The working library / 87 articles

Field Notes — Page 2

Observations, arguments and practical lessons from business, creative work and life as a founder.

Field Notes explore an idea. System Maps lay out a process. Build Logs show the work behind it.

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13–24 of 45 articles

Field Notes · Creative & production · 2 min read

A curiosity gap is a promise to explain.

Write an opening that creates interest and earns it with a specific answer.

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Field Notes · Creative & production · 2 min read

Exaggerate the situation, keep the claim honest.

Use an extreme scenario to make an idea memorable without making the product’s promise ambiguous.

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Field Notes · Offers & pricing · 2 min read

Offer the next useful thing.

Build an upsell around the customer’s next task rather than the product you most want to move.

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Field Notes · Marketing & behaviour · 2 min read

Give something useful without creating a debt.

Design samples, advice and resources that help a customer before asking for a commitment.

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Field Notes · Business operations · 2 min read

Small improvements only compound when they survive.

Turn a useful one-off improvement into something the next project inherits.

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Field Notes · Business operations · 2 min read

Use a slow week to remove a busy-week problem.

Choose maintenance work that will reduce the next delivery bottleneck.

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Field Notes · Growth & acquisition · 2 min read

Look for the work around the opportunity.

A practical way to explore businesses that help other people do a difficult job.

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Field Notes · Founder notes · 2 min read

More money makes the operating choices more visible.

Treat additional resources as a chance to make deliberate choices about the business.

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Field Notes · Business operations · 2 min read

Cash, profit and value answer different questions.

Keep three different views of a business separate when discussing growth.

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Field Notes · Better decisions · 2 min read

A signal is not an explanation.

Before using a pattern to judge people or customers, ask what it really measures.

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Field Notes · Marketing & behaviour · 2 min read

Being familiar is only part of being chosen.

Use repetition to make a useful message recognisable without treating exposure as persuasion by itself.

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Field Notes · Offers & pricing · 2 min read

Explain the cost of inaction without manufacturing fear.

Make the consequences of a problem concrete, proportionate and open to inspection.

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Built from my working notes, scripts and documented projects, with AI assistance in adapting and organising the library. Research and published case studies are linked in the articles.

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