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Year: 2022

What Happened In 2022

by Fred Wilson
This post is by Fred Wilson from AVC

I like to bookend the New Year holiday with two posts, one looking back at the year that is ending and one looking forward to the year ahead. This is the first of these two posts. The second one will run tomorrow.

What happened in 2022 is the bottom fell out of the capital markets and the startup and tech sector more broadly.

Back in February 2021, I wrote a post called How This Ends. In it, I wrote:

I believe it ends when the Covid 19 pandemic is over and the global economy recovers. Those two things won’t necessarily happen at the same time. There is a wide range of recovery scenarios and nobody really knows how long it will take the global economy to recover from the pandemic.

But at some point, economies will recover, central banks will tighten the money supply, and interest rates will rise. We may see price inflation of consumer goods and labor too, although that is less clear.

When economies recover and interest rates rise, the air will come out of the asset price bubbles that have built up and the go go markets will hit the brakes.

I went on to say that I had no idea when all of that would happen, but I was confident it would.

Well, it happened in 2022.

The air came out of the asset price bubbles that had built up over the last decade and were accelerated/exaggerated by the pandemic. There have been a (Read more...)

Simple Strategic Plan for 2023

by David Cummings

With 2023 almost here, I was thinking about advice for entrepreneurs in the new year. It’s a tough time right now as the economy and most companies are in a defensive posture — many negative economic factors are still pulsing through the system. No matter the situation, I keep coming back to the most important general purpose tool entrepreneurs should use: a simple strategic plan.

The simple strategic plan, just like it sounds, is a high level overview of the business and the critical elements of the company. The goal isn’t to be the a comprehensive, detailed write-up of all aspects of the enterprise. Rather, the goal is to get everyone inside and outside the company on the same page with as much clarity and concision as possible. Put another way, if you could only use 250 words to tell someone about the business, this is the best formula to do so.

Now, here’s the outline of the simple strategic plan:

Purpose

  • One line purpose

Core Values

  • General – fit on one line
  • People – fit on one line

Market

  • One line description of your market

Brand Promise

  • One line brand promise

Elevator Pitch

  • No more than three sentences for the elevator pitch

3 Year Target

  • One line with the numeric target, often the most important KPI

Annual Goals

  • 3-5 annual quantitative SMART goals in table format with the start value, current value, and target value

Quarterly Goals

  • 3-5 quarterly quantitative SMART goals in table format with the start value, current value, and target value

(Read more...)

Replay – The “Three Layer Cake” Fund, How Personal Experience Drives Your Investment Lens, The Future of Tech for the Aging Population, & How a Solo GP Can Do it All (Monique Woodard)

by Nick Moran | Angel Investor | Startup Advisor | Venture Capitalist

On this special replay episode, Monique Woodard of Cake Ventures joins Nick to discuss The “Three Layer Cake” Fund, How Personal Experience Drives Your Investment Lens, The Future of Tech for the Aging Population, & How a Solo GP Can Do it All. In this episode, we cover:

  • The thesis at Cake
  • Investing in Demographic Change
  • Pros and Cons of Being a Solo GP
  • How to Scale Yourself
  • And More!

Missed a recent episode? Go to The Full Ratchet blog and catch up! 

The world as it is

by Seth Godin
This post is by Seth Godin from Seth's Blog

No one sees reality.

It’s worth repeating: No one accurately sees the world as it is.

A person with hearing loss doesn’t experience the world the same way a synesthete does. A rock climber doesn’t see a steep slope the same way an elderly person does. And an optimist and a pessimist rarely experience opportunities in identical ways.

And each is correct.

Correct in that their experience of the world is their experience of the world. It’s not possible for anyone to actually see the world as it is.

But there’s a significant opportunity we can work toward:

To experience the world in a useful way.

Not correctly, but usefully.

If the methods you’ve used to judge other people, to choose projects or to make decisions have been helping you get exactly what you seek, congratulations.

For the rest of us, there’s a chance to work on our filters, our habits and our instincts.

To engage with the world and our choices in a way that’s useful.

Today’s a perfect day to begin a whole new pattern.

