Happy 2021!
What I read and did during the last week of 2020 and first week of 2021.
Welcome to my weekly newsletter. Let me start by wishing all of you a good year of 2021. 2020 was “special.”
Last week I took some days off and spent them with my family at home in Berlin. We did not travel to see our parents, and there was a lot of time for reading and thinking when we were not walking through grey Berlin and Brandenburg.
Here are some of the things I read, did, and learned:
Everything is going digital. We have been attending events virtually since 2019. We did this for efficiency and also ecological reasons. This Article is digging deeper into virtual events: Virtual Events Came of Age in 2020, but the Future Is Hybrid and I want to try out Welcome over the next few weeks.
I played around with AppSheet and built a dashboard and an APX team-directory.
I recorded a podcast with Justus and Kiran from The First Rung. You can listen to it here.
A16Z published an extensive piece with video links on crypto. I did not have the time and chance to watch all the videos yet, but the list of speakers and topics is impressive: The State of Crypto: A Builder’s Guide From Crypto Startup School.
Think about it and read it first: How Active Imagination Can Help You Gain Personal Clarity
Some of you know that I like the concept of science-fiction-recycling a lot. This article is about how fiction books can help you develop and get new perspectives. I might also help you to keep your balance and increase your resilience: The Inspirational Fiction Books That Changed Me More Than Self-Help.
First, the attitude did not resonate with me, but I agree with the 5 Reasons Why Companies Fail to Raise Capital. They are truly international.
This is an eternal discussion with founders: How to look at the competition: How Entrepreneurs Should Think About the Competitive Landscape for Their Venture. (Hint: Segmentation of your market is one of the best success keys, in my opinion.)
This article is behind a paywall: Salesforce Reaps Big Gains From Investments in Tech Companies.
#nerdy: I have been using Roam Research for months now as my second brain: True Algorithms of Thought Have Arrived is a piece on how to use smart blocks to support structured thinking. More where this is going, and Roam Research has launched some new template features over the last days.
This I found interesting for two reasons: The company front seems to offer a solution to some of the challenges my colleagues and I face in our daily work (we will see how we will try it over the next weeks. Front: The $1.3B Startup Slackifying Email. I find the format of how the article is written and how all the content is presented to the reader. I wonder if this can be an inspiration for startups to communicate with potential investors?
This was text-heavy. Once I have dialed in my workflow, there might be more pictures and graphics. ;-)
Have a great week!