I highly suggest consuming the full piece here (35 min. read time)

“Human beings are creatures of mimicry. We are evolutionarily supercharged to do one thing better than anyone else: learn by watching and copying others. And the most important thing we learn is how to want.” — Alex Danco

“…at a deep neurological level, when we watch other people and pattern our desires off theirs, we are not so much acquiring a desire for that object so much as learning to mimic somebody, and striving to become them or become like them. Girard calls this phenomenon mimetic desire. We don’t want; we want to be.” — Alex Danco

“Marcel Proust’s masterpiece A La Recherche du Temps Perdu is all about this phenomenon: how our memory of objects and experiences is powerfully and retroactively shaped by the opinions of people who we aspire to imitate.” — Alex Danco

“One of the tragic elements of mimetic desire is that it induces a lot of self-deception: lying to yourself in order to reshape your perceptions, your experience and your identity to be consistent with who you feel you ought to be” — Alex Danco

“Be like me, because that is what you desire; but also don’t be like me, because to try would expose you as an imitator and embarrass you in front of everybody. Narcissists, whose role model is themselves, feel a cruel twist: ‘the harder you try, the more you’re embarrassing to yourself.’” — Alex Danco

“One particularly human feeling along these lines is a certain kind of anxiety: the need to make sure your peers recognize that you have obtained something, or have accomplished something, or in some other way have become a particular type of person; while simultaneously needing to make sure they don’t catch you trying to make sure they see it. To get exposed as a striver is the worst thing that can happen to you, because it basically confirms to everyone else that you’re not that particular person you’re trying to project.” — Alex Danco

“…the internet makes it easier to gaze longingly at the people we admire and envy, and creates an overpowering amount of pressure for you to become, and be seen as, a particular type of person.” — Alex Danco

“The good news…is that we are slowly and steadily developing a kind of antibodies to the internet: as social networking becomes more saturated and more ubiquitous, the inevitable pullback to more one-on-one conversations and more closed circles of friends is bringing our peer set of internal mediators down to more manageable levels once more. “I’m sick and tired of being so online” translates pretty cleanly into “I’m sick and tired of having so many peers that I need to care about.” And the good news is that who you see as your peer set is entirely within your control. No one gets to be your peer without your active consent. And I think people are beginning to learn this lesson.” — Alex Danco

I highly suggest consuming the full piece here (20 min. read time)

Julie Supan has done positioning/GTM (go-to-market) strategy for companies such as Youtube, Airbnb, Dropbox, Reddit, Discord, and many others. 

“Positioning is the big bet a company is making over the long term…It’s the strategy for building your business, product, and brand. It’s the clear action plan that will translate into positive revenue, happy customers and a great place to work.” — Julie Supan

Here are the 5 questions she asks founders when they begin their positioning work:

1. Who is the customer that needs/wants your service or product most?
2. Why does your product or service matter to them?
3. How do they feel about your product or service?
4. What is its true benefit to them?
5. Will your product exceed their expectations?

“The high-expectation customer, or HXC, is the most discerning person within your target demographic. It’s someone who will acknowledge—and enjoy—your product or service for its greatest benefit.” — Julie Supan (HXC was coined by Julie)

Finding your HXC: 

• Do your research/gather data: by targeting the full range of customers — happy, unhappy, recent, early, active, inactive — across geographies and through no fewer than five channels, including: general population or decision maker surveys, single-question and open-ended surveys, single questions embedded into sales or marketing calls, phone interviews, customer service channels, product intercept surveys, and app store reviews.
• “…if you can predict the answer to a question, don’t ask it. You shouldn’t cut your survey or interview short, but be mindful of people’s time, too. I recommend letting the customer know that you are doing a survey to better understand how they feel about the product and that their thoughts will go directly into the company’s strategy.” — Julie Supan
• Define your customer: “One of my favorite questions is ‘How would you define the kind of person that would benefit from this product most?’…When people answer, they usually describe themselves. It’s a great way to ask the ‘Who are you?’ question while making people feel like they are describing someone else.” — Julie Supan

“I’ve seen companies retool the entire company for a customer that they’re not excited about. Sometimes, I’ve talked to companies that don’t like or can’t relate to their high-expectation customer…That is really difficult. That affects the culture. That affects hiring. That affects the energy of people on the team—their focus and commitment.” — Julie Supan

I highly suggest consuming the full piece here (10 min. read time)

“The best way to learn something is not from a position of fear, but instead of deep curiosity. While fear can work as a motivator in the short-term, only curiosity is self-sustaining.” — Pedro Franceschi

“When you approach life from a position of learning, crazy things can happen, because the journey in itself becomes the reward.” — Pedro Franceschi

“Failure didn’t mean ‘I failed’, but simply ‘this is something I haven’t learned yet’.” — Pedro Franceschi

“Don’t assume your potential is limited by the qualities you have today.” — Pedro Franceschi

“The views you adopt about yourself, and how quickly you’re willing to rethink them, profoundly affect the way you lead your life.” — Pedro Franceschi

“Do everything in your power to surround yourself with people who you can grow from…There are no extra points for learning things on your own, so we were not afraid of asking for help.” — Pedro Franceschi

“…life is not about the values we differ; it’s about the ones we share. A growth mindset is what unites us. We’re all here, together, pursuing the best version of ourselves.” — Pedro Franceschi