Today, I started reading a book that’s outside my norm. Felix Dennis, the founder of Dennis Publishing and Maxim magazine, wrote How to Get Rich: One of the World's Greatest Entrepreneurs Shares His Secrets. The book is a collection of lessons Dennis learned during his journey. The title isn’t my favorite, but it matches the author’s personality.

Instead of how to get rich, I think this book shares how to succeed as an entrepreneur. I used this mental framing as I read the book. I’ll swap the two terms in this post.

Here are my takeaways from the first third of the book:

Part One: Pole Positions

• Young, penniless and inexperienced – People in this state are more likely to succeed for a few reasons. Because they lack experience, they’re likelier to learn new problem-solving methods. They have more stamina. Their risk tolerance is higher because they have almost nothing to lose. Dennis suggests that seasoned professionals considering entrepreneurship partner with someone young, broke, and inexperienced.

Part Two: Getting Started

• Fear of failure – People often fail to launch a company because they’re afraid. Failing publicly highlights mistakes and errors in judgment to others, which is embarrassing. I believe that entrepreneurs will experience a lot of failures as they experiment, so a thick skin and viewing failures as opportunities to learn are essential. Also, winning fixes everything. Success is what people remember, not failure.  
• New industries – New or rapidly growing industries increase your chances of success. Often, more risk capital is available from investors seeking large returns, which can lead to founders maintaining more control. Not much is known in new industries, so you can establish yourself as an expert quickly (if you work to learn), and a rising tide masks mistakes.
• The trifecta – Look for opportunities that align with your inclinations, aptitude, and fate. Inclinations are your natural interests. Aptitude is something you’re naturally good at (ask others if you’re unsure). Fate is luck or serendipity. When an opportunity aligns with all three, ignore the naysayers and quickly seize it before it’s gone.
• Reinforcing failure – A common start-up error. Knowing whether to keep pushing when something isn’t working or give up is difficult but important. Success may be just around the corner, or it may never come. Dennis believes timing plays a big part in success. Looking at the data beneath the surface level for signs of being too early or too late can help you avoid reinforcing a failure.
• Thinking small and acting big – Another common start-up error. Never disregard bold or new ideas (thinking small). Never think you’re above doing the things that lead to your success (acting big). Dennis regretfully shares a crazy period in his life when he spent over $100 million within ten years thinking small and acting big. Keep doing the things that led to your success (acting small) and thinking of bold ways to succeed (thinking big).

So far, this book is colorful and full of entrepreneurial wisdom. I’m looking forward to finishing it.

Prefer listening? Catch audio versions of these blog posts, with more context added, on Apple Podcasts here or Spotify here!

I finished reading Sumner Redstone’s autobiography, A Passion to Win. The book gave me insight into Redstone as a person. It describes how Redstone took National Amusements, Inc. (NAI) from a family-owned, drive-in theatre business to a publicly traded media empire worth tens of billions of dollars. At the time of the book’s publication in 2001, Redstone’s empire included cable channels, movie theatres, radio stations, broadcast stations, and much more.

Redstone recognized that he needed to be in the content business. Drive-in theatre growth was slowing because of cable, and he was tired of fighting studios. If he couldn’t beat them, he would own them—partially at least. He used NAI’s cash flow to buy substantial ownership in publicly traded movie studios such as Disney and MGM. Redstone scored profits of tens of millions of dollars each on several investments. He profited by $26 million—a roughly 100% return—when Coca-Cola bought Columbia Pictures in 1982. Redstone’s ownership in studios was profitable, educated him on the business, and deepened his industry relationships.

When the leveraged-buyout craze began in the 1980s, Redstone found himself battling with raiders and others who were trying to buy public companies he owned at valuations he thought were too low. In 1986, at age 63, he found himself in a battle over Viacom International, a cable and television programming business that owned MTV, Lifetime, and other assets. After digging into the company’s potential, he decided to buy it outright. He learned to raise debt and fought ferociously to secure the deal (crazy story in the book!). In 1987 he closed the deal. After spending $3.4 billion, he was finally in the content business.

