So - Frameworks like Lean Canvas and Business Model Canvas - are useful shortcuts for thinking about different aspects of projects and businesses They each fit different situations and company stages, but are simple enough to be helpful without any MBA or biz school indoctrination 😉 This overview is from last week ... and it's a necessary primer for this week's article about my Web3 Lean Canvas adaptation, which I'll share in a moment 😇 https://paragraph.com/@buildbetter/the-most-underrated-frameworks-in-startup-building-bmc-and-lc

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Have you seen today’s @gmfarcaster 🤓 It was a good one 👍

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Before we start Week 3 of Daily Stoics for Builders, here's a summary of the second week's casts/thoughts. Check it out ... 👇 Daily Stoics for Builders - Week 2 Day 10 - Be steady https://farcaster.xyz/bfg/0x6feaf4b5 Day 9 - What we don’t control https://farcaster.xyz/bfg/0x1ae7c171 Day 8 - See your addictions https://farcaster.xyz/bfg/0x30a024c0 Day 7 - 7 functions of the mind https://farcaster.xyz/bfg/0x258a3696 Day 6 - Who are you? https://farcaster.xyz/bfg/0x22adc67d As a bonus, I'm adding summary from Week 1 - so you can have all 10 days worth of stoic wisdom altogether. 😍 Summary of Week 1: https://farcaster.xyz/bfg/0xa7bcb4b9

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Be Steady - Daily Stoic for Builders - Day 10 🚨 Your judgment can help you move forward with reason, speed, and clear intention, or it can get clouded by emotions and feelings of injustice and self-pity. Epictetus wrote in Discourses: "The essence of good is a certain kind of reasoned choice; just as the essence of evil is another kind. What about externals, then? They are only the raw material for our reasoned choice, which finds its own good or evil in working with them. How will it find the good? Not by marveling at the material! For if judgments about the material are straight, that makes our choices good, but if those judgments are twisted, our choices turn bad." What stoics are seeking is steadiness and stability. They're not seeking it in solitude but in their mind. They advocate for us to train our minds to be the screening filter of the outside world's chaos. unjustice and negativity. If my reason and judgment are twisted, everything that comes after will be twisted. If my judgment and reason are sound, I can steady myself (and you can too) and gain clarity in everyday life. Did your partner break a contract? Did your competitor just lied about you? Did your biggest customer just leave? These, and many other moments, are when your judgment can save you. Anything you can filter out today? Anything your reason can straighten for you today? Let me know, and I'll see you tomorrow. 😉

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What we don't control - Daily Stoic for Builders - Day 9 Epictetus wrote: "Some things are in our control, while others are not. We control our opinion, choice, desire, aversion, and, in a word, everything of our own doing. We don't control our body, property, reputation, position, and, in a word, everything not of our own doing. Even more, the things in our control are by nature free, unhindered, and unobstructed, while those not in our control are weak, slavish, can be hindered, and are not our own." - Enchiridion I feel that hearing the truth about how much we control, and how much we don't, in so simple and naked words, is tough for builders. We want to believe we control much more. It gives us a sense of security and power. It's a false sense, as stoics would claim, but it still feels better than helplessness. Here is the problem. We think once we don't control outcomes of something, we're helpless. But it's not true. I can't control external events of today. Neither can you. But we can control our opinion about these events - good/bad, fair/unfair, futile/justified, etc. We can control what we think or do about them, too - does it help me do what I want to do, or become who I want to become? You see how anything I don't control - clients, karma, algorithms, weather, internet speed, Ethereum gas fees - carries with it a part that only I control? That's the balance. I find this very refreshing, albeit hard to swallow, as a way to gain a clear view of daily situations and potential actions. Especially for A-players who, by their nature, believe they can bend others and the world to their will. Try it for yourself - it may just be what you need to see clearly where to focus your attention.

