

But don’t despair! There is an inverse correlation between depression and exercise. Do it. Run, my beautiful intellectuals, run.

5. Be Hard On Your Opinions 

We must think critically, and not just about the ideas of others. Be hard on your beliefs. Take them out onto the verandah and beat them with a cricket bat. Be intellectually rigorous. Identify your biases, your prejudices, your privilege.

6. Be a teacher.

Please be a teacher. Teachers are the most admirable and important people in the world. You don’t have to do it forever, but if you’re in doubt about what to do, be an amazing teacher. Just for your twenties. Be a primary school teacher. Especially if you’re a bloke – we need male primary school teachers. Even if you’re not a Teacher, be a teacher. Share your ideas. Don’t take for granted your education. Rejoice in what you learn, and spray it. 

7. Define Yourself By What You Love

We have tendency to define ourselves in opposition to stuff; as a comedian, I make a living out of it. But try to also express your passion for things you love. Be demonstrative and generous in your praise of those you admire. Send thank-you cards and give standing ovations. Be pro-stuff, not just anti-stuff. 

8. Respect People With Less Power Than You.

I don’t care if you’re the most powerful cat in the room, I will judge you on how you treat the least powerful. So there.

9. Don’t Rush.

Most people I know who were sure of their career path at 20 are having midlife crises now.

I said at the beginning of this ramble that life is meaningless. It was not a flippant assertion. I think it’s absurd: the idea of seeking “meaning” in the set of circumstances that happens to exist after 13.8 billion years worth of unguided events. Leave it to humans to think the universe has a purpose for them. However, I am no nihilist. I am not even a cynic. I am, actually, rather romantic. And here’s my idea of romance:

You will soon be dead. Life will sometimes seem long and tough and, god, it’s tiring. And you will sometimes be happy and sometimes sad. And then you’ll be old. And then you’ll be dead.

There is only one sensible thing to do with this empty existence, and that is: fill it.

And in my opinion (until I change it), life is best filled by learning as much as you can about as much as you can, taking pride in whatever you’re doing, having compassion, sharing ideas, running(!), being enthusiastic. And then there’s love, and travel, and wine, and sex, and art, and kids, and giving, and mountain climbing … but you know all that stuff already.

It’s an incredibly exciting thing, this one, meaningless life of yours. Good luck, and thank you for indulging me.

[sambirmingham]

Don't Start A Business

Here’ a better idea. We should do a project instead.

Projects are superior to businesses. Superior because they tell us more about the future. It can sample our predicted future reality and test it for truth. In addition to that it has a number of micro benefits which add up to something significant.

A project helps us get over our inertia. It’s only a project.

A project is not a life long commitment. We can close it off any time for any reason we choose.

A project doesn’t need huge resources, only enough to cover one cycle.

A project allows us to do a minimum viable product, but actually mean it, and actually do it.

A project is likely to maintain momentum and energy as the finish line is in sight from the start.

In fact, when we really think about it, a business is simply a project which worked well and got bigger... It’s pretty clear if we just start with a project or two, we might be lucky enough to end up with a business.

I can't tell you how many times I've drawn the project/business distinction in the course of Startup Weekends, not only because it keeps teams focused on what should be their key outcome - learning - but also because it is a conscious reminder of how hard it is to take the jump from an idea to a sustainable business.

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The Purpose Of Innovation In A 'Needless' Economy

Bernadette Jiwa

For the most part in the West we have everything we need. Roofs over our heads, food in the fridge and a lot more besides... So, if we have everything we need and it’s mostly ‘good enough’, what’s the purpose of of innovation?

In the ‘needless’ economy the job of innovation isn’t to make something new, it’s to make something that matters.

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The more that society understands coding as a learned and honed skill like sculpting or painting, the easier it is going to be to get young people interested and excited about it. And by making it into a hobby as opposed to homework, good things can and will happen.

Fred Wilson riffing about Chris Dixon's awesome piece on Hobbyists

And that, my friends, is CoderDojo 101

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Coder Dojo: Be Cool 

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Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do.

Bruce Lee

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Tiny Markets Of Someone

Bernadette Jiwa

Ironically, the Internet, which could help us to reach everyone, made us realise that there were ‘tiny markets of someone’.

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via Seth Godin

Great projects start out feeling like buildings. There are architects, materials, staff, rigid timelines, permits, engineers, a structure.

It works or it doesn't.

Build something that doesn't fall down. On time.

But in fact, great projects, like great careers and relationships that last, are gardens. They are tended, they shift, they grow. They endure over time, gaining a personality and reflecting their environment. When something dies or fades away, we prune, replant and grow again.

Perfection and polish aren't nearly as important as good light, good drainage and a passionate gardener.

By all means, build. But don't finish. Don't walk away.

Here we grow.

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Want To Make And Impact? Just Add Context

via Bernadette Jiwa

IDEA + CONTEXT = IMPACT

The value is not in the invention, the information, the platform or the app. The value is in the meaning it enables people to create for themselves.

Close, but not quite:

IDEA + CONTEXT = POTENTIAL IMPACT

(IDEA + CONTEXT) * EXECUTION = IMPACT

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What If You're Neither Closer, Faster Or Cheaper?

Bernadette Jiwa

In a world of infinite choices where faster and cheaper is two clicks away, and free overnight shipping makes closer increasingly irrelevant, every business must question why people will pay for their services.

The Internet has given plenty of businesses the opportunity to become more relevant to their customers and it’s forced others to question what they are really offering beyond the thing that they wrap up for customers to take home.

The value of everything was always in the meaning and the story we told ourselves about having, owning or doing the thing, the Internet just brought that into sharp focus.

If you can’t add value in the moment then the only opportunity open to you is to add meaning.

What reason are you giving your customers to bypass a hundred (or maybe 100 million) other choices, to get in their car or to cross the street. Opening your doors (even if they are virtual ones) isn’t enough any more.

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A lot of it has to do with structure, because the structure of the music industry is rooted in a corporate structure. It’s a quarterly business, but art is not a quarterly business.

Rick Rubin, from The Daily Beast's brilliant piece You Listen To This Man Everyday

Another gem:

"Over time, the creative process gets eroded, and it becomes something that’s just a window in the schedule instead of the most important thing that drives the whole train."

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Steve Blank's The Lean LaunchPad Educators Class

Entrepreneurial education is in the middle of a major transition. Entrepreneurship educators are realizing that curricula oriented around business plans and “execution” fail to prepare students for the realities of building or working in startups. Startups are a fundamentally a different activity than managing a business and “search versus execute” require very different skills. Therefore entrepreneurial education must teach how to search the uncertainties and unknowns. Educators are now beginning to build curricula that embrace startup management tools built around “searching for a business model” rather than the “execution of a business model” tools needed in larger companies.

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When I graduated from college in 1986, there were essentially two options: get a job or go to grad school. Now there's a third: start your own company. That's a big change.

Paul Graham Startup Investing Trends