The deal proved lucrative. MTV ended up being a cultural force with a young audience. The channel was the cornerstone of Viacom, “providing more than 50 percent of Viacom’s cashflow” annually in the 1990s. The Cosby Show was another amazing asset. In 1989, its syndication sales were $4 million for each of its 125 episodes. The syndication of that show brought in $500 million to Viacom that year, a record at the time.

Redstone took things further in 1994. He acquired Paramount Pictures for over $10 billion after a brutal battle against Barry Diller and John Malone (another crazy story!) while simultaneously acquiring Blockbuster Video. At roughly age 71, he was in the business of creating movies and producing broadcast television shows (e.g., MacGyver). He owned a library of almost 800 classic films, including The Godfather and the Indiana Jones movies. He also owned the leading video rental company, which would quickly become a thorn in his side.

In 1999, at age 76, Redstone acquired CBS Broadcasting Inc. for $32 billion. CBS was an advertising powerhouse offering radio, cable, and broadcast channels and outdoor advertising (billboards). Surprisingly, this mega deal didn’t involve any battles.

He was number one in radio, cable programming, and outdoor advertising and “would own the number-one audience deliverer both nationally and locally in television.”

Sumner was “the king of content as well as king of distribution.” He had finally won.

Note: If you’re interested, the book provides granular specifics on negotiations and financials for each deal mentioned above.

Prefer listening? Catch audio versions of these blog posts, with more context added, on Apple Podcasts here or Spotify here!

Because I’ve received feedback that others got value when I shared the struggles from my current personal project, I’ve decided to build this project in public and share my ups and downs openly.

Current Personal Project: Reading Books about Entrepreneurs and Sharing What I Learned from Them via Blog Posts and Audio Recordings Distributed as a Podcast

What I struggled with:

• Reading two books, writing seven blog posts, and recording eight audio posts to distribute via podcast is a lot. I hit a wall toward the end of the week. Finishing out the week was tough.
• This week felt harder than last week. The above weekly goals I’ve set have me in a state of discomfort. I recognize this because I experienced this feeling when I started blogging daily in 2020. My brain feels overloaded, and I’m mentally tired some days. I’m pushing my limits and expanding them each consecutive day I do this. Said differently, the discomfort I’m feeling is likely growth. Hopefully this will get easier as my brain realizes this is our new normal.
• I’m still not as concise as I want to be in communicating insights from books. The series on Ed Thorp highlighted this for me. Even though I’ve read this book twice, I struggled to balance getting the recordings done and communicating my points clearly. “Done is better than perfect” won. But I did record a bonus episode for Thorp because it bothered me that much and this is one of my favorite books.

What I learned:

• The difficult part right now is what I do between reading a book and sharing what I learn by writing and recording—that is, distilling a large amount of information down to what I want to convey.
• Sumner Redstone’s autobiography was hard to write and record about. I didn’t describe the wisdom from it clearly at first, so I needed to think about it more. I ended up thinking about what I had read for a day before recording (I’d already written my post), and that was helpful. More time to process helped me connect the dots on insights that weren’t obvious and draw parallels to my experiences as an entrepreneur. I want more buffer time between reading and recording to process. I think what I share will be more valuable if I have it.
• There’s no consistency in the format of my recordings. It’s early, and I’m experimenting, so this makes sense now. But I’m not a freestyle-it-every-time kind of person. A consistent format could help me prepare to record (I’ve decided to work toward this), increase the likelihood that each recording is valuable to listeners, and set listeners’ expectations.
• During a feedback session this week, I learned that someone purchased a biography because I’d recorded about it. I would never have known that without that conversation. Someone purchasing a book is the ultimate sign I’ve given them value, but I don’t have any insight into this. I want data! Amazon’s affiliate program seems like the best (and only) way to see this data.
• Google NotebookLM is an impressive AI tool. I’m really excited about it. I can see lots of value in using the power of AI to search specific documents and your own notes. If it would allow users to query the documents and notes of others (with their permission, of course), that would be game changing. I’ll be watching closely to see how this product evolves.
• Extracting my highlights from books I’ve read is something I’m excited about, but it’s a lower priority right now. I believe I’ve found a good partner for this when the time is right to tackle it.

