@aprildunford is the leading authority on Product Positioning, and an author of a book on the same topic - "Obviously Awesome". She recently was on @lennysan's podcast and shared gyaan on "How to nail your Product Positioning".

I used @AskThePod  to summarize the video 🧵 🧵🧵

What is Positioning?

Positioning defines how your product is best in the world at delivering some value that matters to a set of customers in a market.
It helps differentiate you from competitors and explain to customers why they should choose it over other options.

April shares a step by step process for coming up with the positioning.. Here it is -

1. Assemble a cross-functional team: The cross-functional team should include marketing, sales, product, customer success, and founders. To do it right, you need alignment across the org.

2. Identify Competitive Alternatives: This is different from competition. This also includes status quo - excel sheet, interns etc. Identify all your competitive alternatives, what they do, and how they differ from your product. Know what your positioning against?

3. Determine Differentiated Capabilities: What capabilities that I have as a product or as a company that the alternatives don't have? Determine the unique features and strengths of your product, how it stands out from competitors, and what value it delivers.

4. Identify Value Themes: Translate capabilities into "So What" for customers to come up with Value.  Group these into buckets. Because you did Step3, that means these value themes are differentiated for your company/product and not something that any other alternative can claim

5. Determine who cares about this differentiated value: What are the characteristic of the target account that makes them care about this differentiated value that I can offer? Which segments in the market care more about what I offer?

6. Label the Market Category: What's the context that I position my product in such that the value is obvious to the customers.

7. Create Sales Narrative based on the positioning: Targeting the customers that we identified earlier in Step #5. The narrative should focus on the value proposition and differentiators of the product. Marketing can create messaging based on this, Product team can plan roadmap.


8. Validate the narrative with customers - Sales usually drives this. Marketing, Product can sit in on the calls for the first few pitches to see if the customers are getting it. If the new pitch works with prospects, then marketing should reflect the same story.


9. Adapt over time - Your product shifts, Markets shift, so your Positioning also shouldn't remain static over time. You should revisit your positioning every 6 months or so and adpat it.


@aprildunford and @lennysan go into a lot more detail in the video and share a number of examples to make things concrete. Do watch the full video at -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdjlCLb9Hl8


Product Positioning Tips from April Dunford

Thanks to the success of programming careers for last 2 decades, lots of #parents have been focusing on teaching their kids #programming
But I think it is the wrong skill to be teaching if your kids are to be successful in the next decade.
What's the right skill to teach? 1/

It's almost guaranteed that in a decade the rise of AI and no-code would make writing code obsolete. Here's a a year old video about Codex by @OpenAI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGUCcjHTmGY
It's insane that you can create a web page, a video game just by some written text instructions.  2/

The pace at which #AI is growing it's almost guaranteed that it will be easily able to take care of basic level of tasks such as generating code, writing copy, creating logos etc. 3/

So what's the right skill to teach kids if not programming?
IMHO it's #ProblemSolving. If you can recognize a problem that a group of a people have, and a find a creative solution that problem. The "how" would be taken care by AI and other innovations.
#FutureOfEducation 4/4


If you are selling a service or a product - Economic utility - is an important concept you should understand.
It is the usefulness that consumers derive from your good or service.
There are four main types of economic utility: form, time, place, and possession.

1.Form utility
The usefulness that comes from the physical form of the good or service.
@allbirds shoes is an example of form utility. They created a new “form” for their shoes that is more comfortable than others. As a result, they can charge a premium from their customers.

2. Time utility

The satisfaction that comes from the timing of the good or service. For example, firecrackers that are available for purchase a week before Diwali are more useful than the firecrackers that are available a week after Diwali.

3. Place utility
The satisfaction that comes from the convenient location of the good or service. For example, a grocery store that is located near a your home is more useful than one located far away.
Delivery Services - UberEats, AmazonPrime are examples of Place utility

Possession utility
The satisfaction that comes from owning the good or service. For example, a car that is owned by the consumer is more useful than a car that is rented by the consumer. NFTs can be a good example of possession utility as well.

To increase the chances of success of your product or service, try to include more than one (ideally all) type of Economic Utility.

