đ Luxury senior living, Bob Moestaâs magic, Future of silk, Make assertions, Millennial hobby energy
Gurwinderâs 25 useful ideas, WhatsApps documentary ad, O3 guesses a photo location
Hello, this is post #211.
Writing this while sitting on a pile of half-packed boxes. Moving homes takes way more energy than collecting all that stuff in the first place. And I donât just mean the physical work of packing and haulingâitâs the emotional toll of deciding, item by item, if something still fits into the next phase of your life.
I wish packers and movers came with a Marie Kondo add-on. Would save us so many arguments and emotional spirals.
Todayâs post is a bit shorter than usualâcurated in the few quiet moments I could steal from the chaos. Still, itâs packed with punch. Take a look:
𫶠Business of Luxury Senior Living
đĄ Bob Moesta and the Retirement Condos
𧔠The Future of Silk
đ Why High Performers Make Assertions
đĄ Gurwinderâs 25 Useful Ideas for 2025
đ Millennial Hobby Energy
âš WhatsAppâs Documentary or Advertisement?
âš Watching O3 Guess a Photoâs Location
And now, letâs get to our main features.
𫶠Business of Luxury Senior Living
âs conversation with Tara Vachani, founder of Antara, offers sharp insights into the elder care industry and what it takes to build a top-notch hospitality business. Antara runs luxury residences with full-spectrum care for seniors. I especially liked how Tara breaks down the nuanced challengesâand how her team is working to solve them.đĄ Bob Moesta and the Retirement Condos
While Antaraâs story talked about not needing a strong sales push (yet), Commoncogâs case âBob Moesta and the retirement condosâ offers us some great examples of sales processes done well. I did not know who Bob Moesta was, but found the premise of the case study intriguing. And Iâm glad I gave it a read.
In 2004, at the age of 39, Bob Moesta decided to apply his skillsets in sales, marketing and engineering to a local business where he could make an equity investment. He picked a small regional home builder based out of Detroit. Years later, in his 2020 book Demand Side Sales 101, he wrote: âI told them I would partner as an investor over time, but I wanted to spend a year learning about the business first. So, I became vice president of sales and marketing.â
Hereâs one of the magic trick that Moesta used:
One of the most effective frames, they found, was saying something like âImagine that we want to shoot a documentary about how you decided to buy this house.â Then theyâd start from the move-in day, working backwards through the timeline until they got to the first thought. At each point, whenever they were held up, the men would probe for concrete details: âWas it winter? What was the weather like? What was your husband doing at the time? Who were you with?â
Learning from these discussions and his problem-solving approach led to a turnaround in the sales process and results. Itâs a solid case studyânot just for sales leaders, but also for consumer researchers and product builders.
𧔠The Future of Silk
Silk is one of the strongest materials we knowâstronger than steel or even Kevlar. We've worn it for centuries, used it in paintings and curtains, and admired it for its beauty and feel. But thatâs just the surface.
Across the world, in labs and some commercial facilities, silk is being reimagined for bold, life-saving applications. This Works in Progress piece offers a glimpse into the surprising future of this ancient material.
Silklab is at the forefront of this evolution. Below snippet shares a bit about the kind of magic they are weaving with silk.
Much of what we now understand about silk was discovered at Silklab, âa branch of the department of engineering at Tufts University in Medford, a suburb of Boston. Here a visitor encounters silken lenses that project words and images when bathed in laser light; surgical gloves coated in silk that display a warning if theyâve been contaminated with pathogens; tiny silken screws that are strong enough to repair a broken bone, only to dissolve entirely once the injury is healed.
Itâs also interesting to see how theyâre working to commercialize the product. Itâs a long pursuit, but promising to see early signs of venture-backed startups entering the space.
đ Why High Performers Make Assertions
An insight is just a starting point. The rare, courageous thing to do is to develop an assertion, i.e. a hypothesis and point of view that answers "so what?"
Thatâs the premise of
âs brilliant post - Why high performers make assertions. It highlight the difference between insights, suggestions, and assertionsThe dreaded âso what?â has haunted many of my research presentations. Iâve learned the hard way that even the strongest consumer insight needs a championâsomeone willing to stand by it and push it forward. As Wes Kao points out, thatâs where real conviction shows.
Itâs a great articulation, I wish I had found it earlier.
đĄ Gurwinderâs 25 Useful Ideas for 2025
âs 25 Useful Ideas for 2025 offers fresh mental models for a fast-changing world. A couple of them hit home for meâIâve been in those exact situations, which made the insights instantly click!
đ Millennial Hobby Energy
defines and explains what is Millennial Hobby Energy?As the subtitle suggests âAmbitious Expansive Swallowing NO DON'T MONETIZE ME HELP.â
Still donât get it? Let me make an assertion - most of you have experienced it or indulged in it even now.
Anneâs take is an honest account of her own journey and will give you some sense in both understanding and appreciating this aspect of your life.
Still not convinced? Hereâs a dead giveaway to the theme:
Millennial Hobby Energy is going from growing four dahlias to growing 500. Itâs running a couch-to-5K and then suddenly youâre making plans for two marathons a year. Itâs falling down a quilting rabbit hole on TikTok and waking up with $800 worth of fabric. Itâs going golfing for the first time in a decade and suddenly youâre going on four guysâ trips and have a closet full of golf-specific rain gear.
Over to youâŠ
âš Everything else
WhatsAppâs new Netflix doc on F1 is a master class in turning advertising into entertainment. Iâve not seen this yet, but the premise looks fantastic.
Watching o3 guess a photoâs location is surreal, dystopian and wildly entertaining. This is as the title suggests - SURREAL, DYSTOPIAN AND WILDLY ENTERTAINING. I am sure the techies will find many flaws and suggestions to improve it, but for the non-techie like me this is a magic in unraveling.
ICYMIâŠ
Last weekâs post was a recap of two of my favorite posts from the last few years. If youâve not checked it yet, hereâs a quick link:
That's all for this week, folks!
I hope I've earned the privilege of your time.
If this piece sparked something for you, Iâd love to hear what stood outâleave a comment and letâs keep the conversation alive. And if you know someone whoâs always asking "why?" or "how come?", pass this along to them. The world gets more interesting every time a curious mind shares what theyâve found.
Am yet to go through the individual articles Pritesh but can already find this weekâs post to be a blockbuster! And, happy packing, unpacking and the move into your new home.