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See Your Addictions - Daily Stoic For Builders - Day 8 I found this one super useful because I'm (like probably everyone) battling some small or large addiction all the time. Especially when I consider the addictions of my mind 😇 And framing addiction as LOSS OF ABILITY TO ABSTAIN somehow angered me. Seneca wrote in Moral Letters: "We need to give up many things to which we are addicted, considering them to be good. Otherwise, courage will vanish, which should continually test itself. Greatness of soul will be lost, which can't stand out unless it disdains as petty what the mob regards as most desirable." This one hits home hard because many of us, many founders and builders, have little addictions we even considered productive and healthy at one point in time. It used to be mostly alcohol, smoking (and I'd add processed sugar) what people feared and considered addictions. But as Ryan Holiday says - addiction is when we've lost the ability to abstain. That's what limits your freedom and clouds judgment. This is not preaching for a healthy lifestyle; this is a reminder that addictions are chipping away at your control and freedom. That's why stoics believe you need to give up many of them. Once a little indulgence, like your morning coffee or notification buzz, becomes hard to abstain, you became addicited, and your life is a little less just yours. As founders and builders, we want clarity and freedom. We need to see clearly to lead others and pursue our vision. You don't have to do it alone, I played it as weekly quests with several smaller teams - joint quest of reclaiming freedom from "XYZ" together. Every week or two. Make it fun. It's not about completely changing your life and always winning; it's about taking back your control because groups also have addictions. And just for you to know, there is a part in our brains that acts as urges/impulses/addiction guardian muscle, and it gets bigger every time you say NO and follow through. You're training your guardian's muscle. It's called The Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex (DLPFC), just in case you craved scientific facts. Every small win counts. Muscle grows stronger. If you feel like trying it, let's train together. What little addiction are you going to give up for the next 10 days? Tell me below and I'll tell you mine 😉

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Doing more of something doesn’t automatically lead to better results … actually it often leads to worse or no results 🫤 - more videos don’t mean more views - more tweets don’t mean more views - more coins don’t mean more money or fun In a same way that more drinking doesn’t lead to better mood or more fun 🤷‍♂️ Are you brute forcing something now with more? 👁️

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This is very true - it's about the value of conviction: "When someone doesn’t actually know what they value, when they haven’t confronted it or paid a cost for it, the safest move is critique yours. But the value of a conviction isn't solely determined by whether it can withstand every possible challenge." -- Valerie Spina

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If you answer "yes" to #2 or #3, you’re probably winning👇

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7 Functions of The Mind - Daily Stoic For Builders - Day 7 Epictetus wrote in Discourses: "The proper work of the mind is the exercise of choice, refusal, yearning, repulsion, preparation, purpose, and assent. What then can pollute and clog the mind's proper functioning? Nothing but its own corrupt decisions." Let's break down each of the functions: - Choice - to do and think right, to focus - Refusal - of temptation - Yearning - to be better - Repulsion - of negativity, bad influences, of what isn't true - Preparation - for what lies ahead or whatever may happen - Purpose - our guiding principle and highest priority - Assent - to be free of deception about what's inside and outside our control (and be ready to accept the latter) Today's 7 functions build on previous days, where I talked about Know Your End-game, Know Yourself, and know What you can control. As a founder, you want your mind as focused as possible on the refusal of temptation to do things that don't align with your purpose, and to waste time on things outside of your control. Each of the 7 can be directly linked to founders' thinking when building products, companies, or communities, but I'll just talk about Repulsion today: If you're the first time founder, you might be battling negativity and bad influences from your own friends, family, or community. Choose repulsion to ignore negativity and what's not true. Your past crowd is just trying to protect you from disappointment that it won't work out, and themselves from disappointment that it will work out for you. Then it would be on them that they didn't also try when it was clearly possible to win. Has that ever happened to you?