Those are my struggles and learnings from this week!

Prefer listening? Catch audio versions of these blog posts, with more context added, on Apple Podcasts here or Spotify here!

This is my two-hundred-eighteenth weekly reflection or update.

Last week, I changed my weekly reflection to a weekly update on a current project. For more on why I made this change, see here.

Current Personal Project: Reading Books about Entrepreneurs and Sharing What I Learned from Them via Blog Posts and Audio Recordings Distributed as a Podcast

Metrics (since 4/1/24):

• Total audio recordings published: 42 (+8)
• Total blog posts published: 62 (+7)

What I completed this week (a holiday week):

• Read autobiographies of Ed Thorp and Sumner Redstone (see here and here)
• Published eight recordings—one was a bonus episode on Ed Thorp (#40 Ed Thorp Part 4)
• Had four additional feedback sessions—I missed my target by one
• Compiled and sorted feedback from five sessions completed the week of 5/20/24
• Tested Google NotebookLM
• Evaluated a candidate for extracting my highlights from books
• Updated podcast titles—added series number (e.g., “Part 2”) and other tweaks
• Researched metrics for podcasts

Content:

• Audio content changes: I now include the series number, how I discovered the book, an intro including what the recording will be about, more context throughout, personal insights and takeaways, and a closing.
• The average recording length increased from roughly 5 minutes to 12 minutes
• My current goal for each book is a three-part series

What I’ll do next week:

• Read two biographies or autobiographies
• Write seven blog posts and record seven audio blogs
• Adjust podcast titles
• Compile feedback from sessions completed the week of 5/29/24 and identify insights
• Make changes to audio content based on feedback
• Complete five feedback sessions
• Identify two people to study who has successfully shared book insights via solo podcasts or YouTube channels (the books can’t be about entrepreneurs)
• Make a decision on whether to use Amazon affiliate links for books
• Crystallize, in writing, my “why” for doing this project

Asks:

• Listen to my most recent audio recordings and provide feedback on how I can improve them. The more candid the better! Email me at hello [at] jermainebrown.org.

This week was hard. In my post tomorrow, I’ll share more about what I struggled with and what I learned.

Week two hundred eighteen was another week of learning. Looking forward to next week!

FYI: I’m still playing with the format for this weekly update. I’ll add and remove stuff until I settle on a format I like.

Prefer listening? Catch audio versions of these blog posts, with more context added, on Apple Podcasts here or Spotify here!

I’ve read two-thirds of Sumner Redstone’s autobiography, A Passion to Win. The intensity and drive that Sumner Redstone developed in his early life served him well when he transitioned from practicing law to being an entrepreneur.

Redstone joined his father’s company, eventually known as National Amusements, Inc. (NAI). His annual salary went from $100,000 as a lawyer to $5,000. The company was a drive-in movie theatre business, and Redstone rapidly expanded it. NAI was a smaller player with theatres outside urban areas. Getting allocation for popular films, or the right to play them as soon as they were released, was an issue that hampered the company’s growth. Redstone saw this as unfair. Wanting the right to show the most desirable movies just like his big-city competitors did, he pleaded his case to studios with no luck.

Refusing to lose and accept unfair business practices, he sued the studios in 1958. Redstone’s move was risky because he was suing his suppliers. It was a David-vs.-Goliath battle that other theatre owners refused to fight. If he lost, his suppliers could severely punish NAI for challenging entrenched business norms.

