30 Days Challenge

I started running.

For this year, my highest priority is to improve my health. A year ago, I joined a Yoga class but I didn’t seem to enjoy practicing it much. I found it addictive when I have to suffer the body pain of working out, especially those exercises that require a lot of fast moving and make me sweat like hell. It’s not enjoyable at first but I feel relieved. After a while, I will miss it and aspire to taste it again. That’s weird but true to me. That’s why Yoga seems so unfit to me as it requires moving slowly and sitting patiently. I decided to quit Yoga and run instead.

I challenged myself to run every day, at least 5km for the first month then increase the target on the way. I will 100% commit to this exercise for the first 30 days because I heard somewhere that if we stick with something long enough, says 30 days, it will become our habit and I want to make it a daily habit.

I have been running for over a week and it’s exhausted like hell but believe me, I can see that I turned to eat like a pig, sleep better and something new came along recently.

Things I hate the most at work

Things I rarely admit

1. Team-work is annoying

None of us that is as smart as all of us.

I know that.

But I’m just an introvert in the world that favors the loudmouths. And in that world, people’s respect for the others is based on their verbal abilities. Those who are thinking out loud and talk much are considered as the natural leaders. Then the whole education system is designed to develop those traits for everyone. But we need to understand the not everyone aspires to be a leader. If we are all the leaders, so the world would be in a complete chaos. So, be good at what you are passionate about instead.

Honestly, I rather spend time myself working my ass off on something myself than going out and having small talk. In a group work, people seem to be all in a hurry and take whatever they get out of a short conversation, or a meeting, as we name it. In order to have a great solution, I need data and process it thoroughly before saying anything, that takes time too. It’s virtually impossible to be a great idea out of a short conversation. Even when I can get it right, the party is mostly over. One more thing, when I am surrounded by the people that keep talking, the more I listen to them, the more I feel annoyed. That’s why my mind has to pretend that I’m alone, ignore the others and think on my own. That how I can focus and think of a solution.

For me, solitude is an important key to unlock the creativity and find the ultimate solution. So, all I want is to work independently. Sometimes I feel like I hate talkative people that I have a bias that “talkers keep talking and doers keep doing”.

2. Multitasking is bullshit

In order to achieve something extraordinary, I have to pay 100% attention to it. As I can say, if I am not obsessed with the problem enough, I will not find the best solution. “enough” to me means that I have to think about it every second, when I’m eating, taking a bath or even in my dream.

You have to spend time to consider which item to pay more attention first. Choices are tiring, we all know that.

Then you have to split your mind, which means, you just interrupt your thinking flow of problem A in order to switch into problem B.

Think about this. I’m dealing with the falling of revenue this month at work, but at the same time, I know that I have to fix the water pipeline in the house. If I don’t finish the new sales plan this morning, I won’t be promoted next month. But if I do not fix the pipeline this morning, the house will be a total mess, and my mom doesn’t like it, or my dog might have to suffer from draining in a locked room filled with water. So, if I do it one by one, that’s ok to me. But if I draw a strategic plan while still thinking of the other problem at home, I might end up drawing a meaningless pipeline on the board. It’s like you are dating two girls at the same time and want the best outcome of those relationships, in the end, you might get the best, but it’s just the best of the average. So if you want to achieve great things in life, stay hyper-focused.

My mantra is always, “One thing at a time.”

Korea Trip

First day:

I got a fever on the plane. The immigration lady stopped me and asked if I acknowledged my super high temp. I told her I had got medicines on my own, so no worries and tried to run into the immigration as quickly as possible. I felt super tired, I had to stand in line for more than one hour then. I felt super thirsty, no water. My whole body turned red and hot like hell. The only thing I wanted to do was lying down on the floor waiting for my turn.

We got to the Airbnb house and it turned to be so relieved lying on the bed for a nap. I was sleeping until the end of the day.

Second day:

Being a zombie due to a mix of back pain, cough, sore throat, and fever. I couldn’t enjoy anything. I went out to go shopping. Korean people are mostly shy and they would try to avoid talking to me every time I started speaking English to them. They did not smile, with a cold-bold face answering No.

I went to an Apple store and asked if they have a Macbook Pro 2016 with a touch bar and the girl there answered No without any hesitation or further eye contact. That’s weird tho.

