#7 Trust & safety

One with Airbnb, Coupang and more

I was trying out a lot of Podcasts before the pandemic. They were great companions for my short drive. As the driving stopped, listening to podcasts gave way to reading newsletters & blogs. I found them a great way to get started on any topic. A quick read or two tells me quickly if I want to dig deeper. Books or research can follow that. 

In these weekly emails, I’m curating some of the good resources from these efforts. Hope you’ll find them useful as well. 

1.

This one is a scary but required reminder. Trust & Safety is a critical expectation from brands like Airbnb and cultfit. Many things can go wrong and they will. It's not completely in our control. We need to double down our investment in the best preventive systems & SOPs. And we need to learn the most humane ways to manage a crisis if it ever happens.

Those are 'Doing the right thing, always'.

This story covers a lot of what goes wrong at Airbnb safety. But, let's not forget, these are far & few because of the good efforts done in many others. Great CE effort remains unnoticed by design. 

2.

Another gem from Lenny. This is like a 101 in thinking of the north star metric (NSM) for your business & product. Defining the right nsm is a critical strategic input in the design of any business or org. As Lenny puts it - "Whatever companies choose as their guiding metric, all energy and brainpower will flow in that direction."

What do you think our NSM is?

By the way, this post is tagged under 'metrics and mindset' on Future. We often think of metric as the quantifiable measure. But thinking of them as a mindset & way of thinking is such an enabling approach.

3.

I'm lucky these days to find a lot of good stuff on "asking the right questions". Josh Kaufman shares some great examples of the most common questions we ask in all our daily work.

4.

Coupang is the Amazon of South Korea. It gets this distinction not just because of its total domination in the ecommerce market share there, but also the way it has built that. Their customer obsession is said to be in the same league as the one we know amazon for. Here’s a small screenshot from a deep dive on their business done around their IPO. You can read the complete brief here.

5.

Some random goodness from the internet:

1. Instagram: Khaby LameYou would have seen his Tiktok or Insta posts in some forwards or on your feed. This former factory worker from Italy is now one of the fastest-growing TikTok stars. His talent? His deadpan reactions. He puts this skill to everyday life and creates engaging content post after post. Authenticity, consistency and relatability - he has it all. No wonder he is gaining popularity this fast.

2. Tool: Wordtune is a great tool for writing in a crisp, clear and engaging way. I’ve tried their free version and found the recommendation pretty useful.

3. Twitter: Some industry secrets, a fun thread around some interesting ways of working in different industries. There is so much we don’t really understand. 

That's all, folks!