The studios gave in and settled, giving Redstone most of what he wanted. Winning this battle was pivotal for Redstone. It told him the legal system could help him change an industry that was set in its ways and level what he saw as an unfair playing field. Redstone had found his edge. He’d found a way to fight and win.

He used the law again to fight Disney over a practice of blind bidding. Movie companies made theatres pay large, guaranteed advances for the right to show a new movie though they couldn’t screen it to evaluate its quality. NAI lost $400,000 on one movie, a massive sum for the company, and Redstone sued Disney and other major movie companies for acting as an oligopoly. He wanted a fair marketplace with “asymmetry of information” eliminated; i.e., he wanted theatres to be able to evaluate the quality of movies before bidding for the right to show them. Disney settled with him, and over time the practice disappeared from the industry.

Redstone’s intensity, drive to win, and advanced understanding of the law made him a formidable opponent and a force to reckon with. His hard-nosed strategies paved the way for NAI’s growth for the next twenty years. But not even Redstone could fight the change sweeping the entertainment industry in the 1970s and 1980s. Cable television was a Goliath like nothing he’d seen before, and he would have to devise a new strategy for NAI to continue growing and for him to continue winning.

Prefer listening? Catch audio versions of these blog posts, with more context added, on Apple Podcasts here or Spotify here!

Reading about John Malone’s journey with TCI and Sheila and Robert “Bob” Johnson’s BET journey led me to Sumner Redstone. Redstone’s Viacom purchased BET for $2.3 billion in stock in 2000. Malone received $850 million; Johnson, $1.4 billion. I wanted to understand the man behind this transaction, so I began reading his autobiography, A Passion to Win.

What immediately stood out to me were Redstone’s years before his business career and his intensity. Redstone’s father was a street-smart entrepreneur, and his mother was a homemaker who made education a priority and instilled the importance of diligence and concentration in her children. He said that his mother “was a constant driving force in my life, and though I often resented her presence, I could never challenge her.”

Redstone attended Boston Latin School, one of the most rigorous schools in Boston and the oldest existing school in the U.S. Redstone said that the “school demanded an obsessive, driving commitment to excellence from everyone. A passion to win.” He wrote that the “competition [at his school] was cruel, it seemed inhuman . . . . And it taught [students] to pursue excellence for the rest of [their] lives.” There Redstone “was first exposed to the idea that thinking, educated and disciplined people have the power within themselves to create a new and better world.”

Sumner did nothing but study. “Throughout high school I don’t remember eating,” he said. He graduated with the highest grade-point average in the school’s three-hundred-year history and was awarded a full scholarship to Harvard University.

As an undergraduate, Redstone was disappointed by Harvard. "There was no feeling of daily individual competition, no sense of intensity, no battle of intellects." He said, “I was disappointed; the rigor I expected from the educational world was nowhere present.” He promptly finished all the required coursework in a little over two years. During World War II, he joined the army, where he worked to break codes transmitted by the Japanese military.

Based in DC, he worked the graveyard shift for the army and attended Georgetown Law School during the day. His first year, he ranked first in his class. After he left the army, he was accepted to Harvard Law for his second year.

He took a coveted clerkship for a judge in San Francisco for a year and then worked as an attorney for the Department of Justice. There, he handled and argued “tax cases involving hundreds of millions of dollars.” He won seventeen straight cases. After five years, he joined a private practice.

At his firm, he did antitrust and tax work and eventually argued an important tax case before the Supreme Court. He won the case, cementing his reputation as a top tax attorney.

In 1954, he was six or seven years out of law school, about 30 years old, and making $100,000 a year, or roughly $1.1 million in 2024 dollars. He came to realize that “[w]hen you’re practicing law, it’s just a business. It’s not a crusade for humanity, it’s a business.” This realization led to his decision to quit and go into business for himself.

Redstone’s early years shaped who he became. He was an intense, driven person who enjoyed a battle. These characteristics fueled the building of a media empire.

Prefer listening? Catch audio versions of these blog posts, with more context added, on Apple Podcasts here or Spotify here!

