Business on not quite an expert

Untetheredly deep thoughts about pizza strategy

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

In business strategy, we frame a business as maximizing profit, derived from revenues - expenses. It can increase revenues with product differentiation, or decrease expenses with cost leadership. My strategy professor framed product differentiation and cost leadership as opposite ends of a spectrum of business strategy. However, I would unfold them as separate related features, with some frontier of how a business can allocate and trade off product differentiation and cost leadership.

Ramping down III: what is happening now?

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

We covered what happened (with me), now let’s cover what is happening (with me) now.

It happened so suddenly my friends worried how I was doing. I’m doing good. I put my WHOLE ASS (both cheeks! I did not half ass it!) into turning the situation around, and I have the post-midnight (la madrugada) Loom demo threads and the sleep diary to prove it. Even some extra shit - I called the managers from my previous team, and they couldn’t bail me out. I traded whatever embarrassment to have minimal regret.

Ramping down II: what happened?

Sat, 21 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

We covered what was happening (with the company), now let’s cover what happened (with me).

One of my favorite professors said “people join good companies, and leave bad managers”.

I joined my new team under a director whom my coworker friend (and ex-roommate) vouched for. That director soon left the company, citing toxic leadership. I can’t say I disagree.

So I got a new manager and skip manager (manager’s manager) whom I mixed poorly with. My manager and I mixed poorly on scope - a first-time manager, they optimistically accepted scope, while I tried to push back on scope. I couldn’t effectively negotiate scope without their support, so I laid out multiple times that I considered pushing back on scope a key part of my role. However, we never had a full discussion about our differences handling scope, and the issue festered. My skip manager clearly prioritized optics,¹ while I find myself mildly allergic to optics.

Ramping down I: what was happening?

Sat, 14 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Upon leaving my company, I want to answer 3 questions:

What was happening (with the company)?
What happened (with me)?
What is happening (with me) now? This post covers the first question.

As a company grows, people have less visibility into each other’s work, so optics becomes more and more important. Previously I’ve defined optics in contrast to substance. While some optics can create value for the group, e.g. providing public project updates can keep the group on track, I find optics generally creates value for the individual over the group, e.g.

Wright iterations

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum has an exhibit about the Wright brothers investigating how they, with relatively little formal training, became the first to achieve controlled, sustained, and powered flight.

The exhibit explains how the Wright brothers, starting from existing research, built multiple iterations of flying machines for realistic testing in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

However, in addition to those big iterations, the Wright brothers also conducted many more small iterations, using a wind tunnel to test hundreds of wing designs to optimize the forces operating on the wings.

Used on eBay

Sat, 20 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve noted before to reduce, reuse, THEN recycle - in between reduce and reuse I buy open-box and used items, mostly from eBay, which has become the go-to marketplace for those items, though sometimes from Amazon for books and from Kaiyo for furniture.

Theoretically, buying open-box or used means 1 less new item produced, hence between reduce and reuse. It also makes me more aware of finding a good new home for items I don’t need anymore. For example, I sometimes give them away to people in my office I know would use them.

Crémant

Sat, 13 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

You could buy Champagne, or for like half the price you could buy Crémant, made the same way from the same grapes grown just outside the Champagne region.

To almost anyone, they taste indistinguishable, and I’ve declared that subtlety bends toward classism. So why does Champagne command such a premium?

Branding, of course. In centuries past, Champagne became associated with royalty, a popular image for the emerging middle class. However, in the American spirit like early Webster promoting purpose over tradition, why would we pay more for association with such an anti-egalitarian concept as centuries-old royalty? Long live 22-buck Crémant!

Putting myself in a soapy situation

Sat, 06 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Last time I tried to copy an Aesop fragrance for myself, it didn’t go well. While shopping at Target, I examined the Dossier bottles and realized an entire secondary industry of copycat fragrances exists. I can buy instead of make copycats!

I first considered buying samples from The Essence Vault, though a legitimate review describes

None of them smelled anything like the originals, not even remotely close. … The projection is poor and they do not last very long, maybe 2-3 hours, not that you would want them to last any longer or have better projection.