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WHO ARE YOU? - Daily Stoic For Builders - Day 6 Today's one is tough 🥸 Marcus Aurelius wrote in his Meditations: "A person who doesn't know what the universe is, doesn't know where they are. A person who doesn't know their purpose in life doesn't know who they are or what the universe is. A person who doesn't know any one of these things doesn't know why they are here. So what to make of people who seek or avoid the praise of those who have no knowledge of where or who they are?" Famous stoics put a lot of focus on understanding oneself and big part of it is, obviously, one's origins - where are you from? And what place in the universe (or on earth if you want) do you assume as yours. As a builder or founder you get asked countless times these simple question: - Who are you? - What do you do? - Where are you from? and we don't think about much. Almost like a weather talk to an Englishman. But when asked any of these questions you have a unique chance to say something meaningful that will open the door to deeper conversation. Do you know what you would say about yourself? Today, you may be creating content, coding mini-apps, or making art, or trading stocks and perps. But it is not who you are. And you're certainly not coding mini-apps or creating art just for the sake of it. Who are you? What do you do and why do you do it? When you ask me: "What do you do?" I can tell you any of these - I write a newsletter for technical builders about distribution and growth. - Am I a newsletter writer? - I run a podcast interviewing Web3 builders. - Am I a podcaster? - I'm writing a book. - Am I a writer? - I advise small and mid-size teams on product development and growth. - Am I advisor or consultant? - I am building a company that will help a million founders start their next digital business and make it successful through distribution. - I'm building a movement that puts distribution first because I believe we're entering a world where technical excellence is abundant but human connection is not. I want to be part of keeping the future human by building a movement of humans who still want to do things and want to talk to other humans. All are true. At least to me. Yet, each gives you a totally different image of who I am and what I am doing with my days. Each answer needs a different type of recipient, too. A kiddo entering college may not even know what I said if I use the last one. Even though it's the closest to the truth in my mind. So coming back to you - do you know what you will say about yourself when someone asks next time? Let me know below! Consider me college educated 😉

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weekend thoughts on how you should think about perpetual GTM motion for your project (i.e. must be part of your product!): 1/ Ecosystem partnerships > transactional sales 2/ Cross-protocol thinking > protocol maximalism 3/ Wallets and Socials will own the customers 4/ Clean UX and now crypto talk wins it for everyone, whether -> Infra, DeFi, exchanges, prediction markets, gambling, gaming, stables, savings, entertainment 5/ Founder-facing BD > protocol-facing BD (true for DAOs as well, find the "founder figures", the rest is politics) 6/ Never break feedback loops from: 🔁 market → product → strategy and back to -> market 🔁 7/ You must apply your values filter to all market feedback. We're still early. Anything I've forgot? 🧐

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Perception & Action & Will Full video Day 4 - from Daily Stoic Wisdom for Builders series See what it can do for you. Leave a comment if you like or dislike. It moves the needle on YT in any case 😉 https://youtu.be/t3cS6xYqVgI

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This one I will watch! John has many interesting takes on business and life - not that I agree with all 🤓 but it’s worth your time if you’re building something 👇🎧 https://x.com/davidsenra/status/2008637147063206070?s=46&t=vGdL6gMJv0qcvymUV8209g

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Know Your End Game Daily Stoic for Builders - Day 5 Seneca wrote: "Let all your efforts be directed to something, let it keep that end in view. It's not activity that disturbs people, but false conceptions of things that drive them mad." -- Seneca, On Tranquility of Mind Directionless activity is one crazy silly endeavour. That's what Seneca is saying. Now, I would not expect any builder to build without a plan of what product & features they're building. But having an end in mind is something that applies not just to technical side of things. It applies to your team, your business, or your distribution strategy, and as proxy to your overall culture and values. In the same way you would not start coding without a clear idea about what the code should do, you should spend time thinking about other parts of business and what your end-game should be in each. Having an end in mind when you start doesn't guarantee you will reach it. However, it provides direction for everything. It even gives direction to your (potential) luck. It is another piece for knowing what and when to say YES and NO to things, people, and events. I know there are elaborate theories that explain how you should describe, visualize, imagine, the end in mind to allow the universe or God or whatever supernatural power you subscribe to, help you. I don't think you need anything sophisticated. Do it the way that helps you easily remind yourself and see/feel the end in your mind, or on paper, or screen. It can be a sentence, a paragraph, a table, or an image. Whatever works for you. Example: how much easier your weekly planning gets when you know that this month's end goal is to talk to 100 users of your product, they might be the first users you wanna onboard, or they can be users that requested a specific feature. - You can't influence who will say yes to your request to talk, but you can influence how many people you approach. - You can't influence what they will tell you, but you can prepare the interview structure so you get the most out of it. - You can't force people to like you or your product idea, but you can prepare a clear vision and reasons why you're building it. How it came to be. Why is it important to you? -- When you tell them in a way they can understand, you've done your part. Now they can decide. When stoics talk about the end, they usually refer to a cause or purpose in life. But it transcends into every activity of life and hence also into building anything - a team, a community, a city, an empire, or your next mini-app. Think about it and tell me what you're building and what's your end-game? 🤓 looking forward to it👇

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