Everyday Empires: Weekend Reads - No. 2
Apple Sports as a blueprint, rethinking the startup MVP, two types of founders, and building confidence in yourself (and your ideas)
Hey friends,
Last Friday’s experimental first issue of Weekend Reads received a warm reception, so it’s back again this week. It’s still an experiment, so continue to reply and let me know whether you’re enjoying it or not.
As with last week, below you’ll find a handful of links that caught my attention recently, and that I thought you’d enjoy as you wind down from your week and gear up for the weekend ahead.
But before we do that, I want to share with y’all that we just crossed 500 subscribers! Amazing. Thank you all so much for joining me 🫶🏼
Let’s keep growing this community together! If you know someone who’d enjoy this newsletter, it’d mean the world to me if take a moment to share it with them:
Now let’s get into this week’s reads…
Apple’s new Sports app: a blueprint
Apple recently released a new app called Apple Sports. If you haven’t seen it, you might wonder why we need another sports app.
Eddy Cue explains it simply:
We created Apple Sports to give sports fans what they want — an app that delivers incredibly fast access to scores and stats
As soon as you open the app, you’ll see what he means. Apple Sports does one thing, and it does it better than anyone else. It gives you scores to the games you care about, and nothing else.
The value is created just as much by what the app does as what it doesn’t.
I believe you could come up with several great iOS app ideas by taking some inspiration from Apple Sports. What apps do you use often where you only use a fraction of the capabilities? Now make an app that does the one thing you use it for and nothing else.
Here are a few ideas:
News app that delivers just 5 articles that are the most interesting to you. Nothing else. Nothing to scroll. Nothing to suck up time. Just 5 articles you actually care about.
Music app with a single new playlist for doing focused work, delivered first thing in the morning. No other genres, no artists, no search. Just one playlist a day designed to do one thing: help you get work done.
Financial app with your recurring transactions neatly labeled and sorted by cost (most expensive first). No net worth calculation, no investment tracker, no stock browser. Just quickly see your largest recurring expenses.
Tasks app that only lets you add a max of 3 tasks for just today. If you don’t finish a task it rolls to the next day. Want to add a 4th? Remove or complete one first. No tags, backlogs, or folders. Just 3 tasks!
You get the idea. What apps can you cut down to a single, core feature? Then make that as fast and enjoyable to use as possible.
Rethinking the startup MVP
Linear, a much-loved issue-tracking and project management tool, recently wrote about how they think of MVPs, and how they’ve evolved in the 13 years since Eric Reis popularized the term in his startup classic, The Lean Startup.
Today, the MVP is no longer about validating a novel idea as quickly as possible. Rather, its aim is to create a compelling product that draws in the early users in order to gather feedback that you then use to sharpen the product into the best version of many.
Two types of founders
There are two types of founders.
Those who do lots of research, validate ideas, test many prototypes, and iteratively get to a product
Those where the product vision emerges fully-formed in the founder’s eye before it is brought to existence.
The former is about problem solving, the latter is about manifesting a creative vision.
Problem solving is about taking an action to make something go away. Creating is about taking an action to bring something to life.
Both can achieve success, but some of the most interesting consumer products of our era weren’t solving clearly defined problems, they were bringing creative visions to the world.
Building Confidence In Yourself and Your Ideas
I’ve been finding more videos from YC (the fabled startup accelerator) in my YouTube feed recently.
This one from Dalton & Michael stood out to me. It’s similar to Sari’s quote above, in that they talk about the mistakes founders make validating their startup ideas and the importance of conviction.
At only 20 minutes, it should be relatively easy to sneak into your weekend:
That’s a wrap for this second issue of Weekend Reads.
I’d love to know if you enjoyed this post and want to see more like it (or not).
Reply or comment below and share your feedback 🫶🏼
Btw, I have a new founder interview coming to your inbox Sunday morning. They spotted an opportunity where most would never think to look, and have quickly built it up to a $1M+ revenue business operating in 3 states in just two years.
Until then,
Ken
P.S. Follow me on X or LinkedIn for more insights from the founders I chat with
Enjoyed! I like the task app idea too.