AbilityMatrix Newsletter #19

Hello innovators and creative minds!

“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” as a good old quote states (originally claimed to be John Wanamaker from as early as the 19th century)

I think this nice anecdote illustrates well how entrepreneurs think. Far beyond advertising.

If you can not exactly know the whys and hows… then you try to accept the situation, live with it as long as possible and compensate in other ways.

For example, you spray and pray - if resources are available, it makes sense to overspend on almost any item in your business. Easier to manage.

Or, for example, as long as the business results are okay… you do not really care. Why fix it if it miraculously works? Don’t touch.

The problem starts when there are fewer resources, and results start to turn south.

Yep, investment winter squeezing budgets and deteriorating client (sales/marketing) funnels.

A few articles in today’s collection are already about these hindsight observations: what changed already.

How to reflect on that? What we see in our environment is a deeper interest in understanding the whys - and focusing much more on the respective enablers: product people’s knowledge, innovative hires and trying new ways of doing things.

All the best, your editors (Anna, Em?ke, Laci)

More power to Product Managers!

• #powerpm - The Missing 1% of Knowledge (by ákos)
• Product Managers are managers - brief post by ákos

AbilityMatrix in action

• Service Design Day Budapest was a blast again!?? ' - ákos gave a presentation on the state of air travel
• Remote team face-to-face: AbilityMatrix yearly core team catch-up

Canada Updates

• Great EXPATations podcast: Tips and experiences about North America as an immigrant entrepreneur (ákos)
• New mentoring role: Fintech Cadence Industry Experts
• Porch: The journey of an immigrant entrepreneur is emotional: building a community

Collection of Recommended Reads

Startup stories // Entrepreneurship

• Two product-market fit challenges: personal growth + can not be faked (by Laci)
• How to act as a founder under financial pressure? (tips from Laci)
• When should you hire your first full-time salesperson? (Supported by data)
• The Four Stages of a Startup Sales Funnel (with video)
• What happened to sales methods last year - and a way to move forward
• A great case for SaaS user onboarding process (How Klaviyo built a self-service machine)
• Don’t price per user
• Product Launch Strategy for Product Hunt with timing
• Old but Gold: Why I turned down $500K, Pissed off my investors, and Shut down my startup

Investing in Innovation

• How to Build a Startup Portfolio for Maximum Returns - from a professional angel investor
• 4 Indicators of Potential Success in a Pre-Seed Startup Team
• Revisited: Innovation Map - a great tool to check what is the status of emerging technologies
• folk app: An extremely loooooong list of startup accelerators worldwide

Everyday behavior

• My Brain Doesn’t Picture Things
• Perks of being an entrepreneur when it comes to time management (HUN by Laci)

Tips and tricks

• Teaching with AI - Guiding material with prompts by OpenAI
• What advice would be your legacy? (by ákos)
• Interesting tips for building thought leadership on LinkedIn by a professional writer
• “intro” - paid sessions with (US) startup entrepreneurs

Innovati-OFF.