Your first customer

Enough with the top-down total addressable market (TAM). Enough with the press releases, the ads, the unsolicited e-mails, the planning, the strategizing and the writing of comprehensive business plans. Your first customer is the hardest one you’ll get, and by far the most important. And the best way to get it is to pitch your idea to people that might want to buy your product.

That first customer will provide market validation – i.e. someone actually needs your product. It will provide feedback – i.e. the little hints, tips, tricks and tweaks that focus your product offering to best service the customer. And finally it provides you with a reference, meaning someone that can actually communicate that the product had value to your second, third, your forth and so on, customer.

So pick up that phone and start pitching!

Designing a simple business part I: Working that idea

This is the first in a series of posts I plan on the topic of designing a simple business. The idea for the series started when I realized simplicity is a common feature of many of the great startups that are out there. If you can visualize a business it’s easier to evaluate it, and improve the individual parts. This first post deals with the initial idea, and the main message about your initial idea is to get you to simplify your idea - don’t bite off more than you can chew.

What is a business idea? - The three components.
A business starts off with an idea. The idea should be something that creates value for someone, said value must be deliverable to whomever it creates value for, and there should be some way of capturing this value (including protecting it). If this process seems simple for a particular idea, it’s easier to think of it as good.

A good idea exemplified
Imagine you’re the inventor of corrective eyewear (i.e. glasses). Until now there has been no product which deals with bad sight. You can probably pretty quickly see roughly how you could go about making money on this idea. Corrective eyewear creates value for people that have poor eyesight, it can be delivered through for example pharmacies, and you can capture the value through charging money on the spot. Additionally it is likely that you could protect the idea with patent, for instance the use of optical lenses for correcting eyesight should be patentable if you are the first to think of it.

The simplicity that makes this idea good comes from three aspects. Firstly, the idea deals with a specific need. Secondly, there is a clear path to market which may not cost you too much (i.e. it’s “doable”), and lastly there is a clear way to make money, as well as a clear model of how you can protect the idea (patent) while you build a strong market position.

Simplify your idea!
Too often entrepreneurs pitch ideas that are just too complex, and it comes from the typical business/engineering school instinct of wanting to cover everything. Every customer, every need that customer have/will come across in the foreseeable future. Every possible product that can cover these needs, and every application of said product. The reason we do this is that we think there’s more money in more customers, and more products. Which of course there is. However, very few companies end up where they thought they were going. Starting a business is all about adaptation. And to be successful, you need an idea that you can test systematically and improve upon.

Note that it’s not always that complex ideas are bad. They’re just hard to test objectively, because you cannot separate the issues. For this reason I propose that the first thing to do when starting a business is to simplify the business idea.

A complex idea
The other day I met a young aspiring entrepreneur. He was full of life, and eager to tell me his idea. I paraphrase:

“So what I was thinking was to automate grocery stores, so customers can just make a shopping list online, say when they want to pick their goods up, and just appear at the store. Also there would be no one working in this store, so you would check out everything yourself. Furthermore all inventories would be updated at the suppliers, so everything would always be in stock, but just enough to handle the daily demand”.

Ok, I thought, as he continued:

“Now I’m into automation, so I would make a system where deliveries would be made at the back and everything would be tagged with RFID-chips,( there’s so many cool things you can do with those), robots would then sort the goods and pick out what people order into bags. So everything’s ready when the customers appear!”

So what’s the need anyway?
This idea is so complex, and includes so many different aspects, that it's really hard to understand even what the actual need is. At first it seems the need is for a simpler shopping experience. But is it really simpler to go to a website and pick everything you need? How would you pay, do you need to enter your credit card number or would you pay on pick up? Do you need an account? How do you verify that the person that picks it up is the right person? What if someone else picks up your groceries after you paid for them? It could be a simpler shopping experience, but maybe it’s really just a faster shopping experience? Maybe removing the need for staff is a significant cost reduction for a store? Or is it just a cooler shopping experience?

In any case simpler and faster in this context are secondary needs. The consumer’s primary need is for groceries. Imagine the complexity of creating a grocery chain in and of itself. Imagine to then try to make it simpler and faster! Indeed you would have to compete on a lot of other factors as well. Would you for example be equipped to keep the salad green? And I'm not even going to attempt to comment on the capital needs to make this happen.

