Hi All,
This seems like a good time to say "thanks". The fact that you subscribe and read these emails is really cool. It means you invest time in bettering yourself, and that is admirable.
Your feedback is really valuable to me. You can always reply to these emails with suggestions, comments or just to say hi.
I genuinely hope these articles inspire your work — have a great week!
The Secrets to TripAdvisor’s Impressive Scale via Jeff Bussgang
TripAdvisor has an interesting business model. They rely on user-generated content to drive ad sales and partnerships with hotel-booking services. And it works really, really well. Their ARPU is around $12 compared to just $1 for Yelp.
“No matter how large we are, I always want to maintain a startup mentality,” said [CEO Stephen] Kaufer.
"We have a once a week release cycle that we have religiously maintained for years...even with hundreds of developers working on a shared code base. If my team tells me they want to launch a new feature in two months, I ask them what prevents them from doing it in two weeks.
You can read more on this on Jeff Bussgang's personal blog.
How Technology Tricks You Into Tipping More via Nir Eyal
If you spend a lot of times in coffee shops like I do, you know that everyone uses Square to accept payments. Square suggests how much should tip and the default is always higher than what most people usually tip. In this post, Nir actually explores whether or not this is actually ethical.
These systems also make it easier for customers to let go of their money. In another sense, they eliminate what Duke Professor Dan Ariely calls the pain of paying. Ariely states, “The agony of parting with our money has to do with the saliency of [seeing] this money going away.” In other words, the less real money feels, the less painful it is to spend and subsequently, we spend more of it.
Defaults are powerful. It's the reason Apple Maps is more popular on iOS even though Google's product is better.
How to make $1,000 in the next 14 days without an idea via Bryan Harris
This is a fun post that's sure to get your entrepreneurial juices flowing. Bryan's blog is worth following.
Don’t get married to one idea. Don’t look for a silver bullet. Don’t try to make a $1,000,000. Just make $1,000.
Albert Einstein’s Incredible Work Ethic via James Clear
James' blog is quickly becoming one of my favorite places for inspiration. This post is a quick but interesting look at Albert Einstein's last days.
Up until the moment of his death, Einstein continued to squeeze every ounce of greatness out of himself. He never rested on his laurels. He continued to work even through severe physical pain and in the face of death.
Your Employer's Plans To Make You Healthier Don't Work—Because Your Job Is Killing You via Ben Schiller
Nothing too surprising here but it raises a really good question. How can employers actually help their employees be healthier? Basecamp has tackled this head-on, with four-day work weeks, no limits on company credit cards and even paying for employees to take flying lessons or a woodworking class.
In the age of knowledge work (i.e. computer dependence), it's something we should all be thinking about.
Companies introduce wellness programs without considering the whole person, including their sense of "purpose," their social relationships, their financial welfare, and their sense of community. "These five elements are highly interdependent. If you just try to solve physical well-being without addressing the other four, you're really missing out on a lot of opportunity to improve that physical well-being," he says.
See you next Thursday!
Jimmy