Britt Gage
@brittfgage
Founder, of All Trades. Building a new type of company for generalists and the founders we seek to serve.
Britt Gage
weofalltrades.com
From James Clear’s 3-2-1: Time assets vs. Time debts, slow change, and the importance of failure
Time assets vs. Time debts.
Time assets are choices that save you time in the future. Think: saying no to a meeting, automating a task, working on something that persists and compounds.
Time debts are choices that must be repaid and cost you time in the
... See moreIt leads to major cost savings for companies. Tech is evolving rapidly, and the truth is that some jobs might become obsolete, making specialized, temporary skills more valuable.
This shift aligns with a cultural change where people are less loyal to long-term employers and more interested in using their skills independently to earn more.
This... See more
This shift aligns with a cultural change where people are less loyal to long-term employers and more interested in using their skills independently to earn more.
This... See more
Michael Houck • Startups are Experiments
Projects rarely unfold in a linear fashion; they require frequent course correction. Most trainees should spend more time on a project’s decision tree than they currently do. Once you get into a project, you will have learned from your initial experiments, new papers will have been published, and technology will have advanced. As a result, at any... See more
Problem choice and decision trees in science and engineering: Cell
Earn people’s trust, again and again
In a world of factory farmed unicorns that boom, bust, and let their customers down in the process, we have to show that we are committed to sustainability and longevity.
In a world of factory farmed unicorns that boom, bust, and let their customers down in the process, we have to show that we are committed to sustainability and longevity.
sari azout • 2023 End of Year Letter
How do you become a 100-year company?
Taste is a double-edged sword. Because it is ephemeral, you’re untouchable if you have it. Competitors won’t be able to copy it—what is there to copy?
Taste is a double-edged sword. Because it is ephemeral, you’re untouchable if you have it. Competitors won’t be able to copy it—what is there to copy?
Evan Armstrong • The Art of Scaling Taste
On building “Flavored” startups
Enterprise software is (mostly) not flavor-based. Sure, there are enterprise fads like the metaverse, but generally speaking, large companies only sign contracts when it feels like there is an obvious commercial advantage to doing so.
Networks are (mostly) not flavor-based. If you’re using an app because of the content created by its other users, it’s not necessarily a guarantee for success, but at least if it fails it probably won’t be because it hit a flavor-based asymptote. For instance, BeReal leveraged a unique flavor of photo sharing to build a network, but people are still using it because they like the way it helps them stay in touch with their friends. If it were just a single-player utility, it would not have scaled in the same way. Another historical example is Instagram versus Hipstamatic. Both had a cool new flavor called “photo filters,” but one had a network and the other did not. Here’s a more recent example: the network is what sets Substack stands apart from its flavor-based competition.
Tech-enabled services are not flavor-based. If you act like a tech company but really do grocery delivery, banking, education, housing, healthcare, or any other real-world service, your competition is mostly not flavor-based because starting this type of business involves a lot of cost and complexity. (Also, some, like ride hailing and delivery, are networks.) The downside is that your cost structure is probably not as great as pure tech companies, but the upside is that you have less competition.
All of these types of products can involve some flavoring to help them get off the ground. The point is not that flavoring is bad. It’s good! But it has a very specific role. Flavor provides an initial product wedge. It’s helpful for standing out initially but doesn’t provide long-term differentiation or durable advantage.
Each drop is creative and rebellious, winking to the world that capitalism is a necessary joke. They do all of this with a team of 34 people, most of whom are generalists with no background in making physical goods.
Evan Armstrong • The Art of Scaling Taste
The magic that MSCHF makes with generalists is the stuff of legend