
PPF shift for Startups
There is this concept of production possibility frontier (PPF) in Economics. It is often visualized as a curve that represents the optimal allocation of resources between producing two different products - see PPF1 curve on the diagram above. Point A is one such possible optimal allocation achieved by, say, Company A. However, you will realize that this curve is not always a perfect representation of reality. In fact, most companies do not operate on the optimal curve (point B), and there are...

"You're either crazy, or you know what you're doing"
14 years ago I left one of the leading software outsourcing companies & amazing career to start my own company - Empatika. I doubt you know the name of the company, but probably (at least 7m users worldwide) you do know App in the Air, which I have co-founded with my colleagues from Empatika. I have recently left App in the Air after almost 12 years of building & growing the company from scratch. This was amazing and unforgettable experience & I think now is the right time to reflect on it. I...

Big thinking & hackathons
One of the traits of large companies is "big thinking". By this, I mean they plan on a grand scale, measuring their progress in months, quarters, and years. This can be a dangerous habit for a startup founder, since they should be thinking and acting on a daily, weekly basis. So how can one learn to unlearn this? Hackathons have been a great help to me. First we attended external ones, but eventually we started organizing internal ones. A hackathon is a 24-hour marathon of programming aimed a...
Product guy and systems thinker. Founder & exCEO of @appintheair

PPF shift for Startups
There is this concept of production possibility frontier (PPF) in Economics. It is often visualized as a curve that represents the optimal allocation of resources between producing two different products - see PPF1 curve on the diagram above. Point A is one such possible optimal allocation achieved by, say, Company A. However, you will realize that this curve is not always a perfect representation of reality. In fact, most companies do not operate on the optimal curve (point B), and there are...

"You're either crazy, or you know what you're doing"
14 years ago I left one of the leading software outsourcing companies & amazing career to start my own company - Empatika. I doubt you know the name of the company, but probably (at least 7m users worldwide) you do know App in the Air, which I have co-founded with my colleagues from Empatika. I have recently left App in the Air after almost 12 years of building & growing the company from scratch. This was amazing and unforgettable experience & I think now is the right time to reflect on it. I...

Big thinking & hackathons
One of the traits of large companies is "big thinking". By this, I mean they plan on a grand scale, measuring their progress in months, quarters, and years. This can be a dangerous habit for a startup founder, since they should be thinking and acting on a daily, weekly basis. So how can one learn to unlearn this? Hackathons have been a great help to me. First we attended external ones, but eventually we started organizing internal ones. A hackathon is a 24-hour marathon of programming aimed a...
Product guy and systems thinker. Founder & exCEO of @appintheair

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My colleague reminded me of a funny story. I had converted the cost of a pair of jeans to the number of users we could acquire, and I picked the new users option so that we could grow a couple of percent faster. At the time, I had no idea if my choice was right, but years later I became confident that the relentless focus and preference of growth over other things was instrumental to our success.
There is this concept of “opportunity costs” in economics. It means that when you choose one activity, you are giving up the opportunity to do a different option. As an entrepreneur, you will face a lot of such decisions where you'll have to prioritize growth. I will never forget my co-founder’s response when he preferred raising the salary of his teammates instead of his own.
It is important to realize that each person has their own perspective of opportunity costs. A student may prefer hanging out with friends to a physics lecture, while an entrepreneur may prioritize company growth over a pair of jeans. Your close ones may not understand the decisions you make because they have a different set of opportunities, so spend time sharing your perspective to avoid unnecessary conflicts.
P.S $0.4 per new user - the times we had!
My colleague reminded me of a funny story. I had converted the cost of a pair of jeans to the number of users we could acquire, and I picked the new users option so that we could grow a couple of percent faster. At the time, I had no idea if my choice was right, but years later I became confident that the relentless focus and preference of growth over other things was instrumental to our success.
There is this concept of “opportunity costs” in economics. It means that when you choose one activity, you are giving up the opportunity to do a different option. As an entrepreneur, you will face a lot of such decisions where you'll have to prioritize growth. I will never forget my co-founder’s response when he preferred raising the salary of his teammates instead of his own.
It is important to realize that each person has their own perspective of opportunity costs. A student may prefer hanging out with friends to a physics lecture, while an entrepreneur may prioritize company growth over a pair of jeans. Your close ones may not understand the decisions you make because they have a different set of opportunities, so spend time sharing your perspective to avoid unnecessary conflicts.
P.S $0.4 per new user - the times we had!
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