Let’s simplify!
Creating a new grocery store is very complex, and I think we can agree that doing so is probably not something you'd want to do. And if you are not deterred yet, let me assure you that you will not have an easy time raising funds for such a venture.

But there's a silver lining, because surely there are great ideas within this idea. From the idea, we can find many smaller ideas. The point is to start with something simple, something that you can easily test against the market. One way we can go about extracting ideas from his idea, is by looking at the needs, and finding solutions to service them. Let’s look at the need for lower costs for grocery stores, and see if we can extract something simpler. Now I’m not claiming that this is a good (or new) idea - just that it’s simpler, and therefore easier to understand and test in a structured way. Let us then ask the question, "how can we use automation to cut costs in a grocery store?"

A simpler idea to lower costs for grocery stores
One of the main drivers of costs for grocery stores is the staff. The main bulk of people working at grocery stores are those that scan items and receive payment. So if we could automate checkout it would represent a clear cost reduction. One way to do this is by allowing customers to do this job themselves. Self-checkout would be presented in stations, each station consisting of 5 registers, each with a scanner and a system for payment. At each station one clerk would be stationed to help customers that need help, to receive cash payments (if this is important to incorporate of course), and to make sure everyone is using it correctly (e.g. so they don’t leave without paying). The solution could be delivered on a store-by-store basis, so that a chain of stores would try it out at some locations first, and then scale it up when they were comfortable using the system. Value could be captured through a leasing based plan, and the idea would be protected by moving quickly to gain a first mover advantage (for those that believe in that sort of thing).

Evaluating the idea
Regardless of whether the idea above is good or not, we certainly understand better what it’s all about now. If we decided to start a company commercializing this technology we could write down hundreds of clear and testable hypotheses about the market, which we could then proceed to test, for instance:
-    Grocery chains wish to reduce costs by replacing staff
-    Customers are willing to check out their own goods
-    Cash payments are important for customers
-    Customers will generally be honest when scanning their merchandise

Some things would be confirmed, and some things would be completely different from expected. These things would have to be sorted out. This is where the real innovation lies. For example, if customers are dis-honest, how can you make the check-out desks verify that all goods was scanned, and that the correct goods was scanned?

Of course it’s not that straight forward in real life, you still need to consider your competitors, make a strategy to avoid being copied too soon, facilitate production, consider your costs and pricing structure, and so on. However, you can now visualize how the business might look. This is a necessary first step to formulating the hypothesis that needs to be true in order for your business to flourish. The next step would then be to start testing these

The next post will look more closely on evaluating your idea, and deals with the 10 questions you should spend 15 minutes asking yourself before you move ahead to more advanced and time consuming analysis' of your idea.

Lessons learned:
-    Ideas should ideally include how your business might create, capture and deliver value.
-    When you see how an idea might work, it’s easier to formulate testable hypotheses about the product.
-    Complex ideas, that are hard to visualize can and should be simplified.

What I mean by "Killer Customers"

I find myself inventing terms sometimes, and lately I’ve been using the term killer customer as a parallel to killer applications. Today I thought I’d share with you what I mean by it and why it’s a good term to have in the back of your mind when considering start-ups.

A killer application is that thing about your product that is so awesome that it just compels people to buy it. It’s that first application of the technology that proves its worth. For example last year I came to talk with a student at the University of Oslo who had worked with some other people to create a software that reduced lag in networking. It would only have to be installed on a server and it would use some previously unused capacity to send redundant information and thus reduce lag significantly. My first thought when I heard about this was: “Give it to me! I’ll make us all millionaires”. Unfortunately (for me) it turns out it was open source, and the code was already meant to be implemented into the Linux kernel. But that’s really besides the point, the point is that I could see a killer application at once. Online gaming. Everyone that has ever played a MMO over a bad connection with loads of packet loss will understand why this is a good idea.

With this in mind, it's easy to imagine a killer customer: World of Warcraft. If this technology hadn't been open source it’s likely that they would gladly pay a lot to have it implemented. And with Blizzard on board it would just be a matter of calling those other MMO games to stack up the other millions. When that market is saturated you could go after video streaming, stock market information, and so on. A great opportunity.

The killer customers, thus, are the obvious customers that will give you cash flow quickly. Sometimes killer customers are those that need your product badly, and that will be glad to pay for it. Other times it may be someone that agrees to let you use them as a reference. For example I once met up with a start-up in Houston that was a spin-out from a major oil company, the company had extremely low market risk because the oil company had committed to being its customer should it succeed in productizing their technology. Having killer customers reduce your market risk, and will give you a much easier time getting funding and getting people to trust that your company will succeed. You don’t need to call them killer customers of course, just remember that the first customer is extremely valuable!