You can read the unrolled version of this thread here: https://typefully.com/riteshchopra/VhEX7ci

Increase the success of your product/service with Economic Utility

1/ US Dollar has been the formally World’s Reserve Currency since 1944, but there’s an increasing risk that this may not continue forever. 
It might surprise Americans but there were other reserve currencies before USD. Here’s a chart with history

What does this mean for you

2/ Ray Dalio has talked about this extensively in his interviews and in his book “Changing World Order”
He believes as China becomes the largest trading partner in the world, Renmibi might become the World’s reserve currency. 

https://youtu.be/Wqjxyk4GMts

3/ A recent development in this area has been BRICS countries  coming together to discuss a new world reserve currency to challenge the US Dollar. 

The new reserve currency may be based on basket of commodities such as Gold, Silver, Copper etc.

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/currencies/dollar-dominance-russia-china-rouble-yuan-brics-reserve-currency-imf-2022-6

4/What should I do about it?

Diversify your portfolio.
Consider investing other assets not correlated to dollar.
Gold, Bitcoin etc may be good bets.
Invest in stock markets across the globe - ETFs such as iShares MSCI China or Emerging Markets can give you the necessary exposure

5/ Is this the right time?
I had earlier written about using “Portfolio Rebalancing” as a way to “Buy Low and Sell High”.

Dollar has been shooting up against other currencies. This may be a perfect time to Sell High and gradually start DCAing your way out of the dollar

https://twitter.com/riteshchopra/status/1481115494597943296?s=21&t=602cdZMb76sT4Crda7zziw

End of Dollar as World's Reserve Currency

I was among the list of users of #RoamResearch who have been disappointed with the lack of innovation over the last year. 

But I am very happy and excited about launch of #RoamDepot. 
Here are 4 plugins from Roam Depot that I think you must check out - 🧵 🧵 🧵 

1. @matter - Matter IMHO is the best read-it-later app in the market today. It’s the best way to read all the newsletters that you are subscribed to and keep your Inbox clean. 

The extension automatically syncs highlights to Roam, making it super easy to revisit key points later

2. @PhoneToNote - For people who complain about Roam being slow to load.. This might be the best solution to take a quick note.. You can use SMS, Email, Alfred, Zapier etc to send a note. My fav is the Telegram bot.

2.1 Bonus use-case - If you use Youtube for learning like I do. You can take a bunch of screenshots of things you want to remember and send to Roam via Telegram bot.. (btw Roam add images from phone sucks)

3. SmartBlocks - Probably the most popular Roam plugin by @dvargas92495 is on Roam Depot now. Check out more about this powerful plugin here - https://roamjs.com/extensions/roam42/smartblocks

4. QueryBuilder - Roam queries are one of the most powerful feature. Unfortunately, they are not super easy to use. Query Builder makes it easy to write query using familiar UX patterns. Once again thanks to @dvargas92495 for this plugin.


There are many other plugins worth checking out. In case you haven’t used #RoamDepot till date, do so today. 

You can read the unrolled version of this thread here: https://typefully.com/riteshchopra/nUq64m9

Roam Depot - 4 plugins you need to install today

1/ Did you that the “chain” in blockchain is actually built using a mathematical function called “Hash Function”?
Each block in the blockchain has a reference to the hash of the previous block,thus tieing them all in a chain (or a linked list)

Learn more about Hash function ↓↓

2/ Hash function is a mathematical function that takes data of any size and return an output of fixed size.
It is used to scramble the raw input so it cannot be recognized as it is sent over the internet.

Some interesting attributes about the Hash Function ↓↓↓

3.1/ No matter how big the size of the input the output is always of the same size.

So you could take one Tweet and get the hash of same size. 
Or you could take the entirety of all Tweets ever and still get the hash of same size.

SHA-256 generates the output of 256 bits.


3.2/ Hash functions is that they only work one way - You can give the same input and get the same output hash everytime. But you cannot get provide the output and recreate the input. The only way to guess the input would be Brute Force which would be too expensive. 

3.3/ Even a small change in the input will lead to a entirely different output. This helps detect any tampering with the inputs. 

If an attacker tries to modify one transaction in a block, the hash of the block changes, thus breaking the references in all following blocks

3.4/ e.g. SHA-256 for “Follow me on Twitter” is 08a7f9fccaf8e90d4d1f88c99bd0c9c8ad0b9b4750aee7f9e6cf119adfa9e3df

SHA-256 for “Follow me on Twitter!” is f72addbfc14b6294c67b3c153669e547cf90723434ef66eeda4f56fcd31a2649

4/ Hash functions are also used for #NFTs to store the hash of the image on to the blockchain. 
I’m assuming you already know that when you buy an NFT,you are not actually buying the image but a hash referencing the image :)
Hope this was educational and you learned something new

1/ Started reading the book The Network State by @balajis. It is one of the most forward thinking ideas that I have come across.