We went to the Triipmeet event. It seemed like not so many people were going to attend it. Then we went back home, had a big dinner together until midnight. I, Nhien and Trevor had a very interesting conversation about Korean Culture and how travel has changed our lives, then we went into the biggest decisions of our lives.

Third day:

Got recovered but still had body ache. My team went out to see the city with a local expert. I went to see the electronic market with Hans and Dat. It’s quite tedious.

What you thought and what it really meant

You went to an e-commerce website to buy a headphone, the nice image somehow mislead you to an irrelevant one and you hit purchase, then you see a button called “Purchase by accident”, you immediately thought:

I just clicked on the wrong button, now I can go back. This site is brilliant!

The actual meaning was:

I just did a stupid thing, and now I’m regret!

You were browsing Facebook and you saw an appealing shoe ad with the sales price of $100 on the original price of $250, you thought:

This is a super good deal, I’m gonna save $150!

It actually was:

I’m gonna waste another $100 on my 4th pair of shoes this month!

While reading a self-help book, you thought:

This is great, I’m so motivated now. I will change to be successful!

It actually was:

Nothing new, just a nice written theory. I already knew it but I didn’t practise

When your cat was walking around and looking at you, screaming, you might think:

She loves being around me. She is so sweet!

But she meant:

I’m hungry, feed me now, my slave!

 

When you had a meeting and the other was still missing, she called “I’m on the way, just 5 more minutes”, you might think:

Oh, she’s almost arrive

But she actually meant:

I’m sleeping, what’s up? Oh shit, I forgot it. Wait a minute, I’ll be there. Wait wait wait, when I say a minute, I mean an hour!

When you felt bad and someone asked, “Are you ok? Do you need my help?”, and you replied:

I’m fine!

But you meant:

I’m not fine, but it’s none of your business anw

When you were lying at home, some called:

Are you free now?

You replied:

No, I’m busy!

Then you were supposed to say:

Yes, I’m totally free but I don’t like hanging out with you, or I’m having a good time at home

Someone asked “Can I borrow this one?”, then you were like:

Uhm, ohm

Your face said:

Hell no

When you were being asked about your success story, you told them:

Well, I saw it an opportunity, then I worked very hard and it’s got me today.

Your true story was:

Well, I didn’t know what to do then. I picked one random business. It failed. I tried another one, failed again. Then I kept trying. I started from the scratch with an idea about A, then I built B, got fucked up a lot. It turned out that C was the most successful thing and now I’m telling you about D.

You saw a random girl passing by, you walked along an said:

You are pretty!

What you actually wanted to say:

You are pretty. Netflix and chill?

You were browsing FB at the midnight and you thought:

It’s too late. I have to go sleep now!

Then, you realized:

Just five more minutes browsing to see if there’s something new. Oh not really. I have to check email… It’s been 5 minutes already, there must be something new, I have to check it out…

When you started to learn a new thing, you said to yourself:

I will spend at least 2 hours per day practising it. Soon I’ll become a master!

But, the true you said:

I’ll be learning for several days, then unless I have to use it at work, I’ll feel bored, or too busy, and quit.

When you said:

Fuck you!

You meant:

It’s not literally fuck, and I didn’t mean to fuck you, but fuck you!

When you were submitting a request and then a small box popped up:

Please wait a minute!

What it really meant:

Please wait a minute, but remember when I say I minute, I mean an hour, or maybe a year. So, good luck!

There’s something called “Company Culture”

Imagine if you are working at a company that:

Make you be proud of what are you doing.

If you are lucky, then you must be proud telling people about what you are doing. Sometimes, people don’t even understand your job clearly but who cares anyway, as long as you feel proud of it.

You will have to work overtime a lot

You will be working on Saturday or even Sunday, so basically, you don’t have a weekend. But you don’t mind, just enjoy doing what you’d love to do.

Let you have a meeting at 2AM.

When you were working on an external project and something urgent came up, at 9PM that you can not let it overtake the next day, you had to organize a meeting at 2AM. That’s weird, but fun.

All-hands meeting with wines and weed.

The team sat down and the leader brought out a small bag of weed, telling you that it’s the magic of the night. How could you react? Just have fun.