If you liked this post or any other post feel free to click the “follow” button to the right to stay tuned to new posts when they appear. You can also follow me on Twitter as @vetleen.

16 One-liner lessons about entrepreneurship

I came over this post where Pam Moore (@pammktgnut) asks entrepreneurs to share their most important lesson in less than 140 signs. There certainly were a lot of great answers, but I have selected 16 one-liners that I thought was the best. So in descending order, building up to the best quotes, I give you 16 one-liner lessons about entrepreneurship:

#16

“Cash flow, cash flow, cash flow – never as much or as quick as needed; and, the more successful your company is, the more critical cash is.”

(Marshall Maglothin - Owner of Blue Oak Consulting)

#15

"Only buy from manufacturers that treat customers like you treat your customers. (...) find manufacturers that appreciate your business.”

(Julie Walbrun - Owner of YellowBearShop.com)

#14

“Most of your initial business will not come from where you expected. Have alternatives for those who promise to deliver – they often let you down.“

(Diarmuid Sexton - Director at Adroit People  )

#13

"Your principal competitor is typically not another company like yours; it's often your client deciding to do it themselves without you."

(Bob Kenney - President at Kenney Marketing & Advertising)

#12

“Persistence is the key to longevity, and I have learned quickly not to take ‘No’ personally.“

(Ned Van Riper – Director at Finetooth Consulting)

#11

“The simple stuff is so important.
Answer your phone when it rings.
Be early to every appointment.
Always be positive... even when it’s a bad day.“

(Paul Gruenther - Senior Real Estate Consultant)

#10

"Have passion! It's contagious."

(Lisa Chang - Director at Yenius Interactive Marketing and at inTouch Broadcast)

#9

"Networking is not about selling - it's about contributing to others, building relationships and being authentic at all times."

(Debra Brown - Director at Mastery Path Community Interest Company and at Global Hugs Ltd)

#8

"Identify what critically needs to be done and get on with it without delay."

(Mark Ridgwell - Business Strategist at Knowledge Genes)

#7

“Realize what you think is your business could possibly change, don't be afraid to adjust the mold. It's your mold so bend it as you please.”

(Lisa Cash Hanson - President / Owner at  Blueberry Baboon  )

#6

"Never take Business advice from a lawyer - Take legal advice from a lawyer."

(Tony Robinson - President/CTO at Pioneer Technology)

#5

“Take responsibility for failures just as you do successes.”

(Thomas Rees - Founding Manager at Rees Networks, LLC and SoberLivingSearch.com)

#4

"I've learned to add in a fudge factor to estimates so I can under promise and over deliver."

(John Gilbert - Consulting Entrepreneur and Owner at Add-Options)

#3

"Be ready to shift your position and stance. Rigidity is equivalent to rigor mortis."

(Kalpesh Desai - Advisor to the Board at Columbus IT Middle East and Chief Executive Officer at Agile Financial Technologies)

#2

“The most important factor in any business is connecting with customers. Without customers, you don't run a business, you have a hobby.”

(Donnie Bryant - Owner and Direct Response Copywriter at Donnie Bryant)

#1

"Be humble and patient, but bold and aggressive, know your plan always and update daily."

(Kyle G. Porter - Founder at Sports Bar Digital and Principal at KGP Consulting)

So there it is! If you liked this post or any other post feel free to click the “follow” button to the right to stay tuned to new posts when they appear. You can also follow me on Twitter as @vetleen.

Killer apps and USP’s – find them, use them!

New products need to provide value. We all know that. But further than that it needs to be clear what the product does and why people should care. This will let your product escape the trap Google Buzz, New Coke (or even better Crystal Pepsi), Cosmopolitan Yogurt, Palm, other PDA’s, and countless other products that no one in the world could understand what were good for went right into. Products need to have a clear intrinsic purpose, and they need a company around them that clearly explains externally what the product is, what it does, and why we should care.