Goodbye, 2022. Hello, 2023.

by Om Malik
This post is by Om Malik from On my Om

It has become quite a habit now: at the end of the year, I look back and see how often I have tended to my digital homestead. In more prosaic terms, it translates to the total number of posts during the year. Over the past 12 months, I posted 128 times (129, if you include this post.)  I have to say — things aren’t as spiffy as they used to be. In 2021, I posted 164 times, while in 2020 (during the pandemic), I was posting pretty much every single day.  (307 posts, in total and resulted in this e-book, The Longest Year)

There are two ways to parse the 2022 data. My 2022 goal was to be respectful of the reader’s attention. I am glad that when I did write, I wrote about what felt important and not as “content filler.” Looking back, my posts around Twitter, Elon, and the end of social were just enough. That man doesn’t need any more attention from me or anyone else for that matter.

That said, I wish I had written more often, especially in a pivotal year like the one we had. Whether it is the impact of machine learning, augmented intelligence or some of the newer technologies that are making their way into our lives. Technology and the new breakthroughs in science are an opportunity and a challenge, and it’s a shame that most of my thoughts didn’t make it out of my journal and notes app. 

I suppose (Read more...)

Learning in the new year

by Seth Godin
This post is by Seth Godin from Seth's Blog

86,000 people have taken my Udemy courses over the last few years, and the first week of January is always a good time to lean in and learn. These are self-paced, video lectures.

Udemy is offering the Modern Marketing course at 25% off for the next few weeks.

The course for freelancers is my most popular, and is on sale as well.

There’s also a short course on presentations.

And if you’re thinking of starting a workshop (workshops are interactive, and cohort-based, not linear like these Udemy courses), here’s a link to a course on what I’ve learned in building these over the years. It’s half off for the next few days.

Here’s to a happy and productive new year, filled with possibility and peace of mind.

The Most Popular Non-Obvious Stories of 2022 (Based On Reader Feedback)

by Rohit Bhargava

Every week for the past year, I’ve curated the most fascinating stories every week in my weekly email Non-Obvious Insights Newsletter. This year the newsletter was honored in the prestigious Webby awards too. It’s always interesting for me which stories seem to resonate most with readers based on how many email responses I get, how frequently a story is shared on social media and how frequently the link to the full story is clicked. Based on this combination of quantitative and qualitative data, here is a partial list of some of the most popular stories of the year, based on what my readers shared (scroll down to read the full stories):

  1. The Surprising Forgotten Medieval Habit of “Two Sleeps”
  2. Does Science Need To Be Dumbed-Down To Make It Meaningful?
  3. Why Humans Learned To Laugh (and Naming the Uranus Mission)
  4. The Predictable Failure of Unlimited Vacation Policy
  5. The Backstory of the Bookshelf That Converts Into a Coffin
  6. Is It Ever Possible to Avoid Buying More Stuff For Your Stuff?
  7. The Science Is In. Wearing Your Shoes In the House Is Disgusting.
  8. Oslo’s Secret Future Library Holds Books To Be Published In 100 Years
  9. Why Do So Many Media Personalities Use Our Hate As A Popularity Test?
  10. Why I Just Became A Noble Citizen of the Micronation of Ladonia

Note – Some of the most popular links are to stories that have photo collections such as the winners for the World Press Photo collection to TIME magazine’s best photos of the year (Read more...)

U.S. Inflation: How Much Have Prices Increased?

by Avery Koop
This post is by Avery Koop from Visual Capitalist

u.s. inflation by goods infographic

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U.S. Inflation: How Much Have Prices Increased?

Inflation has been top of mind over the last year, looming over every aspect of the economy. But how has inflation actually impacted the prices of everyday goods like bread and butter or gas and public transportation?

In this visual, we showcase select items and how inflation has impacted the price year-over-year. Additionally, we’ve charted the overall price increases across the overarching goods categories, using data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

Note: These numbers are assessed using the Consumer Price Index (CPI)  for all Urban Consumers (CPI-U), using the U. S. city average by detailed expenditure category.

How Much has the Cost of Goods Gone Up?

Inflation has caused the cost of many goods to increase significantly compared to last year. The most dramatically affected item is elementary school lunches, a cost in the U.S. that is already unaffordable for many families.

Here’s a look at every single reported good’s change in price from last year:

ItemUnadjusted Change YoY (Nov 2021 - Nov 2022)
Food at (Read more...)