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Ma1: Intro to Margin; QC'ing Retraice

On Margin, Retraice, Inc., and what we're working on today.

Air date: Monday, 19th Oct. 2020, 10:05 AM Pacific/US.

Topic: Intro to Margin

Margin is probably not for you. But if you want:

∙ unprepared remarks by a currently unprofitable business, and ∙ inescapably auto-biographical content,

...maybe it is.

Owners do everything at Retraice, Inc., because employees cost money.

Purpose of Margin

The purpose of Margin is to help good guys start businesses, and to make money by selling that help. (Bad guys work differently than good guys, e.g. in the context of taxes or laws.)

Unhappy with Crap

Being unhappy with the product is ok, and being happy with crap is not good business.

Margin's Value

We're creating value in starting Retraice, Inc., and Margin is an attempt to capture it by selling it.

We would've paid for this podcast, had it existed.

We're doing this to help your business, not to help you compete with our business.

Business means paying and getting paid. If you're not paying, you're the product.1

We are experts on the subject of our business, if not on any other subject.

So Margin will be necessarily autobiographical, and personal, in a way that Retraice isn't and shouldn't be.

Profit

Always ask, 'Yea, but are they making money at this yet?'

Many big businesses are not profitable (for long periods of time, or perhaps even to this day). Think Amazon, Tesla, SpaceX, WeWork. Not being profitable goes in and out of style.

Profit must be measured using time. And profit is one kind of margin—there are others.

Business commonalities

There are many things that all businesses have in common. For example, the three accounting reports: income statement (profit-and-loss), balance sheet, and cash flow statement.

Fast and slow movers

What matters is not absolute speed, but the margin between the advantage of fast and the advantage of slow. It's a trade-off.2

Know your customer

We think you're more likely to be listening before being in the throes of business, than during or after it. But that's a guess (cf. below on hypotheses).

Domains were bought.

Paywalls, doors, windows, exteriors

If you're getting it for free, it's not the product. You might be the product, or something else might be going on.

We should call them 'paydoors', and distinguish between the presence and absence of windows. Consider: WSJ, FT, The Information, and the 'ten free articles' model.

In business, you're not prepared

It's like sports: on day one, you don't know where to stand.

Things start out bad

"If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late."3

Today at Retraice, Inc.

We're moving slowly, partly because of where we are as individuals (approaching middle age), partly for other reasons.

The Social Network is a good cultural reference point—and fiction.

If you're a 'kid'

You can start a business, but not the business you can start with more time to think about it.

Again, it's a trade-off: the advantage is in the margin.

Today—QCing segments and workflow

We've done a first week of Retraice, but the segments can be helped by adding features (better show notes, functionality in the podcast players); and our workflow has lots of room for improvement.

Things are trying to be crap

—Ira Glass.4

Measures toward better

To make our product good, we need lots of measures to avoid mistakes and wasted time. Example: FTP vs manual uploads.

Our workflow has to be as Toyota-like as possible. Otherwise: waste.5

Business is not about ideals

Nothing is awesome out of the gate, the way you imagined it. But work can make it awesome.

Experiencing your business

We go crazy waiting for the next episode, but we have to do what makes sense for the business, what adds value to what we're selling.

Hypotheses

But every product, service and business is a hypothesis.6

References

Glass, I. (2009). Ira glass on storytelling 2. Youtube. Uploaded 11th Jul. 2009. Date of recording unknown. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dx2cI-2FJRs Retrieved 19th Oct. 2020.

Liker, J. (2004). The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World's Greatest Manufacturer. McGraw-Hill. ISBN: 0071392319. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=0071392319 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+0071392319 https://lccn.loc.gov/2004300007

Martin, R. (2018). Clean Architecture: A Craftsman's Guide to Software Structure and Design. Prentice Hall. ISBN: 978-0134494166. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=978-0134494166 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+978-0134494166 https://lccn.loc.gov/2017945537

Norris, D. (2014). The 7 Day Startup: You Don't Learn Until You Launch. Dan Norris. ISBN: 978-1502472397. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=978-1502472397 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+978-1502472397

Ries, E. (2011). The Lean Startup. Currency / Crown / Penguin Random House. ISBN: 978-0307887894. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=978-0307887894 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+978-0307887894 https://lccn.loc.gov/2011012100

Serra, R., & Schoolman, C. F. (1973). Richard Serra "Television Delivers People" (1973). Youtube. Uploaded 2nd Feb. 2011. Date of recording 30th Mar. 1973. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvZYwaQlJsg Retrieved 19th Oct. 2020. See also: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/07/16/product/.

Index Amazon, 1

FT (Financial Times), 1

SpaceX, 1

Tesla, 1 The Information, 1 The Social Network (movie), 2

WeWork, 1 WSJ (Wall Street Journal), 1

1Serra & Schoolman (1973) at 0:54.

2Cf. Martin (2018) p. xviii: "The only way to go fast, is to go well."

3Norris (2014) p. 154, attributed to Reid Hoffman.

4Glass (2009) at minute 1:55.

5On waste, see Liker (2004) p. 27 ff. and Ries (2011) pp. 273-274.

6Ries (2011) p. 56 ff., and Martin (2018) p. xviii: "Architecture is a hypothesis, that needs to be proven by implementation and measurement." Attributed to Tom Gilb.