New products should have a killer application. For example Twitter’s killer app was status messages that fit into a text message. Now it’s important to note that a killer app isn’t necessarily what you will end up doing. The killer app is what you start out doing! Today I don’t care if Twitter updates fit into a text, now I use it because I already am. Killer apps allow you to find a niche that’s big enough for you to start growing your business. For example I think that in [insert random number here] years there will be a big company that deals in robots, kind of like a Microsoft of robots. If I wanted to start that company today, I wouldn’t care what robots would be in 20 years, I would find a small niche in which to start making robots today that could provide me a basis for new niches and eventually a world leadership in robots. Maybe I would start with toy robots? Certainly I could make a lot of fun stuff without requiring too much AI at the offset? Nevertheless a killer application is something more specific. It’s something that makes my robots intrinsically better than other robots. Maybe my toy robots could play board games? Certainly the technology to allow robots to play the games already exist, the only technological challenge left would be to get the robot to recognize the game, the location of the pieces and give it the ability to move the pieces autonomously.

USP’s are something else, they’re extrinsic, but they are very much related to killer apps. A USP is a Unique Selling Proposition, to understand it fully you should go to your local supermarket, locate the aisle that has toothpaste and read the tag lines. Every brand will have toothpaste for whiter teeth, cleaner teeth, anti-bacterial, anti-bad breath and a few that attempt to do it all. Think about it, do you really think there’s a lot of difference? Most of the toothpaste is just filler anyway, the parts that differentiate the products are measured in parts per million, so it likely wouldn’t be all that difficult to put all the good stuff in a single ultimate toothpaste. Continuing the robot example above, we could for example use “A friend for life”, or “Playmates forever” as a USP. This is how people understand your product. Notice that the USP don’t only separate the product from other robots, but other toys as well.

The difference between the two is that the killer application is the use of your product; the USP is what separates your product from all those others in the mind of the consumer. For start-ups however you often find yourself being so original that your product will be mentally sorted in a new category. In these cases, it pays to use the killer app to create a USP because you fortify your position as the one that provides that application. Combining a clear view of killer apps, niche markets, product positioning and business strategy will align different interests in your company so that product designers, business strategists, marketers, finance people, sales people and so on all understand what the company is setting out to do, and can agree on it.

If you liked this post or any other post feel free to click the “follow” button to the right to stay tuned to new posts when they appear. You can also follow me on Twitter as @vetleen.

What Facebook is missing out on...

It strikes me as somewhat absurd that Facebook don’t see the opportunity they are presented with in face of the recent criticism. The criticism, as you are probably well aware off, is in my view best summed up in Leif Harmsen’s words “It is not ‘your’ Facebook profile. It is Facebook’s profile about you”, he considers it a repressive regime akin to North Korea, and he’s not alone. Yet this isn’t anything new. It’s more a case of the “commoners” starting to question what the more tech savvy ones of us have questioned for quite some time, and thus the topic has gained some momentum in the mainstream press as well.

The problem is obvious, as problems often are, but the solutions keep escaping the minds of clever people. Or does it really? A related debate I have followed since I first heard a discussion about social networking 3.0 at Stanford in 2007, is about how we can transfer ownership, and more importantly control over user information to the users. The simplest solution is of course just to pressure sites like Facebook to change their terms of use, but a more lasting solution would include the possibility for users to bring their friends, pictures and other information with them between social networking sites. Undoubtedly there are many design issues for such a system, for example I certainly have multiple online identities; my Facebook content isn’t really suitable for my LinkedIn page and so on. And where would my information be hosted? Would I have to buy server space in case someone wanted to view my profile while I was online? Would the standard allow new networking sites to add slots for specific information that were only suitable for that site (like favorite recipes for a cooking site, or where I’ve been for a scuba diving site), and how would I controll what and how much  information is sent to each site I visit?

This however isn’t the biggest problem; the reason why such systems haven’t been implemented is that no one with the leverage to create this system has done it yet. This system has to be made by the right people, people that can reach critical mass. At present, only geeks and idealists would bother to learn how to use a totally new system, especially because something like that sounds very complicated. The average user doesn’t want complicated stuff, they want simplicity, and they just want to use the product. So to reach critical mass for such a system you would have to have some way of gaining a lot of users for it fast. Like a big already existing user base, like Facebook has, but wait - why should Facebook make this system? Facebook like it the way it is, they own your content (or their content about you to be accurate), and can use it for pretty much whatever they want. In addition to this Facebook enjoys users that have extremely high switching costs, something which might be their biggest competitive advantage. It seems that Facebook is in a perfect place.

