Gabriel Weinberg

> I wish I had learned many of these years earlier. In fact, the proximate cause for posting this was so I could more effectively answer the question I frequently get from people I work with: “what should I learn next?” If you’re trying to be generally effective, my best advice is to start with the things on this list. [1] [1] https://medium.com/@yegg/mental-models-i-find-repeatedly-useful-936f1c… by @yegg, the link he shared in his comment.

If you want to capitalize on your Product Hunt launch, I've seen people have success blogging about their launch experience and then getting a second bump in traffic from sharing that post on Hacker News, Indie Hackers, and Reddit. In the long term, though, you're in the same boat as everyone else: you have to find sustainable marketing channels that work for your business. I highly recommend Traction[0] by Gabriel Weinberg to learn more about growth and marketing. [0] https://medium.com/@yegg/the-19-channels-you-can-use-to-get-traction-9…

This book is great. First few chapters outline the general framework and give you the overview of strategies("traction channels"), and the remaining chapters just explore each strategy in more detail. Definitely worth buying even for the first two chapters. If you want a TL;DR: https://medium.com/@yegg/the-19-channels-you-can-use-to-get-traction-9…

Best thing for getting stuff into your head: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1250623.How_to_Develop_a_Brilliant… Much like weight lifting, following this book will give you specific memorisation techniques which can be useful, but also results in a general strengthening of memory, even when you don't use any of the exact techniques). It also strengthens your ability to imagine things, and hold those images or arrangements in your head, which is useful for applying mental models you've learnt. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9793361-the-decision-book Not the best, and I only really use the first one in the book (Eisenhower Matrix), but I found that alone to be worth the price (you could just google that one though). The rest of it is useful as examples of the wide variety of model types and types of things that can be modelled. Thinking in Systems: A Primer, is a great book that I highly recommend. It's one of those books that serves as a great introduction to the subject of creating models of systems, and it's neither too long, nor overly specific on any particular subject. By the end of it, you'll know roughly enough to be able to know what you want to know next, in regards to system models. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3828902-thinking-in-systems This blog post is more like a reference resource, and I think it's worth looking over and picking out whatever interests you:…

Hi. I know what you are saying, it takes time to find traction but the key is to try out and test different channels. Think of your target customer and where are they most likely to find interest in your product. What you can look into is the "Bullseye framework" - 19 channels to find traction and if you find one, focus solely on it at first. https://medium.com/@yegg/the-19-channels-you-can-use-to-get-traction-9…

Found it! https://medium.com/@yegg/mental-models-i-find-repeatedly-useful-936f1c…

There's obviously no guarantee in the long run, but Gabriel Weinberg (DDG founder) is arguably one of the most holistic tech founders when it comes to tackling socially impactful problems in tech probably due to his interdisciplinary background. He's detailed his approach in a variety of podcasts and blog posts over the years https://medium.com/@yegg/mental-models-i-find-repeatedly-useful-936f1c… https://fs.blog/gabriel-weinberg/

You might like his Medium post that preceded his book. The author is the guy that started DuckDuckGo. https://medium.com/@yegg/mental-models-i-find-repeatedly-useful-936f1c…

The nice thing about mental models is you have so many to choose from[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]. [1] https://medium.com/@yegg/mental-models-i-find-repeatedly-useful-936f1c… [2] http://www.defmacro.org/2016/12/22/models.html [3] https://fs.blog/mental-models/ [4] https://nesslabs.com/mental-models [5] https://amzn.to/2KiKQEg (Don't recommend) [6] https://amzn.to/2GOHoz4 (written by DuckDuckGo founder Gabe Weinberg) [7] https://amzn.to/31lfK4Q (A classic) [8] https://amzn.to/31tX17l (Haven't read but recommended by others)

A few years ago I published a large list of mental models I find repeatedly useful (https://medium.com/@yegg/mental-models-i-find-repeatedly-useful-936f1c… discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12040707. I've spent my spare time since (day job is running DuckDuckGo) with my co-author (statistician, researcher, and wife!) turning that list into this book, which weaves the 300+ mental models into nine narrative thematic chapters, paired with 150+ illustrations. Here's the full list of models from the book (in order): https://superthinking.com/download/MentalModels.pdf Happy to answer any questions about it and/or the process of getting this published. It's my second book (first is Traction).

The book is at least partly inspired by a blog post by one of the authors that made the rounds a couple of years ago: https://medium.com/@yegg/mental-models-i-find-repeatedly-useful-936f1c…

he published a long list of mental models in 2016: https://medium.com/@yegg/mental-models-i-find-repeatedly-useful-936f1c…

https://superthinking.com/ introduces a whole bunch. It grew out of https://medium.com/@yegg/mental-models-i-find-repeatedly-useful-936f1c… I would suggest starting there.

Gabriel Weinberg of Duck Duck go recently released an entire book devoted to mental models. A few years ago, he also wrote a good article that gives an early idea what he was thinking about here: https://medium.com/@yegg/mental-models-i-find-repeatedly-useful-936f1c…

Similar: https://medium.com/@yegg/mental-models-i-find-repeatedly-useful-936f1c…

Another related post that was once on HN front: Mental Models I Find Repeatedly Useful https://medium.com/@yegg/mental-models-i-find-repeatedly-useful-936f1c…

This is a helpful list, thanks. I've read traction as well, and am currently using the Bullseye Framework [0] with some success. At the end of it, it still feels a lot like "throw stuff against the wall and see what sticks". Personally, I don't have a lot of clarity around how to repeatable test and measure. 0: https://medium.com/@yegg/the-bullseye-framework-for-getting-traction-e…

The founder of DuckDuckGo published a similar list of mental models a little before this one. His list is longer, but there is some overlap between it and this one: https://medium.com/@yegg/mental-models-i-find-repeatedly-useful-936f1c…

Have a look at this: Mental Models I Find Repeatedly Useful https://medium.com/@yegg/mental-models-i-find-repeatedly-useful-936f1c…

A la Charlie Munger, develop a latticework of mental models. See: https://medium.com/@yegg/mental-models-i-find-repeatedly-useful-936f1c…