Growth // Codex Newsletter

A Weekly Digest Dedicated To Helping You

Produce // Promote // Profit

Better // Smarter

 

The other day, as I sat on a panel listening to founders and funders, I started playing a game in my head, counting the times someone said “it’s about your mindset“

After the 11th time, I calmly raised my hand and asked, “could you give us an example of how that would apply here?“

*Crickets*

Then the next person used the phrase as a catch-all, so again I asked “could you give elaborate on what you mean?”

*Crickets*

Welcome back Rogue, this week, we dig deeper into “mindset” because the time for fluffy words from some copy paste guru to “motivate us” is over

2021 means something different to all of us, the one thing that binds us is that the time for waiting is over, for some – it’s been helpful to start over, for others killing off bad habits and practices by ripping the bandaid off

What’s In This Issue //

Produce // Back to the basics

Promote // The less you listen, the more costly your advertising

Profit // Slow is smooth, smooth is fast

Bonus // GitHub Student Developer Pack – Github is offering students a developer pack with free GitHub pro, 12 free months of Canva premium, and a free domain from name.com (.edu email required) 

Would you like to catch up on previous issues? Check them out here

Aright now, let’s dig in on improving how we

Produce //

Pro Tip:

How often do you find yourself thinking you should prepare yourself, study a bit, know more, and then start the next level?

Not too long ago, I read how Elon Musk began shopping for rockets and soon discovered their price tag was north of $65 Million per rocket. Not one to shy from tinkering, he did research, and then more research, and then a little bit of exploring and found that he could source all the parts at about 2% of that = about $1 Million

Throw in research and development and some ingenuity and sometime later and Elon was making them at 10% the cost of what’s out there, giving birth to Space X who now handles about two-thirds of NASA’s launches

Look at your industry, or maybe you’ve been eyeing another, what part of it gets you excited? Feeling wonder and awe like when you were a kid? This isn’t one of those “believe and manifest” things, nope what we’re digging into is first principles theory – used by military strategists, philosophers, and billionaires alike, the first-principles theory has you dig deeper and deeper until you are left with only the foundational truths of a situation 

I figured this week would be a good time to dig into this because as we share strategies with talent, we find two big hurdles to their execution

• Imposter syndrome
• Lack of resources

https://twitter.com/NerdGoneRogue_/status/1344353463107530754?s=20

When it comes to what you and I create, we’re talking about the very “thing” that helps deliver the transformation. If you were Jeff Bezos, who loves Tech, Books, and Data, you’d naturally love building and launching an online bookstore (that breakdown is an example of how applying the theory to everything looks)

Although I switched major and never became an engineer, I did fulfill a childhood dream of becoming // working as a scientist, and work is never over

Scientists don’t assume anything. It’s a daily round of questions like, What are we absolutely sure is true? What has been proven?

This has been a game-changer when it comes to tackling my bouts with imposter syndrome and has proven helpful when I share it with colleagues and team members

 

 

When it comes to lack of resources, your build, and what you want to build (whether product or service) is dependant on the quality of gear you have, and how you apply it – minimize risk of failure by asking yourself “what is the major transformation I want to aid in?” This becomes your “rally cry” that simplifies your message from something like “we gather and synthesize hundreds of data points daily and aid in automating deployment to increase output with a decrease in waste” to “we’ve compiled cutting edge tech that helps you make smarter choices, oh and it requires no tech skills to run”

Try it out, let us know what you came up with on our IG

Alright now, let’s keep the momentum going and head on to improving how we

Promote //

Pro Tip:

The less you listen, the more costly your Advertising

I could bore you to death with all the advertising jargon and how to’s but lately, everyone and their mother is a marketer who apparently makes the best ads – so lets move to the engagement part of promoting 

Specifically, social media, which if we’re being honest, is no different than text, email, and calls

Here’s a sneak peek into a recent workshop i had with some business owners in our recent partnership with LA County to spearhead their Business Recovery Program

Profit //

Pro Tip:

“Slow is smooth, smooth is fast” – Army Proverb

As we went over in the Produce section above, first-principles theory // experimentation // the scientific method is a key ingredient in all major discoveries. For as long as man has been on this earth we’ve been imagining things, and bringing them to life

“France in the Year 2000” is one example. A series of paintings, made by Jean-Marc Côté and other French artists from 1899 – 1910, shared what some people and artists thought  life would look like in the year 2000

And

We’re not always going to be right, like this one

What does this have to do with improving profits? Applying this to improving how we profit is essential to prosperity – if you were deciding to start from zero, I’d sit you down and have you draft out all the ideas you’d apply to the areas you saw some opportunity 

Sales (profits) are a symptom, if you feed the machine well, you get well very soon, and this takes not just a good idea, but great execution, we know that part sure – but what is great execution? As covered in the behind the scenes workshop above, creating a kickass product takes listening twice and talking once, promoting effectively means talking to likeminded people, and profting is the symptom of how you synthesize all three -which means take this opportunity to dream bigger tonight, what problems would your creation solve? Who would it help? What would it help your customer become?

The exercise if you haven’t one it yet looks like this

What do I help my customer? 

Do

1

2

3

Have 

1

2

3

Become

1

2

3

 

Alright now, we’ve got work to do, people to zoom and money to be made, till next week

here’s to escaping average