So why should Facebook do it?
The first reason why Facebook should create a system for sharing information is that it would buy them credit. It would buy them credit with the tech community for being open and with the media for listening to them. It would buy them credit with normal users because they would feel safer and because they have the option to leave. Remember why some people escaped the Matrix? It turned out that given an unconscious choice nearly 99 % of test subjects would accept the program anyway. I see no reason why this shouldn’t hold true for Facebook as well, as the primary reason people leave is because they are malcontent by Facebook’s closed systems and strict privacy policy (at least if we believe random Internet chatter - which we do).

Secondly, and maybe more importantly, I believe that if Facebook don’t do this, others will. Services such as Google Accounts and Open ID don’t have a long way to go to allow users to store information that at their request can used by third party sites. Right now Facebook can deny Open ID and other such services to provide login to their site, but can they still do that in 3 years? Right now they can delay the inevitable move to such services, but as I wrote in a blog post some time ago, change happens when change is due. Change isn’t always created willingly, it’s just there and those that catch the wave gain momentum, furthermore no surfer ever caught the back of a wave. If people gets used to logging in to their favorite sites through a third party provider, I’m not sure Facebook can withhold the pressure.

The third reason Facebook should use their user base to create an open, user owned system that can transfer information easily from site to site is that whatever disadvantage Facebook sees in having users logging in to their site via a third party provider will be Facebook’s advantage against new social sites. If users are used to using their Facebook login when they log into pages on the net, they will expect new sites to follow this convention, thus granting Facebook some limited power to monitor and control new services.

The fourth reason Facebook should do this is because there’s bound to be a business model in it. What this model is, I’m not sure, but it could for example be that commercial sites would have to pay a small fee to use the service, or that when you log in you get redirected through Facebook’s ad page.

The fifth and final reason is that this would be a good first step towards extending into new forms of web services. When users already have a login, it should be easier to gain momentum for new and exciting products. Google has already realized this when they launched both Wave and Buzz (though this seems to be bad examples, as both services are virtual ghost towns). Having a customer base like Facebook’s is an incredible asset, in the case of Facebook an asset that remains close to unexploited. Surely marketing new web services through Facebook would ensure enough users to create critical mass for many services?

Maybe Facebook as we know it today is just a stepping stone? I certainly think that they should consider expanding their services, and specifically they should start making a product that they could easily gain market leadership with almost immediately, namely an open profile service that provides an API for other services to let users log in with their Facebook profiles. With the share number of users Facebook has it shouldn’t be a problem becoming the market leader in this "sort of related" market.

If you liked this post or any other post feel free to click the “follow” button to the right to stay tuned to new posts when they appear. You can also follow me on Twitter as @vetleen.

"It’s all about making each other good"

When I was a kid I followed football (or soccer as some would have us believe it’s called), and as any kid I was cheering for my local team - Rosenborg. As faith would have it Rosenborg was by far the best team in Norway, and I’m not saying that just because it was my team, they actually won the Premier Division every year from 1992 – 2004, exactly when I was growing up. They were world class, yet they were comprised of mainly local heroes. It would almost be an exaggeration to say they were a professional team, I mean Norway is small and the town I’m from even smaller, so that the pool of players that could be recruited locally were limited. In fact it’s said that when Rosenborg played Milan (a game which they won 2-1) in the 1996-97 season of the Champions League, that the captain of Rosenborg were so psyched to meet these “real” players that he asked them all for their autographs before the game started. So how could this little team of local heroes win against teams such as AC Milan, Olympiacos or Borussia Dortmund?

The coach of this particular team was another local hero that had in his days been a pretty good player and had played for Rosenborg and Vålerenga in the 1960’s. To this day I’m convinced that it was he that made Rosenborg so great and that it to a large part was two things that he firmly believed. Firstly he believed in always being offensive, under his reign Rosenborg consequently followed a 4-3-3 formation, which for those of you who don’t know the sport that well is a fairly offensive set-up. Secondly, and maybe more importantly he believed in having each individual tone down for the good of the team, he meant that if everyone tried to get the team better the team would be better than the sum of the talent. I remember hearing him speak once, I must have been about 10 years old, and he said this, he said “It’s all about making each other good”. And that’s a sentence that has resonated with me ever since. A week or so later I saw a game they played and I noticed that two of their players had played their way past the goal keeper, which had given up about 10 meters or so behind them. They were both at the goal line and one of them has the ball and could easily have put it in, but he didn’t, he passed it to his friend and let him score the goal. This so drove home the idea that it’s all about the team and not about individual glory.

