Today, we'll help you build a system to be different. We dive into the Persona Venn Diagram Method - a tool designed to help you identify and capitalize on your unique strengths - and we'll talk through how the path you might think holds the least risk actually guarantees the most. This is the first in a series of episodes on the Methods we use at Tacklebox to help our founders build differentiated businesses.

• Tacklebox
• Beehiiv (Idea to Startup Newsletter)
• Day One Journal

00:25 How to be Different
02:16 Talk at Columbia Business School
02:55 The Path to an Interesting Job
06:35 Status and Happiness
09:45 The Happiness Formula
11:43 Smooth Jazz
12:27 The Personal Venn Diagram Method
13:29 Drawing and Adding Circles
17:53 Implementation
19:26 The End

Today, we'll kick off a new series where we'll start an idea live on the pod. Actually, we'll start two. One in the healthcare space, one in the AI space. The hope is that you've got an idea and can follow along with us. Today we'll cover when your idea is ready to start, how to structure the first couple of weeks, and how to think about the giant boulder sitting in front of you. Also, there's a brief Ruby cameo because she's been absent for a few weeks. 

• Tacklebox
• AI Brian
• 4000 Weeks

Today we'll help you find an identity. An identity is something unique that you can organize your business beneath. A north star that can act as a lens for every decision you make. We talk through how to use category shifts and first principles to find and evaluate possible identities and when to stick with an identity vs when to jump ship. We use a bunch of examples - from an Italian restaurant to a skincare company called Jolie to the 1994 Arkansas Razorbacks basketball team. 

• Tacklebox
• Jolie
• Perfect Bar
• How "40 Minutes of Hell" Became an Iconic Basketball Brand
   

00:27 An Identity Helps You Move Fast and Keep Momentum
03:30 Black Friday - Lack of Clear Identities
06:22 Smooth Jazz
06:53 Categories
09:11 Jolie
12:12 First Principles
12:42 Arkansas Basketball’s “40 Minutes of Hell” Identity
15:50 Career Coach Identity
17:40 Stay Disciplined
19:42 Changing Too Quck vs. Staying Too Long
20:34 Throw with Conviction

21:11 Tacklebox

Today we'll outline two frameworks that'll help you find a meaningful differentiator. We'll use a bunch of examples to show how Inversion + Before and After can change your business. A baseball academy, Krispy Kreme, and Nutrisystem help show us the way to a product your customers will happily overpay for.

• Tacklebox

Today, we'll talk about why so many entrepreneurs can't effectively explain what they're doing to their customers. The short answer is they speak the wrong language. Customers speak Problem, entrepreneurs speak Solution. It's like two people trying to have a conversation when one only speaks Latin and the other only speaks Dutch.

We go through how to start speaking Problem, and show the power of Problem Language through a live idea test - two landing pages for an AI bot to help people get out of debt: one with Solution Language, one with Problem Language. 

• Tacklebox
• Twinbox - the Idea to Startup AI Bot
• The Brain Audit

00:00 Tacklebox
00:37 How to Speak Problem
01:21 The Brain Audit
01:55 Farm Stand Problem Language
06:03 The Idea: AI to Get Out of Debt
07:38 Smooth Jazz
08:07 Why You Won’t Use Problem Language
10:31 Signs in NYC
15:00 AI for Debt
17:41 Landing Page Test
19:18 The End: This Is Everywhere - Cold Email Examples

Today, we'll help you build an SOP for testing startup ideas. We'll use an example from a listener - a startup in the homeschooling space - as a guinea pig. The best way to have a great startup idea this time next year is to test out a bunch of ideas in the interim. This SOP will help you do it, and scale the process.

• Tacklebox
• Byldd

00:00 Tacklebox
00:30 Pros and Amateurs
02:08 Homeschool Idea
05:47 The Story of Future You
06:16 Entrepreneur Pro Tactic Number One - Working Backwards from Dreams
07:42 BYLDD
08:50 SOPs
14:19 An SOP for a Problem Worth Solving
14:46 Customer Language
15:55 SOP Problem Doc
19:40 The Stakes
23:00 The Startup Journal

Today, we'll talk about pros and amateurs. Pros build businesses that have a shot - amateurs never leave the starting gate. Unfortunately, most amateurs don't know they're approaching their idea the wrong way.

We talk through your vision and your internal system - the internal process you'll build, automate, and scale to help you execute that vision. We do it with a little help from the best run solo business I've encountered (an interior designer), and the best tool for your internal system (Zapier).

• Tacklebox
• Fiverr
• Zapier

Today, we talk through how to write compelling copy. We go through a few counterintuitive archetypes you can use to dramatically increase the clarity of your messaging, which will allow you to increase your conversion rate and get more people involved earlier in the process. Copywriting is an idea-testing superpower. 

• Tacklebox
• AI Brian
• Byldd

00:00 AI Brian
00:33 When Copy Becomes Important
02:40 Why You’re a Bad Writer
05:40 Is This Anything?
06:50 Byldd
07:55 The Big Misunderstanding
10:45 Reverse Architect Copy
13:45 The Attention Pie
15:48 Cold Emails
17:20 Write to One Person

Today, we'll help you embrace risk, uncertainty, and chaos. The only way to get asymmetric results in life is to spend a lot of time in what we call the "chaos" zone - the uncomfortable place where you're finding things no one else has yet. This type of work (life) is uncomfortable and stressful, so people don't do it. But, it's where all the potential asymmetric value is. So, we go through tactics to make this stage feel safer, allowing you to spend more time in it and increasing the chances you pull a life changing business out of it. 

• Tacklebox
• Last Lecture Series: “How to Live an Asymmetric Life,” Graham Weaver 
• Misbelief
• Misogi
• The Psychological Impact of Insolvency on Creativity 
• Less Stressed Minds are Creative Minds

00:00 Tacklebox
00:30 Good Startups are Chaotic
01:08 The Three Phases of Something New: Chaos
01:48 The Three Phases of Something New: Organization
02:40 The Three Phases of Something New: Clarity + Order
03:45 Drop Shipping Cheap Sunglasses
06:12 Last Lecture Series: “How to Live an Asymmetric Life,” Graham Weaver
10:10 Smooth Jazz
10:40 The Scarcity Mindset
11:51Misbelief
14:33 How to Reframe Chaos as Opportunity
16:39 Misogi
20:03 The Magic Comes Later

Today we talk through the three types of problems that deserve a solution. We start off with a few higher level thoughts about problems and startups - specifically around achievement incentives and how some bad early decisions usually can't be salvaged by good decisions later on. Then we talk through Hole Problems, Teleporter Problems, and Status Level Jump Problems. 

• Byldd
• Tacklebox
• Getting God at the Wrong Thing
• Bad Early Decisions
   

00:40 The Types of Problems Customers Will Solve
01:00 Manhattan in 2007
05:48 Achievement Incentives
06:30 Be Careful What You’re Getting Good At
07:37 Nat Eliason - Getting Too Good at the Wrong Thing
08:21 Bad Early Decisions
09:53 Byldd
10:54 Problem Archetype 1: Hole Problems
14:23 Baby Quip
17:04 Problem Archetype 2: Teleporter Problems
19:19 Problem Archetype 3: Status Level Jump