How I Learn From Others Mistakes

What I Do Before Every Big Project

This simple method helps me avoid making silly mistakes.

I'm about to launch a Kickstarter campaign for Rugby Bricks, but I haven't run one for five years.

Not many campaigns on Kickstarter are successful, and there are many ways these can go wrong.

Only 1.2% earn more than six figures, and given our target is $200k - we have a small margin of error.

So like Dunbar law suggests - you're the average of the five people you spend the most time around. I want to spend some time with five people who've run a successful Kickstarter campaign in the past year or two.

In particular, I want to learn about the mistakes I need to avoid.

So I created a list of the top 100 most successful Kickstarter campaigns and then used rocketreach.co to get the contact details of the campaign managers.

Cold outreach is always a little uncomfortable for both the recipient and me. Hence, I try to make all my outreach as 'normal' and to the point as possible.

No corporate speak and no long-winded stuff that I wouldn't say in person.

Like this;

"Hey, Karyna,

I was looking at your Kickstarter for the Kosan Go Travel Dress -

congrats! I'd love to pay you for an hour of your time if you're up

for it to discuss how you ran the Kickstarter as we're launching a new

product in apparel for rugby.

Cheers,

Kale"

So far, I've sent 20 emails, and six people have already replied and agreed to a chat.

For a small time and financial investment, I am considerably increasing our chances of running a successful campaign.

Notes: Increase your chances of success with any project by learning from other's mistakes.

Goodhart's Law And Using KPIs Effectively

How I try to deal with Goodhart's law and avoid over-reacting to KPI's.

Peter Drucker and many other experts of business management have told us we have to measure what we want to manage.

Which I guess makes sense; otherwise, how else do you know what effect your actions have on your business?

But how should I react if my KPIs move the wrong way?

Goodhart's law states - when a measure becomes a target, it is no longer a good measure.

An extreme example of this happened during the Vietnam war.

The US military used 'kills' to measure success (KPI). So their military started killing civilians and reporting them as Vietcong kills.

The measure became the target, and thousands of war crimes proceeded.

I've found myself falling into this trap with my business. I've made reactionary decisions based on decreasing KPIs.

My decisions were almost always short-term focused, which caused poor long-term results.

Like cutting costs that caused a poorer customer experience.

Roger Federer doesn't overhaul his service game after one loss.

But that's what I did when I made these changes after just one down week or month.

This world is so full of randomness that a down week or month can sometimes be related to anything but what I'm doing in my business. I often made decisions that created long-term problems based on nothing.

So to reduce my number of reactions to randomness, I've started colour-coding my KPIs depending on how they're trending.

Green = Good or On track

Yellow = Off or Off Track

Orange = Still Off or Still Off Track

Red = Problem or needs addressed

Now, instead of reacting to any down day, week or month, I only make a move when my KPIs hit red.

I know I'm still breaking Goodhart's law here but hopefully in a more sensible fashion.

Notes: When a measure becomes a target, it is no longer a good measure.

WHERE WE'RE LEARNING

• ​NFT Playbook For Brands - A deep dive into how the worlds top brands are using NFT’s to build their communities and customer engagement.

• ​Lenny’s Racecar Framework - A framework for growth + an extensive list on ways to grow your product or service sales.

We're Not As Good As We Think We Are, And We're Luckier Than We Think We Are

What Fred Dagg tried to teach us about luck.

John Clarke, also known as Fred Dagg, once sang a song called 'we don't know how lucky we are.'

I think Fred was specifically talking about the beautiful country of Aotearoa, but his sentiment rings true across most facets of life.

Luck is everywhere, but we're very selective about the moments we choose to see it.

Or at least I am.

How often have you heard someone blame their failures on lousy luck? Compare that to how often people attribute their success to good luck.

Surely we're not all just lucky in failure and unlucky in success.

Bill gates went to one of the only high schools globally with a computer. At that time, the only one in America. Bill and 300 other students who went to Lakeside school had a significant advantage over the 50 million other American students.

Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, also went to Lakeside school. And another boy named Kent Evans. Kent was the smartest of the three and had the entrepreneurial spirit that Paul and Bill to some degree, didn't.

One in a million high school students dies on a mountain each year. Kent was one of them. He never graduated Highschool. - The Psychology Of Money, Morgan Housel.

You won't read about it in any business book, but surely luck has been a notable contributor to Bill's outlier success.

Notes: Luck works both ways.