You have to go swimming at 4PM every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday as a rule.

Yes, you have to. You didn’t know how to swim at first, but after two months of drinking swimming pool water, now you can swim 1km straight.

You have to practice Yoga at 9AM every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday as another rule.

Your CEO had hired a Yoga master to teach the team practicing at home because he knew that would help all team members have the healthier lives. If you skip one class, you’ll be banned. If you skip more than a week, he will beg you to go sleep earlier that you can wake up early the next morning to practice Yoga. He even bought Melatonin (or something similar, I don’t remember the name) that help you sleep better.

You will have to travel around as a part of your job.

We are a travel company, we are serving travelers and we all love to travel. So we have to travel more in order to do business better.

You have no job title

You know what you are doing, your team knows what you are doing too. And everyone doing their own job but there’s no official job title. If you go out and meet people on behalf of the company, you can be whoever you want, just name it. You are doing customer service and you can tell you are the tech lead without knowing how to write a single line of code. No one cares.

No one gives a shit about guests

If a guest is coming for a visit, most of the times he will be invited by the CEO, unless he is lovable, nobody will give a shit about him and his story no matter who he is, what he is doing and how much money he makes. That’s odd but true. The team only spends time with the one they like.

I don’t know if it’s good or bad.

 

UX in life

Disclaim: I’m not a UX expert, I have no expertise in this field, I’m just an observer trying to do things right.

What is UX, actually?

UX, as I understand, is the experiences the users have while interacting with one product, from the moment they get to know it, during the serving time, until they decide to quit using it for real. The product here might be a mobile app, a website or just a book. Experiences might be understood as simple as loading the homepage or as complex as making a purchase online. It relates to the feeling of the users while performing the task with the product, if they feel right, it’s easy, comfortable, satisfied and secured, etc, then it’s the good UX. If it’s not, you are fucked.

Why does UX matter?

Business is all about interacting with people, no matter what you are doing and it happens everywhere. It’s just that simple because doing business is making money. Where does money come from? Is it from a cat, a bull or a fox? Hell no, you are trying to get money from the others’ pocket. Can you do business without interacting with anyone? Meh

Unless you are living on Mars and somehow manage to read this by an accident, you are interacting with people every day. You can say “Yeah, I interact with people but not to make money, I just get along with them”. Sure, you might be right, you aren’t doing business, but you still have to care about the others feelings, thoughts while talking to them, right? Even when you don’t care about the others, at least you will spend time feeling yourself, so that’s the UX, your own UX.

People are trying to follow the trends with many rules for the best UX and apply it immediately on their products but sometimes they forget to understand the core element of UX: the users. They forget to consider the context.

Speed matters.

Fast is better slow, we all heard that. Time is gold, I know. I understand that everybody is always in a rush and they want everything around them to catch their speed too, the engineers of a website want that too. They always try to optimize the site to help it load faster. This is good. But is it worth exchanging 0.01 second for an extra step? I once heard this conversation from an engineer: “You see, with this technology, we can increase the site speed down by 5% so the loading time will be reduced by 0.2 seconds per step. but we have to add one more step here…”

I was like, wtf? Is that how you think about time and speed?

Then he explained, “That makes it feels faster” No, I feel shit. The only thing I care is how long does it takes to get my shit done, that’s it. If it gets me to click one more time, it’s like I’m late for one more year on a marathon. So please don’t.

Where the hell is the booking button?

The customer service representative was talking patiently on the phone, giving the instruction on how to make the purchase to a 35-year-old lady: “Yes, the green button on the top of that”, “Then please fill out all your information” “You have to scroll down a little bit, then you can see it”, “still not, it must be there, please look carefully”.

Then the girl turned to me: “It seems like every time I talk to our customers, I have to tell them clearly where the booking button is or they will be having a hard time finding it.”

Every single time, I mean, it’s supposed to be there, in front of them. It must be the first thing they encounter. So, what’s wrong with it? Why do users have to find it as in a hide and seek game?

Then I found out that the button was there just because it fits the layout and the overall design would be so nice. Hell, yeah!

