Slowpreneur

Slowing Down to Achieve More

Work matters if we do fewer things and stick to what’s needed, wanted, or useful. It’s also more likely to be exceptional. The mere act of creating something valuable can create joint satisfaction and meaning – for everyone. In this environment, work can both matter and be profitable.

Slow productivity is good business.

By contrast, consumer software tools that enhance human agency, that serve us when we are most creative and intentional, are often built by hobbyists and used by a handful of nerds. If such a tool ever gets too successful one of the Marl-serving companies, flush with cash from advertising or growth-hungry venture capital, will acquire it and kill i... See more

Ivan Vendrov • The Tyranny of the Marginal User

It's Not Bigger, Better, Faster, More

Beverley Merriman atomicbev.substack.com

Constraints are parameters within which one operates, guiding actions toward optimal outcomes, while restraints imply limitations that hinder progress. Embracing constraints should foster creativity and efficiency and should help transform potential obstacles into catalysts for innovation.

Anti-network effects sometimes incorporate network effects of their own, but are generally more deliberate, intelligent, and actively governed. They are designed with scarcity in mind and are not so easy to starve out. They have long horizons and think many steps ahead in time, and can be spatially intelligent across entire topologies.

27/ They need... See more

Anti-Network Effects

If you're small, you're in a position where it's to your advantage to be weird—you can have a point of view that the big tech companies never could. In the world of chairs—you're not going to build a cheaper chair than Ikea. Why not build something they couldn't—like a more interesting one?

(Not Boring) Software Inc. • No More Boring Apps | (Not Boring) Software

As a marketing executive, I view business as one of the greatest adventures of the human enterprise—if not the greatest. But I am not just a businessman: I am also an unapologetic romantic.

Tim Leberecht • The Business Romantic

Ad legend Bill Bernbach letter on creativity, written in 1947:

Dear ________:

Our agency is getting big. That’s something to be happy about. But it’s something to worry about, too, and I don’t mind telling you I’m damned worried. I’m worried that we’re going to fall into the trap of bigness, that we’re going to worship techniques instead of substance

There will always be too much to do – and this realisation is liberating. Today more than ever, there’s just no reason to assume any fit between the demands on your time – all the things you would like to do, or feel you ought to do – and the amount of time available. Thanks to capitalism, technology and human ambition, these demands keep increasin