The edge is in the inputs
jasonleow • 15 Nov 2023 •
A gold nugget from James Clear today:
The edge is in the inputs. The person who consumes from better sources, gets better thoughts. The person who asks better questions, gets better answers. The person who builds better habits, gets better results. It’s not the outcomes. It’s the inputs. – James Clear
Isn’t this the same with indie hacking? Or entrepreneurship in general?
The real edge an indie hacker, or a product or business has is in where he gets his inputs. Input to any business or product, like code, growth hacks, ideas, capital, skills, habits, motivation. It’s like the classic input/output model in computing.
Input shapes output. Output determines outcome.
It’s hard to grow your product to $100k MRR if it’s not any good.
It’s hard to build a great product if you don’t have good ideas.
It’s hard to come up with good ideas if you didn’t follow good sources/people.
It’s hard to find good sources or people to follow if you’re lacking skill to discern what good looks like.
It’s hard to build your skills in entrepreneurship if you lack the right habits.
It’s hard to form the right habits if you lack the right motivation.
In fact, it’s hard to get anywhere at all if in the first place if there isn’t founder-market fit.
“The edge is in the inputs”.
And the ultimate input is you, yourself.
Comments
@Winkletter Yes! I do that for my UX research consulting work. It’s like a social skill even
Nice. I’m still at the stage of knowing the ideas. Putting them into practice takes focused work.
This reminds of The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick. To get the right inputs, ask the right questions. Ask open-ended questions, listen for needs and challenges, focus on past and current behaviors not hypotheticals, seek insights not validation, welcome critical opinions, ask specific questions, follow-up, and have a goal in mind.