Yesterday, I went to see the doctor. While I was busy looking for the room number, I tripped and almost fell down on the floor. Then I looked down, there was a small step right under my feet. How the hell a step is put in the middle of the hall without any warning sign or notice? I was so frustrated.

To be updated every day.

 

 

 

Meo: Age of extinction

This is Meo.

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Meo is a one-year old girl.

Meo is pretty.

Everybody knows it. She knows it. She knows how to take advantage of it to achieve things. She even drew a royal life from it. Every square in the house belongs to her empire. She can go anywhere, do anything, and eat at any time she wants. She is dangerous.

Meo doesn’t give a shit about who you are or how much money you make. The only thing she cares is, “do you feed me?”. She knows one thing for sure that you’ll fall in love with her from the first sight. She will ignore you, as she does to everyone else. You might call her cocky but you will keep chasing her because she is cocky in a pretty way. You keep following her to simply stroke her hair, she knows it and she won’t let you do that. The more you see her, the more you want to touch her, the more you become her slave. She might not know how to love, but she has the talent to use slaves.

The good news is, there’re so many ways to show her your love. The bad news is, she knows them all and she will ignore them anyway.

There’s a chance that she will give you a look, but it’s more like a glimpse. If you try to shake the Whiskas bag in front of her, which she loves the most, you will get her attention. You have the right to think that you’ve got her heart. Yay!!

But the truth is no, not a chance in hell. She seems to care about you (actually she cares about the Whiskas bag but you can take it as a self-happiness) doesn’t mean she likes you. Even when she does like you a bit (I’m expecting to pass this level too), don’t expect her to show you her feeling then, don’t expect anything. You’ll be depressed.

Meo is a royal cat, as she considered herself. She wants to be served, in a royal way. A wise word for you is, keep chasing, stay foolish, and say no to being rude. If you cross the line, she will bite you as hard as she can. I have scars on all over my hands, my arms, my legs, and even my face. Don’t judge me, please!

Meo learns fast, but in her own way.

When she was a kitten, she used to poop in the garden. That explains why it’s nearly impossible to grow vegetables in our garden. We planted seed yesterday, today it has already been dug up. We notice a rare seed sprout today, there is nothing for sure that it will be there tomorrow. Thank god, after a year, now we can harvest some vegetables but everyone is yet skeptical about the quality of them.

Back to her pooping story. On a rainy day of May, she was lazy to go out. then she found out that pooping in the bathroom, not in the lavatory but on the floor, is enjoyable. It looks cleaner and more elegant. Then she decided the bathroom is hers to poop.

There was a time cleaning her shit in the bathroom every morning became a routine of mine. We got mad, but still, she has never given a shit. We had to propose a new place for her to poop, a big bowl filled with cat sand. When she knew that was a much more elegant way to shit, she accepted it happily. We are all good now.

Meo never talks.

Maybe she’s lazy, maybe she doesn’t like socializing. But it’s definitely not on her list of favorite things to do. She never shows any affection for expressing herself, never asks for food. When she is hungry, she simply walks around you yet keeps a distance. It’s her polite way to remind you of your duty. She doesn’t have to say a damn word.

When you try to call her name, she will ignore it. But when she does reply with a “meow” sound, there’s something.

She definitely did something wrong. For example, she has just pooped in the bathroom or she was trying to steal the food. She knows her mediocre behavior is being detected and she tries to disclaim it. The louder the sound is, the more serious the problem is.

Whenever we want to check on her, we call her name. If she doesn’t reply, everything is cool. Else, we have to get our shit together.

Meo loves playing with furry balls, I mean furry balls, literally. If we want to keep her busy, we throw a ball on the floor then it will drive her mad.

Meo loves sleeping, in a box, next to a Macbook screen. The interesting thing here is we never see her sleeping next to a Window laptop, never. What a tech-racist cat!

I don’t know whether it’s normal or not when a cat sleeps more than 12 hours a day. Anyhow, that’s how Meo spends her time.

When Meo was a kid, there were only four things in her life: eating, pooping, sleeping and biting. Every morning, at 7a.m, she jumped on my chest repeatedly. Then she bit me, on my hands, on my legs, on my ears, even scratched my face. By that time, I thought that she missed me or wanted to play with me, then I found out quickly that she was just hungry. “Wake up, my slave, time to fulfill your duty”

Meo is mysterious.

