“Only 2 left.” “Get one free.” “Most popular choice.” These are examples of how we are influenced and persuaded to say yes. This post considers three psychological tactics we can apply and, when the shoe is on the other foot, defend against. While these tactics can be applied generally in…

This week I handed over most of the writing task to GPT-3 which is the subject of this post. GPT-3 (Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3) is an example of general purpose Artificial Intelligence. I asked GPT-3 to introduce itself, summarise the documentation on the OpenAI website then provide a list of…

If the headline for a piece of writing does not engage then very few will go on to read what follows. A great headline for non-fiction addresses three questions and intrigues readers. They can assess the benefits of reading on and if it is a good investment of time. This…

Better than Yes? Often we say Yes but without any real commitment. It often hides our disagreement and annoyance; it gets someone off our back. In a negotiation, we need to understand the other party’s emotional drivers, establish trust and exit with a committed Yes. …

There are hundreds of different types of cheese. Many of these will be someone’s favourite; mine is Comté. There’s no universal agreement on which is the best cheese and this will be the case for any type of product. We do not all think the same way. Marketing is the…

Users don’t care how hard you’ve worked to build your product. Or how keen you are for them to love it. What they care about is if the product helps them achieve things and makes them feel good. Our challenge as product developers is to make this happen. …

Paul Graham is a Silicon Valley icon. He co-founded Y Combinator which invested in and supported the early development of AirBnb, DropBox, Reddit and CoinBase. Paul has a wealth of tech startup experience which he freely shares in his original and insightful essays. In this post I highlight four essays…

There is often a simpler, more elegant way to do things. Simplicity does not just happen, however. It requires a good understanding of what you are trying to achieve and deliberate, focused effort. A simple solution may seem obvious in retrospect, but rarely is at the outset. “I think there…

There are good reasons for having your own website, but how do you do it? I’ll explain why and how I developed PlayScarper.com for my mobile app. Apps need websites Potential users and others can be guided to your app’s website by Google searches, social media posts, links from other websites and other…