u/Advanced-Guidance385

His name was Claude Shannon.

In 1948 he wrote a paper. It proved that a photo, a song, a phone call and a letter are all the same thing underneath...

Just ones and zeros.

He called the unit a "bit"

Everything digital you use sits on top of that btw...

Your payments. Your video calls. Your ads. The AI you use every day.

Anthropic named their model Claude after him.

He also made 28% a year in the stock market for thirty years as a hobby.

He did it from his kitchen with his wife and an old Apple computer lol.

In 1986 a magazine ranked 1,026 funds...

He beat 1,025 of them.

Here's how he said he solved problems:

1. Cut it down

He said most problems are buried in extra info. Take everything out except the part that actually matters. I tried this on my churn. Wrote down 11 reasons clients leave. 9 of them were things I tracked because they were easy to track. 2 actually mattered. I'd spent 3 months on the 9.

2. Look at problems already solved

Don't attack yours head on. Find every similar problem that's already been figured out. Then look at what those answers have in common. He said two small jumps are much easier than one big jump.

3. Say the question a different way

Change the words. Change the angle. He warned about sunk cost here. The work you've already done is usually the thing keeping you stuck. That's why someone brand new can crack it in ten minutes.

4. Break it up and let yourself wander

A lot of big discoveries came from someone poking at unrelated stuff that went nowhere. Then hitting the answer from the side.

5. Flip it

Can't get from here to the answer? Assume the answer is already true. Then work backwards. So instead of "how do I get to 100k a month," assume you're already there. What are you selling? To who? How many? What breaks at that size? Totally different questions. And you can actually answer all of them.

6. Make it bigger

Once you solve one version, build the one that solves all of them. You fixed one client's onboarding. Now make the version that works for every client. That's the difference between a job and an asset.

Here's how he labels someone that can solve problems quickly:

"A genius is simply someone who is usefully irritated."

That itch when something isn't right and you can't leave it alone.

He called it constructive dissatisfaction.

Two more things...

His mentor's rule was that specialising kills genius.

So he'd throw Shannon into fields he knew nothing about on purpose.

And Shannon worked on three unrelated problems at once...

Said it beat focusing on one (which can be kinda backwards to what people say today)

P.S - Book is " a mind at play" by Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman

Guy's name was Les Schwab who died in 2007, never heard of him until last week.

Charlie Munger used to tell people to go read his book. Said if you want to see the smartest pay structure ever built in a chain of small businesses, read this...so obviously I went looking.

The backstory is rough.

Grew up in a logging camp in Oregon. Two rooms, no running water, one shower for the whole camp. School was a converted train boxcar. he failed 8th grade, so did the other two kids in his class.

His dad was a drunk. Not a fun drunk. Les used to sit outside a moonshine joint on Friday nights until 10pm waiting for his dad to come out wasted and drive him home.

Mum died when he was 15. Dad died the day before his 16th birthday, found dead outside the same moonshine joint.

So now he's 16 with no parents and no education. Gets a paper route. Doesnt own a bike, doesnt even know how to ride one.

So he runs the route. 9 or 10 miles a day. for two months until he saves up for a used bike.

By 16 he had every route in town and was earning more than his high school principal.

In the middle of the Great Depression.

Then nothing interesting happens for 15 years lol.

Just newspaper sales...kinda stuck.

At 33 he panics.

"I knew time was running out. if you dont get started in business at a fairly young age you get into a rut and never make the big decision to jump."

So he borrows $11K off his brother in law, sells his house, and borrows against his life insurance to buy a tiny tire shop. Every dollar borrowed with a wife and two kids at home.

First line he wrote about his first day in business:

"I had never fixed a flat tire in my life"

Previous owner did $32K in sales the year before.

Les did $150K his first year working completely alone.

Now here's the part that actually got me because tires is a genuinely terrible business.

Everybody sells the same rubber. The manufacturers owned their own shops and gave themselves better prices than they gave him. They were openly squeezing him out of business.

He didnt do one clever thing. he did like six boring things and just never stopped.

1. He fixed flat tires for free.

 

Anybody. no purchase. he'd drive to your house and do it. sounds insane until you hear his reasoning "if we fix all the flat tires in town, we'll have all the tire business in town." you help someone for free at 8pm in the rain, they dont buy their next four tires from a warehouse.

2. He gave managers half the profit.

 

Not company profit. Their store's profit. So every store ran like its own business. He ended up with hundreds of stores and almost no supervisors, no policy manual, no controls. "if I give away half the profits I still have half. I dont understand why businessmen dont do this."

3. Theft solved itself.

 

Their share built up in a contract, get caught stealing and you forfeit all of it. and every guy in the shop knew a thief was stealing from his kids. "if he wont fight for his children he cant be very much for a company." peer pressure instead of cameras.

4. He flipped the shop inside out.

 

Everyone else had a small showroom and hid the stock in back. he made the showroom the warehouse. walls of tires right in front of you. then made every store wash and wax the display tires. every single day.

5. He never hired a manager from outside. not once in 34 years.

 

All 250+ managers started at the bottom changing tires. His store managers earned more than his head office people. When the MBAs complained he told them to go start at the bottom and work up. Nobody ever took the offer haha.

A competitor came for him. same advertising, same cost discipline, expanded faster, got to 24 stores. Only real difference was they paid their people less.

Les spent a whole year wondering if he should cut wages to match.

"I finally decided that if I couldn't be proud of my company, if I couldnt pay good wages, if I couldnt have the best employees, then why would I want to stay in business. So we did nothing. and we won. the customer liked us best."

Competitor went bankrupt.