On a rainy night of May, we found her on a railway, little but arrogant and showed no fear. She has some weird behaviors that we can’t understand. We saw her sitting in the kitchen and staring at a hole for almost one hour or digging the garden while observing thoroughly.

One night, I suddenly woke up at 3a.m, slowly opened my eyes. Meo was sitting on my chest, staring at my face. I was freaked out.

Three months ago, we went on a short vacation. We handed the key to our neighbor to let him in and feed her while we were away. We came home three days afterward. We opened the doors and for a moment, we thought that we got lost in a zoo. Meo was sitting there with 7 more cats surrounding. The cats saw us and dismissed the meeting immediately. We were amazed while Meo was looking at us with her naive eyes like, “Hey! What’s up? How’s your vacation?”

At that moment, we decided to stop stalking her catsonal life and settle down with our mission, serving her. “Curiosity killed the cat”

We still believe that there’s a day Meo will conquer this world. That day is very near and we have nothing to worry about. We know one thing for sure that she will keep us alive after her humankind massacre. Because we know how to serve her well.

Why are you so freaking sure? She doesn’t give a shit, remember?!

Her closest friends since childhood, one by one delivers their babies and she is still single. She spends her entire day with us. We don’t know if she goes to the bars at night, we can’t track that. We don’t know whether she is still finding her perfect guy, or she is a lesbian.

Two months ago, Meo was expected to be pregnant with a huge belly.

We fully prepared to become grandpa(s) and grandma(s). Suddenly one sunny morning, the big belly was gone, mysteriously, just like her characteristics.

Nobody knew why, how and what.

Now, she is fit, still arrogant and busy planning to conquer the world.

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Short talks on the trip

30th April, suddenly I wanted to travel around.

No plan, no tripmate, I went to the bus station. Normally people have to reserve the ticket at least one week in advance, I got one with just 10 minutes, passed a crowd of thousands of people in an area capable of a half. But it turned out to be a bad sign.

It’s not a regular long road bus. It’s a city bus, more than 20 years old, I guessed. The driver is not the one who is familiar with the road also. He only knew that where is the destination of the trip to drive the bus too. He didn’t even know where to stop for a lunch until someone on the bus screamed out loud. Unfortunately, my destination was not the end point of the road. I had to get off earlier than the others, but that was my first time, how can I know where to get off exactly. I told the driver:

  • Can you drop me off at Duc Manh junction?
  • I don’t know where it is. It’s your job to figure it out and tell me to stop when we pass by.

Okay, thanks Google Maps and GPS, I got off right at Duc Manh junction.

Next day, I got on another bus to Buon Me Thuot. Again, I don’t know where to get off but a name of another junction. But this time, my driver is a pro, he knows all but I sat far away from him and I didn’t want to walk that far to bother him. So I ask an old man next to me:

  • How long it will take to Eakao function?
  • Hmm, we are getting close to it. Around 5 mins. He replied.
  • No, it must be longer. I’ll inform you then. Another lady behind me said out loud.
  • So, you mean after this stop, we will get to Eakao? I asked again.
  • No, I told you to sit there. We have to wait for much more longer. The lady yelled, angrily.

Okay, I’m out of this, I was thinking.

Things turned out, she got off at the same bus stop. That’s why she was so sure about it.

Next day, I got the last ticket for a night bus to Da Nang. At midnight, the co-driver approached everyone, woke them up and asked for their destination. Then he wrote on the notes thoroughly.

The next morning, the bus entered the station. Everyone woke up and they were all freaking out:

  • I asked to be dropped off in Tam Ky, why we are all here, driver?
  • This bus does not stop on the road. Now you can get another bus to go back a little bit.
  • Why the fuck did you wake me up last night but didn’t tell me anything abt it?
  • Meh

On the flight back to SG, I sat next to a couple in a quarrel. Luckily, next to me on the right is a window.

  • Why are you jealous?
  • I’m saving myself
  • From what? People say hi to me and I have to smile back to them
  • You can go with her now!

The man was trying to show an apology and the woman was trying to ignore and scream back. There was a moment I intend to say “shut up” to them, but I recognized the tear is shedding on her face. Nevermind.