2/ I’ve been arguing with my friends that in a remote-first world, the different pay rates just based on someone’s region (country) don’t make sense. But getting rid of the country boundaries or regulations also doesn’t seem like a likely possibility.

3/ How I foresee “get paid for the work you do” materializing is in the Metaverse / Virtual online economy. As the Metaverse economy grows bigger you would earn and spend in the Metaverse.

4/ You’ll get paid in Crypto (one common currency supporting that metaverse), and each participant would then take some percentage of the earnings out into the real world and convert it to their national currency. 
COVID has already pushed us a lot in the direction of remote-work

5/ In the Book - The Network State, @balajis takes this idea even further.  

He suggests “Cloud first, land last - but not land never”. 
Creating a new country and getting diplomatic recognition for it.

This is a mind-blowing concept!

6/ “Unlike a traditional state that is geographically aligned but ideologically disaligned; Network State is geographically disaligned but ideologically aligned.” 

A country built for and by the people with similar interests/ideologies. Now that’s somewhere I would love to live!

You can read the unrolled version of this thread here: https://typefully.com/riteshchopra/MLv0FvA


Network State - Cloud first, land last - but not land never

Struggle to get your Inbox under control? This is for you.



I paid $200 for Hey.com subscription because of the promise it had for helping tame my Inbox. Later I realized, you can't control Email with one tool.

I now spend less than 10 mins each day on email

You need 3 tools to fight your Inbox
1. Email Client - 
You could use Gmail but there are better email clients that can help you process the email faster. 
I use @Shortwave these days. It's a free client and speeds up my email processing 10x compared to Gmail

2. To-Do Manager
A lot of your to-dos are generated from your email. I used to mark these as unread before and keep unread till I complete the action. Slowly the unread count gets unmanageable. Now I create To-dos and archive the email. 
I use @RoamResearch for managing my to-dos


3. Read It Later Client
This is to capture the newsletter subscriptions that fill up your inbox. I use @getmatterapp as my Read It Later. 
I forward any articles I want to read to my save.getmatter email and archive them.
This is for sure #1 improvement in my time spent on email

So in order to tame your email, stop depending on just your default Gmail interface and get these 3 free tools
1. Email client - I suggest @shortwave
2. To-do manager - I use @RoamResearch, you could use @NotionHQ  or @todoist etc. 
3. Read It Later app - I suggest @getmatterapp 

If you found this thread valuable, follow me for more threads on Productivity → @riteshchopra 


You can read the unrolled version of this thread here: https://typefully.com/riteshchopra/nSELfAc

Manage your Email with 3 free tools and 10 mins everyday

If you were an investment,what would be your worth? Alternatively,what is your value?

Before some people take offense to this, let me say this is not a value judgement about you, this is a thought exercise in calculating how much your Employer thinks you are worth

A thread 🧵🧵

When doing retirement planning, there is a simple “Rule of 25” to calculate your “Retirement Number”.You multiply your annual expenses by 25 to get the number.This is the retirement fund you need. You can withdraw 4% each year from this each year without touching the principal
2/

So if your annual expenses are $100k, then your retirement number is $2.5M. 

Rule of 25, comes from the idea that you can invest your retirement fund and get 4% relatively risk-free on that amount. 
If you want to use 3% to be safer, you can call it a Rule of 33 instead. 
3/

But what does this have to do with you and how much your Employer thinks you are worth?

Well, for your Employer you are the annual expense.. You can multiply your annual salary by 25, you can get an idea of how much your company thinks you are worth…
4/

This is a rule of thumb, you could actually do a more sophisticated calculation using excel. Add your annual salary increase ~3% in US and not think about your company paying you in perpetuity and but only for next 30, 40 years. But that’ll take out the fun from the exercise
5/

Is your salary $200k? Your company values you at $5M. 
Is your salary $60k? Your company values you at $1.5M.

So, what’s the number for you? What are you worth to your company?

Don’t like that number? Think you are worth more? 
What are you going to do about it?
6/

Luckily, you are not an inanimate retirement fund.. 

You can work on increasing your value.. You can upskill and then asking for a raise or get a new job.

Or, you can create and sell something that is more valuable than what your company thinks you are worth..
7/7