Techtember, flywheels and my new University
Issue #2: Tech events to catch and snipd - the easiest way to learn things digitally
Hey there, I’m Kofi 👋🏾 and welcome to a new issue of my newsletter. Every issue I share a bit about product management, growth and other tactical (and wierd) things I learnt whilst working in a discipline I didn’t graduate for (Doctor working as a tech product manager).
If you can think of somebody that might be an tech imposter like me and you think they would like to read this, please share it with them. Oh and feel free to reply to this newsletter, keen to chat to you.
For more:
What I learnt about presentation from Google’s Pixel 9 event
In this edition 🎉
Techtember/Techtober and what events to catch
Tech word of the week: Flywheel
My new university for learning things digitally
Podcasts I’m finding useful this week
Let’s get started…
Do you remember, the 21st night of Techtember…
It’s September and there are so many tech events happening it’s actually funny. I am also eagerly waiting for the 21st of September to post this Earth, Wind and Fire pic:
Every…👏🏾 year… 👏🏾 without… 👏🏾 fail 🤓
Here are the tech events you should check out:
Meta Connect
Apple event (you missed it) lol
Motorola event (yes… they are still around)
Mobile world congress
I always look for things like pricing, presentation and positioning of products in these events. And these guys are the best at what they do in that regard. But because it’s 2024, take that with a sizeable helping of AI.
For products in 2024 you have to have a stance on the AI elephant in the room and if your products need AI or not. What do you think of Procreate’s stance? (Estimated $26,6 million dollar valuation)
If you want the full list of events for September and October, you can find it here:
Word of the week: Flywheel
So imagine I gave you the task of making this really big, really heavy gear you see in this pic spin. Physics says you are gonna have a hard time…
You push really hard, and struggle but eventually you get it moving. Once it gains momentum it will get to the point where it kinda starts to maintain it’s own momentum. And eventually becomes really hard to stop.
It’s a metaphor.
Hard at the beginning
Once you pick a direction (this is the important part), make a bet, test a hypothesis and commit to that direction. You are then able to start to gain momentum. It is difficult at the start, but slowly as you start to see results even the other teams within your company start to get behind the direction - and this makes the flywheel start to spin.
Momentum builds if you maintain direction
The caution here is on divided focus or multiple directions. Imagine the people trying to spin the flywheel pushing in different directions… you can’t gain momentum.
Practically this can happen:
When a company/team is reactive and shifts direction often.
When the direction is unclear - people who don’t know what direction to push in will invariably push in different directions.
When your customers don’t get what you promised them eg: you overpromised then underdelivered or they were the wrong customer to start with. Their dissatisfaction will slow your flywheel.
The flywheel never really spins.
Momentum compounds
Happy customers who love your direction will tell their friends. This then compounds the momentum that was initiated by your continuous input in a clear and specific direction.
My new university
So you may have heard people say that YouTube is as good as any university.. this is better. Been using this app called Snipd. It is the ridiculously overpowered way to learn stuff on the web.
Premise is super simple, you can’t possibly remember the whole podcast or YouTube video, but you can remember the cogent points. So how do you capture them… with snips. The Snipd app will keep track of the time you snipped the point you wanna remember, then do all sorts of incredible things with it:
Summarise it
Contextualise it
Sync it to Notion or Readwise
Remind you of it
Convert into a nice shareable tidbit
Make it super easy for you to find later
So for all my fav podcasts, but recently also YouTube videos and also my own audio recordings like meetings, calls and quick notes my workflow is to share the content to Snipd and then record the moments that I want to learn from. The rest is history.
Have a look:
Useful snips from this week
Here are a few useful snips from things I listened to in the week, share them if you find them useful:
For your personal relationships, take the time to find good quality people. They are worth the wait.
https://share.snipd.com/post/aba397f4-7be0-4c2a-8fa7-810ef8fd1c3cFor the people that you love the most, make a difference in their life whilst you are still here. Give them an inheritance when they need it.
https://share.snipd.com/post/03577209-4e28-41be-b167-2b85aa39bb9eWhen telling stories (useful skill) every story is about a singular “turning point”. Know what that is and craft your narrative around that.
https://share.snipd.com/post/3740e01f-435c-440e-bc6c-185eb642ce78When selling B2B here is a helpful framework for figuring out how to position your product.
https://share.snipd.com/post/e98b23cb-2e28-455c-8383-68e0f7c0004b
The last word
Hope you enjoyed this issue. Feel free to message me back with your thoughts, questions or things you would like me to cover.
Thanks as always,
Kofi ☕️