Conan's Newsletter: No. 2
how mmhmm got its ridiculous name
Recommendations for this week:
Highly recommend this video created by Phil Libin, the co-founder of Evernote and recently the mmhmm app, to explain the motivation behind the new app’s name. The mmhmm app has been generating a lot of buzzes recently but its name sounds ridiculous to many people. In this video, Phil describes his philosophy of the naming: A ridiculous yet interesting name is way better than a boring one. It is better to create a product that is loved by someone and hated by some others than a product that nobody cares about. Besides, mmhmm is really fun to use. If you haven’t tried it out yet, you should!
The Passion Economy and the Future of Work. We are in a world that the definition of jobs has changed significantly, and the process has been accelerating since the pandemic. In the new world, individuality is respected and encouraged, and people could and should earn their living from their individuality.
Defining Interactive Ecommerce - Pinduoduo [53 slides] - Recommendation driven China e-commerce". Pinduoduo is a miracle: Imagine the chance of someone in the US builds a second Amazon in only 3-4 years, which is what Pinduoduo has done in China. This detailed report gives great insights into why Pinduoduo could make a dent in a market with a strong incumbent.
An article about Steve Blank’s Customer Development Manifesto. I love Steve Blank's opinion that “A Startup Is a Temporary Organization Designed to Search for A Repeatable and Scalable Business Model”. Can’t agree more!
Funny tweets:
Impressive commit history. Hope you won’t start to count tiles next time when you take showers!
Other interesting facts:
In 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt officially named the Executive Mansion the “White House” . This is much later than I thought.