Learnings

Amp It Up!

Chris Labs

This is a copy of the blog post by Frank Slootman. As the former CEO of both Data Domain and ServiceNow, two successful tech companies in recent years, I am often confronted with questions: what did you guys do? What is the secret sauce? How did you do it? We never thought of ourselves as that different. We certainly didn’t think we had stumbled on a silver bullet. Did we just get incredibly lucky twice in a row? With hindsight and reflection, there are observations worth making that may benefit others. Bottom line: There is room up in organizations to … Continue reading Amp It Up!

Happiness, Learnings

Choose carefully what is worth stressing for.

Chris Labs

One of the worst thing in life is stress. It kills you much more than junk food or lack of exercising. Let’s say you buy an expensive car (90k) while you make 200k per year. Because you salary is high but not crazy high in relation to your car’s value, you will stress when you hit a puddle. Your heart will stop if you drive fast over a bump. You will get mad and stressed if someone hit your car. Don’t make the double mistake of buying an expensive car and stress for it. Get a beater, whether that’s an … Continue reading Choose carefully what is worth stressing for.

Happiness

Satisficer vs Maximizer, a key to happiness

Chris Labs

The goal of maximizing is a great source of dissatisfaction. Because it is a daunting task to look for the best. And even once you made a decision, you are still questioning your decision, maybe there was a better option somewhere. The opposite is satisficing. Where you will settle for something that is good enough and not worry about the possibility that there might something better elsewhere. In our world with an increasing number of choices, the need to gather information is rapidly overwhelming. According to Nobel Prize-winning economist Herbert Simon, when all the costs (time, money and anguish) are … Continue reading Satisficer vs Maximizer, a key to happiness

Learnings

Once something is given to you, giving it up will entail a loss.

Chris Labs

It is called the endowment effect. Something you have been endowed is worth more to you. “Losing” it will hurt worse than “gaining” will give please. This is why companies can afford the money back guaranteed policy. Once people own them, the products are worth more to their owners than the mere cash value. -Barry SchwartzThe Paradox of Choice (p.73) Continue reading Once something is given to you, giving it up will entail a loss.

Learnings

How to close a sale/email outreach

Chris Labs

This is a copy of Shaan Puri’s post in AAP So Blushie, today i’m gonna show you how we channeled our inner Pablo by stealing and remixing a tactic that a different startup used to close sales to take the fund from $1.7m → $2.4m. ​Once you learn this little trick, you can use it whether you’re raising money, trying to close sales, or really doing anything with email outreach. ​Now it’s time to pull that Picasso: Ben slacked me about a tactic he saw Brex (a big, hot startup worth $2.5B+) using to close sales ​ ​ The way … Continue reading How to close a sale/email outreach