Yi-Chen Lu's Newsletter No. 3
Managing Biases, Creating Categories, Sharing My Core Values
Hi everyone,
Greetings from Vancouver!
Thank you all for reading and sharing thoughtful comments on the last issue.
I want to start by sharing an interesting quote from a sales and marketing training workshop I attended last week:
People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.
— Theodore Roosevelt
Showing you care can lead to valuable conversations, meaningful relationships, and even better, great business opportunities, and loyal customers.
Question for you: What are some things you do to show people that you care?
Here's a snapshot of everything in store for this issue:
Managing Biases in Investment Decision Making
The Law of Category
Sharing My Core Values
Tackling the Mental Health Crisis
Managing Biases in Investment Decision Making
Understanding biases and finding ways to manage it is key to making sound investment decisions. I came across this fascinating paper shared by Ram Bhupatiraju. The paper outlines all the biases we have, real-life examples of how it may happen, and how to best approach each bias.
Here are three biases that stood out to me:
Anchoring bias: A tendency to rely heavily on the first piece of information you get when making decisions.
Once an anchor (the first information you come across) is set, other judgments are made by adjusting away from that anchor, and there is a bias toward interpreting other information around the anchor.
Example: When a company sets a 1-year target for the stock price, that sets an anchor for your decision of when to sell.
Similarity heuristic: People tend to make judgments based on the similarity of the situations.
Decisions based on how favorable or unfavorable the present seems are based on how similar the past was to the current situation.
Example: You invest in a company just because you’ve seen a similar success from a lookalike company.
Disaster myopia: We tend to increasingly underestimate the probability of adverse outcomes as time goes further away from the distant past.
Under very optimistic circumstances, investors disregard any relevant information concerning the increasing degree of risk.
Example: At the beginning of this year, when we started to hear about the coronavirus outbreak in China, most of us underestimated the effect that it can cause on individuals, organizations, and the economy worldwide.
The Law of the Category
Let's continue exploring the second law of the 22 immutable laws of marketing.
It's called the law of the category.
Not every brand can be the first into the prospect's mind. For those that didn't make it first, there's still hope.
If you can't be the best in a category, set up a new category you can be first in.
When you launch a new product, instead of asking "How is this new product better than the competition?; ask this "what category is this new product first in?"
Example: HubSpot is a marketing technology (mar-tech) software company that is not the first in the market, but they coined the term "inbound marketing" and became the first in the category.
Unlike outbound marketing where companies initiate conversations with prospects, inbound marketing is a business methodology that attracts customers by creating valuable content and experiences tailored to them.
Whenever a company wants to implement this new marketing strategy and is looking for mar-tech software to do that, HubSpot is the role model that everyone looks to because they were the first to create this category.
What are some examples you can think of? Feel free to share them in the comments below.
Sharing My Core Values
I recently joined an online speaking course called Performative Speaking. My goal is to become a more confident speaker. I want to learn how to deliver messages with clear logic, hold insightful conversations, and pitch my ideas with confidence.
The first assignment was to examine who I am and what matters to me the most by talking about my core values. At first, I was a bit uncomfortable with this assignment. It also feels a bit daunting to share something so personal with a group of people that I just met.
But I was wrong. The power of this community is so transformative.
I decided to go through this exercise. I sat down one morning, set up a camera, and started talking about my core values: Kindness, Curiosity, and Perseverance.
This self-examination process allows me to be more aware of myself. No noises, no distractions, and no desire. Just me and myself.
With the encouragement of my course mates, I published my first video in public and I want you to be the first to watch it.
Watch my core values video here.
I think the instructors, Robbie and Tyler, are really building something extraordinary here. Speaking no longer has to be a struggle on your own, you can now join a community of speakers who are using this skill to achieve great things.
Cohort 2 starts on January 11, 2021, so go check it out! I highly recommend it.
Tackling the Mental Health Crisis
Did you solve the last digital health trivia?
Which of the following digital health companies does NOT fall into this category—tackling the mental health crisis?
Ginger.io: is a virtual platform that connects employees with behavioral coaches to talk through issues and suggest ways forward.
Human-to-human care, superpowered by technology.
Viome: This is the right answer. Although Viome is not a mental health startup, it delivers personalized nutrition recommendations based on one's microbiome insights.
Get precise food and supplement recommendations based on your gut microbiome, cellular & mitochondrial health.
Lyra Health: is a virtual platform that allows members to find the right personalized care and match with the right providers based on their mental health issues. The members are supported by evidence-based therapies and the best patient care experience.
The best mental health care for your workforce. Care supercharged with technology.
Kumanu: has an emotional well-being support system that fuses the latest neuroscience research with behavior design principles and machine learning to make it easier for individuals to be their best each day, increase resilience and achieve enduring behavior change. They also have another platform which is for organizations looking to uncover their employees’ real-time emotional insights to drive strategies and decisions.
Wellbeing starts with why.
Digital Health Trivia
Tis' the season to be SPACing: which of the following digital health companies was not taken public through SPAC (Special Purpose Acquisition Company)?
A. Clover Health
B. Hims
C. One Medical
D. Augmedix
I will reveal the answer in the next issue. Stay tuned!
Thanks again for reading.
Talk soon,
Yi-Chen (Jenny)
P.S. I love to hear from you. Feel free to hit reply and let me know what you think about this issue.
Thoughtful and different. Thanks for sharing all these interesting facts.