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Chapter 1 - You could be learning more faster
Chapter 2 - Agree on goals and key questions
👨💻 About Me
🔗 Free Copy of Learn More Faster
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If you’re anything like me, you’re a builder who loves to build more than anything. You love it so much that you tend to dive right into a new project without taking a step back to do the necessary upfront work that will make the project a success. In other words, you tend to build things based on pure assumptions.
To challenge my habit of diving right into code, I recently ordered (and downloaded for free!) a copy of Michaels Margolis’ book Learn More Faster.
My goal is to learn new methods of challenging my assumptions and narrowing my scope of focus when it comes to building software. Putting in this upfront effort to quickly prototype and talk to users with incomplete solutions is both anxiety inducing and exciting at the same time! I will share key insights, learnings, and all the artifacts I create in the process as I work through them. I’m hoping to not only learn myself but provide value to others in the process.
Hi 👋, I’m Corey - you can learn a little more about me here.
I love building software! Sometimes I still can’t believe I get paid to do it. In fact, after a long day of working on the encoding orchestration platform at Netflix for my day job, my idea of relaxation is grabbing my laptop, sitting on the couch and coding some more on personal projects.
At Netflix I take the time and energy to talk to users, prototype, and rely on quick feedback loops to de-risk what I am building. However, when it comes to personal projects - I never engage with potential users, I make assumptions all over the place, and I create waste by building without fully understanding my problem, solutions, or users.
A few months ago, I heard Michael Margolis speak on Lenny’s Podcast, and everything he shared about identifying Bullseye Customers and narrowing focus resonated with me. As someone who has always advocated for talking to users, building prototypes, and using quick feedback loops - his approach felt like a natural extension of my own philosophy.
This series is my way of diving deeper into those ideas and keeping myself accountable at the same time. I’m reading Learn More Faster to explore how the book’s principles and exercises can help me grow in my practice of building better products. Even though I am not planning to build my own startup, it has always been a goal of mine to build something valuable for a very specific subset of users and I’m hoping the insights in the book still apply.
So, let’s dive in! I will keep this notion page up to date on a weekly cadence as work through the chapters.