I’ve finished rereading Ed Thorp’s autobiography, A Man for All Markets: From Las Vegas to Wall Street, How I Beat the Dealer and the Market.

My last two posts covered Thorp’s rise from living in a house with fourteen people to academia to founding the hedge fund Princeton Newport Partners (PNP). PNP turbocharged his life’s trajectory, but then it encountered problems it would never recover from.

Jay Regan, Thorp’s partner, ran the Princeton, New Jersey, office, while Thorp ran the Newport Beach, California, office. In late 1987, Rudy Giuliani, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, was after Michael Milken and Robert Freedman. Regan was friends with both of them and did business with them through PNP’s Princeton office. The office was raided by federal authorities, and Regan and four other leaders in that office were charged with various crimes. They were convicted, but years later their convictions were reversed on appeal; all charges were eventually dropped. Authorities never questioned anyone at the Newport Beach office, and Thorp and his office weren’t aware of what allegedly was happening in Princeton. They learned the details from PNP’s lawyers and news reports. The ordeal resulted in PNP winding down.

After leaving PNP, Thorp reflected on his next steps. He had more money than he could spend and decided to optimize his time for travel, time with his wife and kids, and exploring interesting problems.

Thorp went through a “period of adjustment,” he said. He consulted for an institutional investor, which led to his uncovering Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme in 1991. He restarted his hedge fund operations with only four team members and focused narrowly on hedging Japanese warrants and investing in other hedge funds. In 1990, Ken Griffin was trading options and convertible bonds from his Harvard dorm room. Thorp recognized Griffin’s potential, shared PNP’s secrets with him, and became the first investor (i.e., limited partner) in Griffin’s new Citadel Investment Group. Thorp also came close to seeding David Shaw, founder of DE Shaw, the hedge fund that Jeff Bezos quit to start Amazon.com.  

In 1992, Thorp restarted his statistical arbitrage operations, choosing to manage a single large account for a large institution. In 1994, he launched Ridgeline Partners to manage his and others’ money. Between the two, he managed over $450 million (PNP’s peak had been $272 million). Thorp’s staff at PNP had been roughly eighty people across both offices. To run Ridgeline and the managed account, he had six people. He’d figured out how to run his new hedge fund in a way that suited the life he wanted to live.

In 2002, Thorp decided to wind down Ridgeline. More hedge funds were using statistical arbitrage strategies, which reduced the number of investable opportunities and thus his firm’s returns. More importantly, he wanted to have more time to enjoy his children and grandchildren and his wife. When she died of cancer in 2011, Thorp was thankful he’d prioritized time with her over making more money.

PNP’s demise was “traumatic” and likely destroyed future wealth in the billions for Thorp. Thorp wisely used that event to transition to the third phase of his life—one centered on spending time with people he cared about, not wealth accumulation. He continued to invest and solve interesting problems in a way that best served his new way of living. Thorp had created his ideal life.

Prefer listening? Catch audio versions of these blog posts, with more context added, on Apple Podcasts here or Spotify here!

I’ve reread two-thirds of Ed Thorp’s autobiography, A Man for All Markets: From Las Vegas to Wall Street, How I Beat the Dealer and the Market.

After profiting from playing blackjack and the royalties from his book detailing his card-counting system, Thorp lost money investing in the stock market. He decided to learn his way out of the problem and spent the summers of 1964 and 1965 reading books on economics, finance, and the markets—all while still losing money.

Thorp’s two summers of learning established a foundational understanding of markets, and he absorbed practical lessons about anchoring and other pitfalls. He eventually discovered a pamphlet describing common stock warrants. A warrant is a derivative security. It gives the owner the right to purchase a company’s stock during a specific time window at a specified price. It’s basically a call option issued by the company. Thorp realized that math could be used to value warrants and to offset any risk by hedging. Thorp had found his way to beat the stock market.

