February 10, 2022

This is Kei and Kazuki, founders of Glasp 👋

We pick up 3 good articles that we found this week. Hopefully, it will bring new perspectives and help you develop your career and learning journey.

This Week's Reading List 📚

How Duolingo Built a $700 Million Company Without Charging Usersby Product Habits Blog (23min)
There are two main things that helped Duolingo grow a huge, successful company while sticking close to their original vision: they went after a big market, and they meticulously experimented and used their data to inform all of their decisions. One of their most important gamification features was the addition of streaks, which keep track of how many days a user logs lessons in the app.

Why You Should Ignore Every Founder's Story About How They Started Their Companyby Trevor McKendrick (4min)
Company founding stories are almost always non-malicious lies. Sam was already 44 when he opened the first Walmart and had been running his own retail stores for over 15 years. Like most overnight successes, it was about 20 years in the making. You think “oh I need a great idea” when the reality is the idea is nothing and your psychology & persistence are everything. If you want to learn from entrepreneurs, look at the start not the finish.

The Small Steps of Giant Leapsby Farnam Street (3min)
The position you find yourself in today is the accumulation of the small choices that you’ve been making for years. For your choices to compound, you need to be consistent. Intensity will only carry you in the short term but if you want compounding results you need consistency. In the absence of immediate rewards, we can keep up the intensity for a while but most of us become intermittent.

See you next week ;)

Best,
Kei and Kazuki

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Today's Quote - "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."- Mahatma Gandhi