I called an uber to get home from the airport. The first driver canceled because he couldn’t contact me through a number which is set on another phone I was trying to turn on. Then I got another, with a 4.9-star rating. I was wondering:

  • You must be new here. Your rating is still high
  • Nope. I’ve been around for several months. Actually, I don’t give a shit about the rating. I just do my job, riding people around and make money out of it. I don’t do anything wrong to them, and whatever they wrote or rate about me, I still can get new customer everyday. If I do not get high rating, I can not get the bonuses. But if I aim to get those bonuses, I have to drive all day long and make only six or seven hundreds. So why the fuck do I have to do it when I can make over 1 mil per day within 10 hours?
  • Hmm, that makes sense.

Everything I know about Startup as a Growth Hacker

Start with Idea

People keep yelling that do not look for an idea but the problem. That’s true. If you always think of a new idea for a fancy startup, that might happen, but once in a million chance. You will fall into the trap of building a product that no one uses, the product solves the problem of nobody, it’s just a waste of time.

But, that’s not really true.

You have to keep an eye on everyday stuff to see if there is a problem. You are not seeking for the idea but keeping in mind the idea of solving the problem. You have to be the problem solver.

You might want to have a totally fresh idea that no one has ever thought of, but, there’s no way (once in a million again). Idea is cheap, just like a cup of beer, maybe less than that. Let’s see Uber, Google, Apple or Tesla are doing out there. The ideas you are thinking of right now they might think of several years ago or they have been entering the market yesterday. Let’s be real.

The easiest way to have an idea for a startup is just as simple as finding the way to enhance, to improve the current status of things. Always think that “can this thing be optimized?”, “do we really have to do it this way” or “is there a way to do this faster, less expensive”. Yes, you have to be innovative, you have to try improving things around you.

Today you can not buy a T-shirt oversea because people do not ship things over, tomorrow you have a startup connecting international travellers with local shoppers, see delivr.to.

Or, just be lazy. It’s bad until people see its benefit.

You are too lazy to water the garden everyday, tomorrow you have a automatic watering system for the entire garden.

That’s it.

Then find Customer

If you have that problem, it means there must be somebody out there have it too. Go find them and talk to them. Look back at how, when and where did you have that problem then identify who would be in the same situation. If you are a doctor, find the other doctors; if you are a gardener, seek for the other gardeners, if you are an FA, reach out to the other FA,… The more specific your audience is, the better. This will help you to understand more about the problem, define the customer persona and evaluate the idea. If there are so many people have your problem, that’s great, do it right away, you’ll make a product for a million others to use. If there is no one else, don’t be worried, you are so special that no one can understand your pain. You can still make it happen, but only you use it yourself. FA is still FA.

P.s: I’m building an app called “Daily Comfort Zone Challenge” pushing daily notification about a challenge to do, just to encourage myself to be more comfortable with being uncomfortable. I used to be a wimpy kid and I know there are so many people be like me too. But I don’t want to make a popular app (or no one wants to use mine, lol), just for me first.

Now, build your product.

Here are the core elements your product needs:

  • Solving the real problem. Of course, the most important thing.
  • Lean. If you don’t know this word, read the book “Lean Startup” of Eric Ries. Two other books you must read are “Getting real” and “Rework” by 37signals team. They are superb. In short, you have to keep focusing on the most important feature, solve the problem, done. Eliminate all the others. Start with the MVP, release as soon as possible, then get feedback, see people blaming on it, learn from the feedback and rebuild the 2nd, 3rd, 4th… version until it works like a charm. That moment when you get product-market fit. Then it’s your official launch.
  • Customer Journey Mapping. In the last part, we talked about understanding customers.Here you have to re-draw the map of using your product. Start from why, when, how they get the pain? What’s their true pain? then What you can offer them? how can they find you, into more specific, what is the first impression you want to show them, after entering the site, what would they do next, after downloading the app, how they will interact with you, etc. This will help you not only understand more about users but also bring the better UX, keep you on the right track.
  • USP. What’s your USP? You might have to hear this question hundred time when you want to raise fund from the venture capitalists. What makes you different from the others. Go back to the old friend’s problem and customers. This is how you will answer it: “X will get the problem Y solved by using our Z”. Or with the model of “What, how, why” like “A is the fastest way to do B“. You can learn more about creating an awesome USP Here, here and startup pitch here
  • Niche market. Start small, prove the model, then scale it. Don’t try to serve everyone, even when you are super big. You can see as big as Google or Apple, they can not serve everybody. Stop thinking mass early on.