In the fall of 1965, Thorp joined the University of California Irvine’s Math Department, where he learned that economist Sheen T. Kassouf had written his PhD thesis on warrant valuation and hedging. Together, Kassouf and Thorp refined their methods, invested their own capital, and published what they learned in Beat the Market: A Scientific Stock Market System in 1966.

Additionally, Thorp devised a formula to identify the precise worth of a warrant, option, or convertible bond. This formula increased his returns, confidence, and investable opportunities. He began managing accounts for friends and coworkers, one of whom introduced him to a thirty-eight-year-old Warren Buffett. Buffett ran a $100 million hedge fund, Buffett Partnership, Ltd., and invested in warrants, too. Thorp decided to mirror Buffett’s partnership structure to simplify managing his $400,000 in assets in a single account.

Jay Regan read Beat the Market and cold-called Thorp. The two agreed to start a hedge fund based on Thorp’s methods. Thorp would manage the research team in Newport Beach, California, while Regan managed traders and back-office administration in Princeton, New Jersey.

Princeton Newport Partners (PNP) launched in November 1969 with $1.4 million in assets. Thorp split his time between PNP and his professorship. A decade later, PNP had $28.6 million in assets and achieved an average annual return of 14% after fees, far superior to the S&P 500’s average annual return of 4.6%. In the 1980s, PNP expanded to statistical arbitrage, a “fund of hedge funds,” and other strategies. At its peak in 1987, the firm managed $272 million. From 1979 to 1987, PNP generated average annual returns of 18.2% after fees; the S&P 500, 11.5%. PNP had no losing years or losing quarters.

Thorp was 55 years old and managing roughly 40 people at PNP full-time. He was making millions annually. His life had reached heights he’d never imagined because of his curiosity about the markets, love for math, and willingness to share what he learned with others (before PNP, at least).

The good times wouldn’t last forever.

Prefer listening? Catch audio versions of these blog posts, with more context added, on Apple Podcasts here or Spotify here!

Jim Simons’s biography mentioned another notable investor, Ed Thorp. I’d read Thorp’s biography, A Man for All Markets: From Las Vegas to Wall Street, How I Beat the Dealer and the Market, but I started reading it again.

This quote sums up Thorp’s life:

“In the abstract, life is a mixture of chance and choice. Chance can be thought of as the cards you are dealt in life. Choice is how you play them. I chose to investigate blackjack. As a result, chance offered me a new set of unexpected opportunities.”

Thorp was a college professor, started two quantitative hedge funds, and created a blackjack revolution. He’s ninety-one now and still doing chin-ups and push-ups.

Where he started, the distance he traveled, and his choices along the way are all notable.

He was born during the Depression to struggling parents. Ten relatives lived in his home, and he attended one of the worst-ranked high schools in his city. Seeing how the Depression and World War I had shaped his father’s future, he vowed to do better.

Thorp shrewdly recognized that he could use math and science to change his life if he ranked first in the state’s chemistry exam. He finished fourth but took the physics exam the next year and ranked first. He received a full scholarship to UC, Berkeley (and transferred to UCLA for financial and social reasons). His decision to focus on acing state exams did indeed change his life’s trajectory.

While working toward his master’s in physics and PhD in mathematics at UCLA, he wondered if math could improve the odds of winning at blackjack and roulette. While on a teaching assignment at MIT and with the help of Claude Shanon, the “father of information theory,” he proved that they could, in both games. He shared his blackjack findings in an academic paper and a bestselling book, sending armies of blackjack players to Las Vegas. His curiosity about gambling led to unexpected highs and lows. He was introduced to the underworld of Las Vegas and was nearly killed. But book royalties and gambling winnings gave him his first financial cushion.

Thorp reflected on the type of life he wanted to live. He didn’t want to live in casinos and deal with shady people. He wanted to follow his curiosity, solve math problems, and work with smart people. He became a professor at New Mexico State University and began investing his savings—but his investments lost money. He wondered if math could improve his odds as an investor. He began looking for a link between math and the market. His curiosity—about the stock market this time—would change the trajectory of his life . . . again.

