5 Principles + 3 Skills: Becoming an Effective Builder in the Age of web3

Fasset is a unique company operating at the exciting and ever-evolving intersection of web3 and emerging markets. In emerging markets, web3 tech and products are not a nice to have, rather an important set of tools for billions of people to participate in the broader financial system.

As we aggressively hire and expand at Fasset, we are also focused on fostering a high-performing building culture that both inspires innovation and strong executional excellence. This is the prerogative of our current internal 3-month Bull Market Readiness Initiative. It is a chance for all of us to deliver something at our peak potential, something meaningful and something that can leave a legacy on how web3 solutions should be tailored to enabling people’s lives to be tangibly better.??

As I think about how we build at Fasset, I’ve come to realize that we no longer live in a world where specific experience or skill set is a must or even a need. There is opportunity for anyone and everyone to excel - with the right mindset and execution focus.?

Yes, broad based technical skills in finance, legal and engineering (to name a few) are absolutely critical, but beyond that - it’s all about how the intangibles of a person fit together. And those with these technical skills are even more apt to participate in wide ranging facets of the company and its goals.?

When it comes to web3, it’s a brand new space that still has not found its footing and with that comes a lot of ambiguity and a recurring lack of context - as there's not much precedent to learn from.

It’s a space that has not written its rules for best practice and as such - abundant opportunity exists for effective builders to enter and create something of value.?

As Fasset both capacity builds and searches for those builders, there are a few principles that we continue to look for, as we enable and build out our teams.?

At the outset, effective builders understand the following two contemporary realities:

1. Anything can be learned with the right effort

We live in an era where information is abundant and a commodity. There is a solution to everything -?somewhere and somehow. With the right effort and ingenuity - the requisite knowledge and how-to to solving any puzzle can be found.?

?2.??Anything can be resourced with the right level of access and funds

Bringing about true change does not need rocket science level breakthroughs. Rather, the right cooking of access, resourcing, partnerships and weaving of solutions can make the impossible...very possible. Uber, Airbnb and a host of other solutions point to this every day.?

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With those baseline assumptions in mind, there is a 5 principle and step-by-step approach that we use to breakdown the tasks ahead of us and execute.

It starts with breaking things down until they can’t be broken down anymore - first principle thinking.?The process, however, does not stop there. What comes after is just as important.

First principle thinking allows us to solve complex problems by getting down to the root issue. First principle thinking also enables us to build up to solving a problem starting with the most basic levels of understanding of the scope of the issue at hand.

As we think about the projects we're executing on during Fasset's internal Bull Market Readiness Initiative, we follow the following guide.

1. Ability to break things down into first principles - Can a project and its outstanding question be broken down to its fundamentals?
2. Speed of breaking things down into first principles - How fast can this breaking down process be done?
3. Precise and punctual execution on minimum context - How can we create an execution path that can operate on limited context but still be on time and on point?
4. One step ahead vision - Can we envision the end and steps in the future before the we undertake the current step?
5. Injecting Passion into the Process - The game-changer and the fuel to make transcendent impact: Do we believe in what we’re doing and desire that positive change to happen around us? Passion is a fuel that can help power through difficult and impossible looking tasks.

These 5 principles happen in the context of three core skills:

Storytelling

Can we tell the story of why this project is important in the greater context of Fasset and our target customers? Can we write the conclusion of this story first and work backwards? Is the story intriguing enough for others (our customers) to engage - in other words, is the identification of the problem and the corresponding solution, a worthy conclusion? At our individual and team levels, learning how to do this can be invaluable as we come together as a team and deliver to our markets.?

Documenting?

The way we draft the story, the process and the pitch to ‘why’ is just as important as the story itself. The more we move towards customer facing, the more important that every aspect of our documentation is on point and detail oriented.?

Measuring?

How fast can we assess what went right and wrong, and move to the next iteration with tangible and intangible successes and failures in mind. Can we go through this cycle and continue to get better and closer to solving the underlying pain points?

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The above is a way to solve any problem, but it all starts with the right levels of effort and intentionality!