Small tips:

  • Talk more about the pain, the problem and less about the product. 80/20
  • What they get/can do with your product under their point of view.

Now you got product/market fit. So, Let’s Growth Hack

  • What is it?

I don’t have a clear definition of this term. I like to describe it as solving a growth problem with the Limited resource, follow the process of

Acquire – Activate – Retention – Revenue – Referral

and make sure your solution is

 Doable – Measurable – Scalable

The Growth problem here might be to increase 100k more user in next year, get 10k more twitter followers this month or get the growing rate of booking at 100% per year.

A mindset of a Growth Hacker

  • Understand Product
  • Understand Users
  • Creative, patient and a bit cheeky
  • A real problem solver, always seek for the best solution
  • No Money Status
  • Hustler, eager to learn
  • The skill set of Designer, engineer and marketer, copywriter
  • Data driven
  • Hava knowledge about a Psychology to understand people behaviour easily.

I’m too sleepy now, I have to go for a bath. I’ll come back with a full post about Growth hacking later.

Cold Email, how to get more than 50% response rate within 6 sentences

Here is how to send an email that somebody has to give you a fuck, for real:

Title: Don’t suck here.

Most of the time people do judge a book by its cover, so if the title can not catch their interest, there is once-in-a-billion chance that it would be opened.

I normally delete it right after reading the title.

So, keep it with the model of three elements: Result – Objection – Timeframe:

How to get X, without doing Y, within Z days

You can change the order to make it more efficient.

Okay, you just passed the flirting round, let’s move to the next charming round, having sex.

Here is the formula:

AIDA: Attention – Interest – Desire – Action

Put something interesting, shocking or familiar with their personal perspective to get their attention. Give them something more, and more. It’s like you put them on your bed then foreplay with them. You keep fondling them, get them on the beat and smoothly put in your treasure, get them high, and close the deal. That’s it.

In order to build that process, you have to add up at least these main things:

Benefits for them: What’s in it for me?

The better case for it is telling them what they will get from their point of view. Like, you will get this, you will receive that, you will achieve that high…

Social proof with clear numbers

How many people have used, how many of them got what, how many percents satisfied. Don’t tell the subtle jokes, please use the exact number, or at least make it up. Build the trust from the figures, like “Travel companies A used X last month and their monthly revenue is increasing more than 201%”.

People are likely to believe and follow the society, especially their own circle of connection. They keep shouting out loud that they want to be the leaders, the innovators but most of them are afraid of being the first one. “Our friend B from Agency Y thinks that you would love to use it too since he has been loving it and his wife, his son, his daughter love it toooo”. That’s it, tell them how people are getting high with it out there.

Make it personal.

At least you get their name, their company or so. Don’t be like “Hey there,”. Make them feel respected.

Keep it short and sweet.

I’m a loyal fan of minimalism and simplism. I see people around me love it too. Of course, there are several people love the 3-days-reading email or letter, but from their spouses far far away, not from a real estate agent trying to sell shit to them. So, please get real. Keep it short and sweet, don’t write it more than 6 sentences. TL;DR, remember that.

Clear Call To Action.

Tell people what to do. I mean, what exactly they do have to do right after reading those words. Some people sent me an email and after reading three times, I was like, “so, what the hell do you want from me now”. Just be straight like: Click here, sign up here or Call me now…

A/B Testing before mass sending.

Use at least 2 versions of the email. Test them for around 20% of your mailing list and see what works best. Then apply it to the rest.

Follow up with 2nd email.

If people didn’t reply the first email, keep chasing them with the 2nd, 3rd email. Just be polite, asking them as if they were so busy that they didn’t have time to read it or by an accident, they delete or skip it. Give you a reason to email them again.

Here is my most favorite one:

Hey A,

You have problem Z, I’m doing Y, I can help you with Z. So B told me to connect with you. What time next week works best for a phone call?