What you might have missed. (Sept ‘20)

The BlackBook is a weekly newsletter, where I share best practices, insights, and opportunity gaps that helps you elevate your startup game.

#Ideas :

1. The Opportunities in the Future of Food — Food tech is mistaken for Food Delivery Tech at the moment. But with the global population set to reach 10bn by 2050, and environmental concerns there is a need to look at how we see food (and produce it). From plant-based meat to lab-grown meat, to plant-based protein you can shake and drink — there are several experiments in this space. I break this down in a structured way, and the short term and long term opportunities that Food Entrepreneurs can look at.

2. Marvel and DC Comics started about 90 years ago. In what has taken almost a century, there is a playbook in terms of how to build a new system of belief, that is ludicrously profitable. Marvel has made 23 movies, each movie averaging at around 980mn — but it didn’t start with movies. Enter the world of Comics, Symbolism, Tribals that has built this empire. How can Asia create its superheroes — or leverage its existing ones. I talk about it in detail in this post on The Business of Superheroes.

#Basics :

1. Even before you build a product, you need to build an audience. The question was how. This post talks about how to go about building an audience and how to think about one of the most crucial assets you can own as an entrepreneur.

2. When trying to interpret the market, or even looking at your own systems, get into the habit of weighing both Data and Anecdotes. In a system that is near maturity, the one-off anecdotes (negative ones) will tell you where the holes are, and fixing them is how you take things to the next level.

3. The often heard startup pitch is this: “The market is so huge, that even if we were to capture 1% of that market, we would be a unicorn”. I talk about why that is a fallacy and as a startup, that is a sure way to failure, and how to think about markets differently.

4. Most startup founders will fail, and burnout is a major reason for it. It isn’t about working hard or working smart at all. It is about how to pick the right jobs in the startup. I talk about the example of Sisyphus and Archimedes to explain the difference and a framework on how to do this better.

Blackbook Basics are freely available (might require FREE registration). Blackbook Ideas are available under premium subscription.

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