3 points about copying keys

Sat, 02 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I got a surprising amount out of copying my friend’s keys while staying at their apartment. My friend has pointed out how I often structure my thoughts into 3 points:

1. ease

I didn’t even need to talk to someone to copy the keys. I just scanned the keys at a machine and that machine cut the key copies within minutes. As noted in this video, you can more easily “break” a physical key than a digital key, though you can less easily use a broken physical key than a broken digital key. However, you can get around digital keys in other ways.

Reverse private label

Sat, 01 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

In the case of private label, the buyer buys from the seller who has re-branded (i.e. re-packaged) goods supplied by an existing brand.

In an interesting reverse, I’ll call it a “reverse private label”, the buyer buys from the seller who supplies an existing brand. Note that in both cases, the buyer is trying to save by not paying for the existing brand.

I’ve done this a few times:

Buying from Reigning Champ, under CYC Design Corporation which also supplied Supreme
Buying from North Star Leather, which uses leather from S.B. Foot Tanning Company, a subsidiary and principal supplier of Red Wing Shoes which also supplied Carhartt
Buying from Acme Smoked Fish, which also supplied Russ & Daughters

The Threshold of my bedroom

Sat, 08 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I want nice things - selfishly, to feel good; generously, to reduce waste. And it seems like Target’s private label brand Threshold consistently provides the right balance of quality and affordability for me. For example, their sheets got recommended by Wirecutter, which I’ve mentioned before as a good curation source.

So I got the Threshold blackout curtains, and when they arrived, they felt so good. Enveloped in their softness, I rushed to my bedroom to put them up. And in the privacy of my bedroom, I stroked them gently, admiring the color and texture with a quiet sigh…

Unsolicited investment thots II: tax optimization

Sat, 21 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Don’t deny it. You need money, to buy food, or more importantly, botch a wall shelf.¹ The Man wants to take it for roads or research or whatever. So, to keep as much of it as possible, you optimize your taxes. Greedy pig.

I’m not giving financial advice. I’m not giving tax advice. I’m merely giving unsolicited investment thots, to an imaginary audience that I’m assuming makes enough to invest long-term while covering reasonable expenses short-term.

Unsolicited investment thots I: index funds

Sat, 14 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

If I know you, chances are you have significant cash to spare. Agh, what a burden! What should you do with all that cash?

You can invest it, of course! Grow it, rather than let inflation make it worth less over time. Ride the market with index funds.

An index fund tracks an index, a specific basket of individual investments. For example, SPY (the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust) tracks the S&P 500 index, which comprises around 500 of the largest companies listed on US stock exchanges. When the S&P 500 grows 20%, SPY returns around 20%; when the S&P 500 shrinks 15%, SPY returns around -15%.

Personal user guide

Sat, 09 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

How can people best work with you? If you have a well-meaning organization, or at least team, you can tell them. Inspired by this example, a wrote a user guide about myself. It contains:

Styles of communication 💃🕺
Areas of strength 🦸
Opportunities for growth 💪
Paths of trust ⛓️
Methods of feedback 🪞
Views of success 🎗️

Journey of the airplane magazine

Sat, 26 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I have fond memories of the airplane magazine. In my most distinct memory of it, my sister and I actually brought a copy off of the plane, to browse in bed. Blowing past the articles, we admired and gawked at the fancy and quirky merchandise advertised inside. To us, those advertisements served as low fantasy, a conduit to imagine a lifestyle where not only did we need a multi-color pool light with different modes, we bought one on a plane!

Mediocre small business ambivalence

Sat, 31 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

While I characterized the first tea shop as woo-woo, I’d characterize the second as “mediocre small business”.

The shop had more types of tea than the number I think a shop can do well, given my penchant for hyperspecialization. When I asked to buy samples, the shopkeeper clarified that they sell minimum 2oz each type. I guessed that they wanted to force larger orders, and kept to myself that a larger tea purveyor would probably sell samples (at a premium per weight) to persuade new customers.

Magical space corn!

Sat, 24 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I visited two tea shops today. Let me tell you about them!

The first, a seller of herbs and roots (I guess tea counts?), had real woo-woo energy. One patron asked if sage clears impurities, to bring to a wedding. In my head, I noted that if someone brought an herb to clear impurities to the celebration of my marriage, I’d feel insulted.

