Lillian Sheng

Engaging. And when they check, they engage.

PART I - GOAL SETTING Y ou should set your goals so that you achieve them 85.13% of the time.

The chattering teeth and shivering moans of the trainees were so loud it was hard to hear anything. And then, one voice began to echo through the night, one voice raised in song. The song was terribly out of tune, but sung with great enthusiasm. One voice became two and two became three and before long everyone in the class was singing. We knew... See more

For failing the uniform inspection, the student had to run, fully clothed into the surfzone and then, wet from head to toe, roll around on the beach until every part of your body was covered with sand. The effect was known as a “sugar cookie.” You stayed in that uniform the rest of the day — cold, wet and sandy.

1. SaaS: restaurants pay to access SaaS products developed by Toast (e.g. POS, kitchen display system, invoice management, digital ordering and delivery, marketing and loyalty, and team management) with a 12-36m engagement.2. Financial services: restaurants pay fees to get access to Toast’s services which facilitate payment transactions or to get... See more

Any misalignment between a company and its customers or its value chain is a source of “dominance friction.” Why? Because a company whose business model is not ultimately aligned with its customers’ interests is vulnerable to another competitor beating them with better alignment.

For example, if the platform determines that someone loves movies, that person will likely see a lot of movie related content because that’s what captures that person’s attention best. This means platforms can also decide what consumers won’t see, such as problematic or polarizing content.

1. Food is now digital, and there’s no turning back for traditional grocery

Something similar is currently happening in the virtual world. Online scarcity is possible. Virtual land can be valuable if it provides exclusive access to a unique flow of economic opportunities — in the same way that a domain name can be valuable. As such, virtual land can indeed be scarce. But the fundamentals are tough to read, the number of... See more