A/B QR, how to run a business, airport rides, high-growth Asia-Pacific companies, lessons from Keith Rabois

Hey,

this is Jakob Greenfeld, author of the Business Brainstorms newsletter - every week I write this email to share the most interesting trends, frameworks, opportunities, and ideas with you.

Let's dive in!

💡 Opportunities

• “i want to go to a doctor that will run every single test possible and give me a personalized plan for optimal health. it’s insane that for a simple question of “i’m more tired, more often, than i should be” — i have to figure out on my own if i’m supposed to go to an endocrinologist, or obgyn, or psychiatrist, or allergist, or dietician, etc, and then ping pong between them until i get an answer” - Ali Taylor

• “Still surprised an app hasn't emerged that helps restaurants A/B test, given how COVID opened this space to digital via QR. Restaurants can finally benefit from the mechanics tech cos have used for years – testing multiple realities (prices, menu design, promos), instead of one.” - Steph Smith

• “Always shocked how 1) broken hiring is 2) little people put effort when applying to jobs. Solution might be: hiring platform that evaluates applicants automatically” - Pieter Levels

🛠 Things Worth Checking Out

• I’d love to send you a free video on how to grow your business using cold emails. Just fill out this form. Zero strings attached.

• Someone compiled all lessons learned from Keith Raboi into a huge Notion doc. Love these permissionless mentor style projects. With a lot of people nowadays you can absorb most of their knowledge simply by reading everything they’ve written and listening to all their podcast appearances.

• Grow your Twitter account faster and spend more time running your business with Pete Codes’ ghostwriting services. Read how it works.

• Glen Allsopp did a cool analysis of the 500 high-growth Asia-Pacific companies the Financial Times published. He went through all 500 to find interesting online success stories with verified revenue numbers.

• Cleverly helps you turn LinkedIn into a revenue-driving machine by posting thoughtful content combined with proven outreach campaigns, 100%, done-for-you. Book a free 15-minute consultation here.

Links in bold are ads. Book yours here.

👨‍🎓 How to run a business

• Pipdecks founder Charles Burdett shared some great lessons:

  • “1. find the truth. speak to customers. find out what’s working, what’s not. understand the business’ numbers. know what levers are available. the most dangerous thing for a business is flying blind or kidding yourself

  • “2. day one. falling into a false sense of security is dangerous. treat every day as if you are just starting out. what assumptions are you currently working under that haven’t you tested? go test them. day one mentality is about not getting complacent or comfortable.”

  • “3. quadruple down on what’s working. - eliminate what isn’t as soon as you get a positive signal that something is working, amplify it and find the local maximum as quickly as possible as soon as you get a negative signal, that something is not working - kill it fast”

• All sound simple but are really hard to do consistently.

• For example, it’s easy to start floating in some higher orbits as a founder and completely forget about talking to customers directly. But talking to customers if done strategically is absolutely $10k/hour work.

• Similarly, after a while more and more things start to be done in businesses simply because they’ve always been done that way. Not a bad thing per se. Routines allow for fast and efficient work. But whenever I do a big check of our processes I’m surprised how many things I find that simply no longer make any sense or should be done completely differently.

🧪 Airport Rides

• Nick Gray shared a cool strategy he’s using to grow his network: giving people free airport rides.

• “Many of the most successful people I know are busy as heck. They receive dozens of messages requesting to meet up for coffee or “have a quick call.” But time is their most limited asset! So instead of following the traditional connection-making route of asking people to make time for me, I flip the script: I make hanging out a win-win. One of my favorite ways to do this is to offer to pick them up at the airport.”

• Two keys to make this work:

  • “My method works best when you have an online presence, like some active social media. That would allow someone to do a bit of due diligence on your character.”

  • Don’t expect to get anything in return and tell people that. “Remember to tell them you don’t expect to hang out after. You’re doing it to be helpful, to welcome them to your town, and to meet new people.”

• Now I’m wondering if there’s a similar strategy for people like me who don’t own a car and don’t live in a popular city like Austin.

End Note

As always, if you’re enjoying this report, I’d love it if you shared it with a friend or two. You can send them here to sign up.

Have a great week,

Jakob