Stealing is a Skill
I’m slowly developing my own list of advice: have a creative mindset, embrace radical transparency, and write down what makes you happy. I’d like to add one more to the list: stealing is a skill!
ben-mini
Mini essays about tech, business, and really whatever
Latest posts
Nucleus Nouns
Consider the “nouns” that live inside an app of your choice:
The happiest I’ve ever been
It was around January 2020. I became the head coach of a youth basketball team.
Things to be Happy About & Perfect Software
Happy to share a new project: Things to be Happy About - things.ben-mini.com. It’s a daily blog where I simply write five things to be happy about.
The Kids Will Be Alright
After spending the holidays with my niece and nephews, I’ve reflected on a thought I know all of us have…
Everything is a Spreadsheet
Revisiting an old 2020 Invest Like the Best podcast that interviews John Collision, co-founder of Stripe. When asked about his thoughts on no-code:
One-click Feedback
It should be easy for app users to give feedback. Like, really easy. A couple clicks- boom boom. But in order for it to be most valuable for Product, that feedback must come stapled with awesome context and data.
Claude is kicking ChatGPT’s butt (in one thing)
Back in high school, I remember receiving an email for a study guide from a friend. Instead of the PDF coming attached, it was a link to a site called Dropbox.
Trust and Procedural Fetishism
I recently finished reading Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. The book explains the various missteps taken by the U.S. government that led us to where we are today: a bureaucratic sludge of policies and regulations that’s caused ambitious projects to go over budget (e.g., Healthcare.gov) or remain unfinished (e.g., California High-Speed Rail). Klein and Thompson propose a renaissance of…
Platform or Point Solution?
A while back, I wrote a post titled “What is a Platform?”. I defined what a platform is and why tech companies are so determined to become labeled as one. My definition of a platform is a tool that allows users to define and build their own things, which can be used by other users. Tech companies wish to own platforms, as they are the engines that propel the flywheel toward infinite growth.