If I had to give a lecture series on marketing, here's 11 points I'd include:

1. Data is like protein:

It’s valuable - but it shouldn’t be your *only* input.

If all your decisions are guided by A/B tests, you’ll eventually end up with a porn site.

Flying is accidentally the best ever environment for DEEP work and reflection.

Writers like @rickygervais do their best work on airplanes.

Here's 6 reasons why.

THREAD...

What looks like a bug - can often be a feature.

“A change of perspective is worth 80 IQ points.”

The restrictions we face on airplanes is what makes the experience so liberating.

AIRPLANE FEATURE 1 - HIGH EXIT COSTS

You can't find any escapes.

If you try to escape, you face death.

Negative incentives are built into the system.

"Incentives are a super power." - Charlie Munger

AIRPLANE ADVANTAGE 2 - NO INPUTS

There's no newsfeeds to refresh. No emails to reply to.

It's like knowing your heroin dealer is in a coma.

Boredom is built into the system.

Your monkey mind can't access dopamine - so it starts creating its own.

It is a distraction-free environment:

1. No socialising - You don't know anyone. No small talk.

2. No sound inputs - The engine acts as white noise.

3. No visual inputs - The seating structure means you see barely anybody.

THREAD: The top 0.1% of ideas I’ve stumbled upon on the internet.

The rabbit holes (without the distractions).

1. Directional Arrows of Progress

“Study the undeniable arrows of progress.” - @wolfejosh

• The future is kinda like a crossword puzzle.

• Nobody is going to spell out for you - but clues exist.

• Wolfe uses the trend line of history as clues for the future.

• E.g. Look at this directional arrow of progress

• Every time the computer gets more powerful, smaller and closer to our bodies.

• Wolfe used this trend line to bet that Brain-Machine interfaces will be huge and started funding companies in the space.

2. The Cobra Effect

”When a measure becomes a goal, it ceases to become a measure” - @G_S_Bhogal

• British colonialists tried to reduce the snake population in India.

• They offered bounties for dead cobras with cash given out to the killers

• The incentives back-fired...

• The local population started breeding cobras & killing them.

• When the government discovered this, the reward program was scrapped.

• The cobra breeders then released their $0 snakes into the street, making the problem much worse.

THREAD: 15 of the most useful razors and rules I've found.

Rules of thumb that simplify decisions.

Bezos' Razors:

• If unsure what action to take, let your 80-year-old self make it.

• If unsure who to work with, pick the person that has the best chances of breaking you out of a 3rd world prison.

Skinner's Law:

• If procrastinating on an item, you only have 2 options:

1. Make the pain of not doing it greater than the pain of doing it.

2. Make the pleasure of doing it greater than the pleasure of not doing it.

Luck Razor:

• If stuck with 2 equal options, pick the one that feels like it will produce the most luck later down the line.

I used this razor to go for drinks with a stranger rather than watch Netflix.

In hindsight, it was the highest ROI decision I've ever made.

Bragging Razor:

• If someone brags about their success or happiness, assume it’s half what they claim.

• If someone downplays their success or happiness, assume it’s double what they claim.

The map is not the terrain.

4 Learning phases:

1. Unconscious incompetence - "I don't know how bad I am"

2. Conscious incompetence - "This sucks. I know how bad I am"

3. Conscious competence - "I can do this if I focus"

4. Unconscious competence - "I don't remember the last 10 minutes of driving my car"

Based on my many years experience, I’ve developed 24 laws of ad tech product management. These are “laws”, meaning they are always true, everywhere. Thread...

1. If you add something to targeting, it also must be in reporting.

2. The answer to the question “Do you need to forecast this?” is always yes.

3. The answer to “Is this forecast working well?” is always no.

4. If you give an agency customer two options, they will always choose “both.”

Why promoting yourself/your business/your ideas feels uncomfortable:

You must repeat things that are obvious to you until they become obvious to others.

This is why most people hire marketers or outsource the amplification of their message.

The problem with that is no one is an invested as you are, and no one knows your message like you do.

And why those who break through their discomfort reach an escape velocity that eludes most.

This is a difficult and unnatural process, hence the upside on the other side.

Another way to think about it is the famous shelf analogy:

No one wants a drill they want a hole, no one wants a hole they want a shelf, no one wants a shelf they want to a place to put books to look smart, etc.

People care about the 2nd, 3rd, 4th order effects of your work.

I took Ogilvy's course on Behavioural Economics and Comsumer psychology.

Here are the 10 important theory's I learned from it which you'd be a fool to miss out on:

Loss aversion theory:

The negative psychological impact we feel from losing something is about twice as strong as the positive impact of gaining the same thing.

Finding ₹100$ would makes us happy
Losing ₹100$ would makes us 2X unhappy

Sentence Framing:

The way you frame your sentences is very important. Make them forget about the negative thing by reiterating something which might be positive. We have a stronger bias for things that sound positive.

10% chance of death Vs 90% chance of survival

Goal Gradient Hypothesis:

Humans are hardwired for instant gratification.
as people get closer to the reward, they speed their behavior. So, reward people sooner instead of later

eg: Don't make a goal of reading 52 books a year, make it 1 chapter per day.

Mental Anchoring:

It's the phenomenon where our decisions are heavily based on the 1st piece of information we receive, regardless of whether the information is relevant or not.

Make the first piece of information powerful.

Over the last 5 years, I’ve helped build courses taken by 40,000 students w/ $30M+ in revenue.

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Read on

A CBC on CBCs is a bit meta. But it's the best way to teach a complex topic that benefits from hands-on projects, peers, feedback.

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It’s the same process I’ve used for @alt_MBA @david_perell @fortelabs

Structure and accountability:

The course creation process is complex. There are lots of interconnected
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