The jars of herbs and roots looked a bit stale, assuming dried goods get stale. So I looked in the back, where they were selling “magical space spray” derived from various plants. You know, like chamomile, chrysanthemum, or corn - magical space corn!

Cough drop marketing vs. function

Sat, 17 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I eat cough drops like candies, so I’ve thought more than most about cough drops.

Whenever I buy a significant product, I consider how much I’m paying for marketing versus function.

Ricola puts a lot of effort into marketing their mixture of herbs as effective. However, the label lists menthol as the active ingredient, and the herb mixture as an inactive ingredient. Many people have figured this out, enough for a class action lawsuit. Needless to say, I don’t buy Ricola.

Private label

Sat, 10 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Every major grocery chain offers “private label” items, with their own brand packaged over goods produced by other unnamed companies.

You can peek into what companies produce private label items via recalls. Sargento recalls, and “coincidentally” Costco, Trader Joe’s, and Walmart also recall at the same time.

Private labeling constitutes a form of backward integration. Generally, major grocery chains take from producers and give to consumers, pocketing some for themselves, of course. As a producer, can you really afford to not appear on Walmart shelves?

Anti-brands

Sat, 28 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

MUJI explains itself:

Mujirushi Ryohin, MUJI in Japanese, translates as “no-brand quality goods.”

Theoretically, an item cost = (cost of production) + (cost of logistics) + (cost of brand). So a “no-brand” item should have higher quality per cost. However, no item I can buy has no brand; I know where I’m buying it, which affects how much I’d pay.

So I call these “anti-brands”, brands with spare presentation suggesting focus on production. The Ordinary has a similar spiel. While they don’t seem like they’re marketing to you, they’re marketing to you through alternative messaging. I find myself averse to in-your-face brands, so that alternative messaging works on me.

Mass-boutique collabs

Sat, 21 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I like to consume “mass-boutique” collaborations between a mass market player and a boutique player. The mass market player brings the scale to offer lower prices, and the boutique player brings the expertise/aesthetics. For example:

Uniqlo U - mass market Uniqlo + boutique Christophe Lemaire
Massdrop x Sennheiser HD 6XX - mass market (Mass)Drop + boutique Sennheiser, just don’t call it HD 650 for legal/branding reasons

You could even consider private labels a form of mass-boutique collaboration, though I’ll write about that another day.

Airlines IV: cards

Sat, 14 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Even with all that price discrimination, airlines don’t make most of their money from fares. Instead, they make more money on their credit cards.

When you spend on those cards to earn miles, airlines earn a small percentage of that transaction. Airlines depend on credit card revenues so much that they’ve adjusted their fares and rewards (miles) programs to optimize for it.

Airlines III: skiplagged

Sat, 07 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

If price discriminating on board still doesn’t satisfy you, you can also price discriminate based on route. People will pay more to travel between certain cities, so you can charge more for those cities.

So much so that I can fly direct from San Francisco to Detroit for around $500, and fly indirect from San Francisco to Cincinnati, stopping in Detroit first, for around $150. You can find these “hidden-city fares” on Skiplagged, though you risk losing checked-in baggage and getting banned from airlines.

Airlines II: peanuts

Sat, 30 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Instead of dividing your flight into classes, you could also strip your base ticket experience bare and nickel-and-dime your customers for everything from faster check-in to carry-on luggage to in-flight Wi-Fi.

We call these “peanut airlines” because you fly for “peanuts”, and get only peanuts on board. If you’ve flown Spirit Airlines, with plane tickets sometimes cheaper than train tickets, you’ve flown on a peanut airline.

Airlines I: classes

Sat, 23 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Airlines engage in price discrimination to get as much money as they can from customers. This includes multiple strategies, most obviously classes of tickets.

For customers who want to (or can only afford to) pay less, you can get a basic economy ticket, without refunds, exchanges, nor seat assignment.

And on the opposite end, for customers who can pay more (often on their company’s dime), you can get a business class ticket, with big seats, big thanks, and big contempt for the riffraff behind (i.e. below) you.