Building The Machine #7: Investing In Yourself
...always a good decision
Thanks for being here - I am excited to share what I am thinking about, what I am reading, and what I am writing. As a reminder I am a Fractional COO & Executive Coach working with early stage companies and always trying to learn. If you have thoughts lets chat @ericfriedman!
What I am thinking:
Teaser for the future: I am reading the book The Psychology of Money and its incredible. It really speaks to me about “doing what you want, when you want, with who you want” and that being the difference between being “rich” and being “wealthy”. You can not. have a lot of money and still be incredibly wealthy. I have a HUGE set of notes and takeaways from this book and looking forward to writing it up.
Investing in myself: I am taking an executive coaching certification course. While I have been coaching with incredible clients for awhile, I think this investment is well worth it and I am learning a lot. I realized I am now always halfway through the course and it was a good time to pause and reflect on the constant improvement that happens with coaching.
I have been thinking more and more about DAOs lately. If this is a new phrase, fear not it will be in the lexicon soon.
My thinking on the above is that companies are finding themselves more and more in need of bringing their community, outsiders and insiders alike, into setting the rules. Facebook recently built its own “supreme court” to help govern its decisions. This DAO concept seems complicated until you think about any community - you need a set of norms, you need a set of rules, you need a way to adjust those rules and norms, and you want people to care. There are so many ways of thinking through the logic involved here - but having something at “stake” matters. Whether time, money, or actions - its interesting to think through how this will impact groups and companies in the future.
If you don’t know what a DAO is checkout this primer.
I recently joined the MeebitsDAO and its an adventure down the rabbit hole for me. I look at this as buying a ticket/an education alongside some other smart people (but anonymous, pseudonymous, and named) and that is half the fun.
What I am reading:
Portfolio company: ChartHop raises $35m
The App that Monetized Doing Nothing
What I am writing:
Micro-wins-as-a-Service - thoughts on Onaroll.co
I love thinking through businesses that surprise and delight people, and what Onaroll.co is building is a great example. This is a dive into a discussion I had with the founder and what they are building for hourly workers.
A.T.S.L. - Always Take Some Liquidity
This was a lesson learned the hard way for me. It’s never a bad idea to take something “off the table” when you can. You can’t look back and it’s about building forward.
More Fire Phones and less Fyre Fests
A great reminder to myself and others I work with that giant experiments that fail are ok, and bad actors and fraud is not.