Thorp was dealt a tough hand, but he was able to change his life through good decision-making. His curiosity and love for math led to breakthrough discoveries in gambling and to working with the brilliant Claude Shanon. His decision to share that knowledge led to more opportunities and improved his finances. By age 29, his life had drastically improved. His next decision would propel his life to unimaginable heights.

Prefer listening? Catch audio versions of these blog posts, with more context added, on Apple Podcasts here or Spotify here!

Entrepreneurs like hearing about the ups and downs of others’ journeys, so I’m sharing mine in this post. Here’s what I struggled with this week and what I learned:

What I struggled with:

• Reading two books and sharing lessons from them via my written blog and audio recordings distributed via a podcast was hard. Consistently doing all this at once is new, and it likely contributed to this week feeling like an uphill battle.
• Six feedback sessions confirmed what I already knew: my audio recordings aren’t great. The external feedback is helping me improve. It’s frustrating that I can’t improve these recordings as fast as I would like. It’s slow and gradual, and I need to accept that.

What I learned:

• Blog vs. podcast – My audio recordings had more total listens than my written blog posts had total views. It’s the same content but a different method of consumption. I created more new audio posts this week (19) than blog posts (7) because I was catching up on recordings. However, my written blog catalog contains more than 1,500 posts written in 4+ years, while I’ve posted 35 recordings in a little over a month. I’ll continue to monitor this to see if this trend continues. My gut tells me audio consumption resonates more with people, but the data will confirm this (or not) over time.
• Building in public – My post about my struggle to record audio consistently and how I overcame that struggle was mentioned most during my feedback sessions. Building in public isn’t something I’ve intentionally done before. This inspired my change from a weekly reflection post to a weekly update post. I view this as something with limited downside that could help others. There’s no reason to not give it a try.
• Internal vs. external feedback – Recording my posts every day and listening to those recordings are good daily feedback loops, but they aren’t enough. Getting external feedback in the feedback sessions added a different element. My internal feedback has been more tactically focused, while external feedback was more high level. To put it another way, internal feedback focused on how well I was marching, while external feedback focused on whether I was marching in the right direction. I need both perspectives going forward. As for frequency of feedback, daily is ideal for internal. Weekly or biweekly is probably ideal for external, but I’ll test to pinpoint this.
• Feedback sessions – I had six sessions focused on recordings related to lessons learned from books I read. Here are some clear takeaways:
  • Each recording included the date and title of my blog post. People couldn’t remember the titles or dates of the recordings they reviewed. I replaced the date with episode numbers. This made it easier to reference a recording and shortened the titles.
  • I’m focused on reps to establish my recording habit, so I’m reading blog posts verbatim. I limit each blog post to 500 words, which equals about 5 minutes of audio. Five minutes is too short. The lessons didn’t stick with people. I’m keeping my 500-word constraint but enhancing the recording so the lessons are clear. I’ll summarize what each blog is about in the opening, add more context and my insights throughout, and add an outro. I’m now aiming for 10 minutes max with these changes.
  • It isn’t clear to listeners how they can apply the lessons I learned from the books I read. Judgment (i.e., application of wisdom to their situation) isn’t something you can do for founders. They must do this on their own. I’m not sure what I’ll do to address this. I’m actively seeking suggestions on this one.
  • People want to hear more about the struggle or context of what the founder was going through when they learned the lesson I’m sharing.
  • What resonates with a listener depends on their stage and focus. Early-stage entrepreneurs, established entrepreneurs, and investors valued and sought out different things. Early-stage entrepreneurs are looking for tactical answers to current problems. Established entrepreneurs are looking for general ideas or concepts. Entrepreneurs is too broad a market. I need to think about what niche target audience I want to serve.

Those are my struggles and learnings from this week!

Prefer listening? Catch audio versions of these blog posts, with more context added, on Apple Podcasts here or Spotify here!