I think we all have something to learn from this, if you make those around you shine they might shine on you next. In fact it’s inevitable. I try to make this my philosophy to, when we have exams at school I don’t mind sharing my thoughts on how to read or how to write assignments, when I work somewhere I don’t mind sharing my expertise with others and when I have a business idea I tell everyone I know about it. And if someone asks if they can have it, or use it, or even just tell someone else about it, I say “of course – go crazy”. Why do I do this? Well, firstly I don’t think anybody will steal my ideas without my permission (they’re honestly not -that- great), but more importantly I wouldn’t mind it if they did. How could that be bad for me?

If you liked this post or any other post feel free to click the “follow” button to the right to stay tuned to new posts when they appear. You can also follow me on Twitter as @vetleen.

Are you a bottom-up or a top-down thinker?

It’s such a cliché that entrepreneurship and innovation is dependent on creativity. Personally I think creativity is a good thing, but generally I think people attribute the success wrongly to creativity. What’s really the reason that creative thinkers succeed, it seems to me at least, is not so much their creativity but what causes it. Creative thinkers are relentless bottom-up thinkers and it’s this bottom-up thinking that causes them to be both successful and creative.

So what is this notion of bottom-up and top-down thinking? Well, imagine that you are writing your business plan and you come to the part where you need to estimate sales, this should be a well known situation for most entrepreneurs. A top-down thinker will start at the top, he will say something like, well, the market for my product is a $4 billion market, and if I get 1 % of that I’ll make $40 millions. A bottom-up thinker will start at the bottom, he will say something like, I know I can sell my product to these 15 companies, which means I’ll make $2 million. Then when I have those as references I believe I can get those other 100 companies, and then I’ll get those 1000 over there.

This is a mindset that works in many situations. In product development the top-down thinker will start by looking at what the product will look like when it’s done. The bottom-up thinker will start by looking at what is at his disposal, and then try to see what can be achieved. A similar notion has been termed effectual reasoning versus causal reasoning. Causal reasoning is the kind of reasoning thought in business schools. Student’s get to start with pre-determined goals, often set in the text of an assignment and some knowledge or assumptions that they are given, from this point they need to navigate their way, using theory, to the correct answer. The sad part is that causal reasoning is also thought in elementary schools and up, so by the time we get to university level most remnants of effectual thinking has disappeared. Is this why entrepreneurs such as Richard Branson, Steve jobs, Michael Dell, Coco Channel, Walt Disney, Henry Ford, Bill Gates and Ty Warner all dropped out of school?

Effectual thinkers don’t necessarily start with a predetermined goal, they start with what’s available to them and look at what they can achieve using those resources. When you think like that you also become more creative. A good example is an assignment some students got at Stanford. They were divided in to 14 groups and each group received an envelope with $5 in seed capital in it, they were told that the assignment was to make as much money as possible until next week’s class. They could plan as much as they wanted, but when they opened the envelope they would only have two hours to complete the task. Interestingly, none of the three top groups used the seed funding. But that’s another story. The winning group made $600 in 2 hours. Such an assignment, though it had a predefined goal of making money, is a practice in effectual thinking because they had no limitations on what to do. The students were only given the resources ($5 and an Ivy League education) and had to come up with ideas as to how to act themselves.

I see way too little of this kind of thinking going around. Business managers do stay away from this kind of reasoning, and in many situations rightly so. I wonder however if there is a way to switch between the two sets and use whatever is appropriate for the situation? The really sad part is that we don’t teach our children and our future leaders to think bottom-up or effectually. In fact we teach them not to. The ideal thinking in the civilized world is causal and top-down, firmly founded in the scientific method. Maybe it’s time to see what would happen if we let children talk back and challenge our ideas? Maybe we would be surprised, and maybe they would turn in to decent human beings anyway? Well, I’m digressing, but in any case I think that we need to rethink. The lesson from this was meant to have you think about what kind of thinker you are. In many cases it seems to me that each way of thinking has its pros and cons, but if we can learn to use both sets of thinking we can surely be much better thinkers.

If you liked this post or any other post feel free to click the “follow” button to the right to stay tuned to new posts when they appear. You can also follow me on Twitter as @vetleen.