His whole philosophy in six words: 

"life is hard for the man who thinks he can take a shortcut."

Also brutal side note...two early partners owned 20% each. Got impatient, wanted cash out, one of them wanted a swimming pool. He bought them out for $225K and $300K. Those stakes were worth about $12 million each within 20 years, plus a million a year in bonuses they'd have kept collecting. Company sold for a rumoured $3 billion a few years back.

Guy wanted a pool.

What I actually took from it:

I keep looking for the one clever mechanism. the angle. the thing nobody else is doing.

There wasnt one here. free flat repairs, clean tires, half the profit to the guy in the shop, promote from inside, pay above market, and drive 600 miles a day checking your own stores for twenty years.

Any one of those is a Tuesday. All of them for 50 years is $3 billion.

His actual closing advice:

"Whatever you do, you must do it with gusto. You must do it in volume. It is a case of repeat, repeat, repeat."

Book is Les Schwab: Pride in Performance — Keep It Going. 

Out of print, about 20,000 copies exist, hard to find.

Guy wrote the whole thing himself on a 40 year old typewriter at 68. No ghostwriter and put this in the foreword:

"should we fail to follow these policies towards customers and employees, I would prefer that my name be taken off of the business."

Meanwhile I've got a personal brand and a Notion dashboard lol.

I think this is major for the platform, it shows the quality and also focus one needs to have when trying to grow something!

what software are you guys using for tracking high ticket sales? thanks!

the more I do this the more I get it, ever since I started working out in the am and getting a sweat on I have been more consistent with work and business, do you guys think there is a common denominator or is just me?

Only one new opportunity, REMEMBER this! that is all it takes

Biggest one for me was speed, used to move slow. I pay things on time, do it all fast and as a consequence people do the same back.

Have some q's about the minimal budget one realistically needs to start running ads for their business, I've heard some people say 100/day other 1k/day ultimately yes its about your own budget but at what level do you get data faster in order to make better decisions and grow?

Business is a game of the mind, sure at the start is kinda hard to know what to do how to do things but as time goes on you start to realize that fundamentally all that matters is your daily action and the way on how you view life.

For example, something bad happens can you quickly find the positive? (this is taught on reality transurfing) one of the best hooks ive ever read.

Second, we all know what to do to grow the business BUT are we actually doing it?

I started a new rule, the rule of 2 I call it. Which is I will never put off a task more than two times, Ive done it before and leads me with never finishing my tasks.

I really think and believe success is a mix of beliefs and daily habits.

Sounds SOO cliche but when was the last time you actually re-invested yourself?

You cannot get something youve never had without doing an action you've never done.

Leave you with that to think about...

Happy Monday.

I'd like to see what some of our members are working on!

There's soooooo many pessimistic people in this app is wild. No one believes it's possible to start and grow a business, why? I am genuinely curious why most people on here always expect the bad instead of the good? is it a cultural thing across reddit or is it mostly people who say they want to start something but never do?

Recently, I went through an entire 360 on my life. I track all my food, hitting the gym consistently, track all numbers, wake up early, and have a goal to sleep daily at 9:30pm.

Here's some of the early benefits I've noticed:

1. Better ideas
2. Faster decision making
3. Zero distractions
4. Better rested
5. Lower hunger
6. Higher focus

I dont think is for everyone for sure, but there is something special about knowing you dont have to wake up this early because you've got a business.

Its self inspiring because you know its hard.

Do you ever notice fast food chains are always right next to each other?

You know there's a McDonalds, subway, burger king, KFC all right next to each other most of the time BUT when you drive further away from them there's nothing for miles and miles...

I felt that was kinda weird the other day so I did some digging and there's a weird but logical reason for this type of business arrangement lol.

Let's say for example there's 2 kids selling lemonade on a long street.

One kid is named Alex.

The other kid is named James.

People live along the street and what not...

Day 1: Alex sets up his stand near the start of the street and James sets up at the end of the street. Both of them get similar number of sales because whoever is at the start goes to Alex, whoever is at the end goes to James and whoever lives in the middle just makes a random choice so at the end, they're even.

Day 2: James has an idea...he moves his stand from the end of the street to the middle. Now he's closer to almost everyone, most people now go to him instead of Alex. James is now winning the amount of customers he's getting due to his positioning.

Day 3: Alex doesn't like losing. So Alex moves his stand to the middle too, right next to James. Now they're standing side by side and people go back to splitting evenly between them.

Here's the thing...

If Alex moves, he loses. If James moves, he loses...meaning they're now stuck right next to each other and go back to the beginning splitting business equally.

AND that's the same reason McDonald's, Burger King, and gas stations often sit right next to each other in real life.

It's not because they like being neighbors.

It's because moving away would lose them customers.

There's actually a name for this in math.

I think it's called a nash equilibrium...just means everyone found the one spot where nobody wants to move anymore.

Curious to see some of your businesses!

Drop yours and what it does.

Mine: I co-own an ecom brand selling custom jewelry called 'hawlet' we bought a sizable share a few yrs ago.

Happy Monday ya'll

I've been working Sundays for a while, but I take Saturday off etc. What do you guys get up to on the weekend?

As I drink my morning coffee I've got a few ideas that will ensure most of us don't become replaced by AI...

To me is kinda obvious but is this:

Become an expert of any AI tool (learn it inside and out)

In fact the more niched the better.

1. Skill stack

2. Offer it

3. Generate revenue

Most people complicate things.

Yes AI is here and yes AI can very well remove jobs but if you're able to be two steps ahead and master AI before it masters you then you'll have no issues.