Every Friday, I share other great content (with some added context) to dive into over the weekend.

9 Habits of World Class Startups

I had never framed language as being a big part of a startups success but after reading this article, something clicked for me.

#7 Start With Language

Most people say “We’ll build a product, and then put language on it to explain it to people.” This is backwards.

The question is: What are you to your customer? For them, what’s the promise of what you’re doing? That is communicated with language.

Image Source: The New Yorker

Our reality is structured by language. Even if you don’t have a product yet, you can get a long way just with the right words. Language is the center of your company, it’s not something you add later. Language is at the core of your company, even before product.

‍The most high-impact companies think about language first and features second. You can build a whole company on the power of a phrase. “Find old friends” became Classmates.com. “Free IQ test” became Tickle. It can also change how people think about your product, including how you yourself think about it.

Read about the other habits here.

Where the 1960s "psychedelic" look came from

When you picture hippies, you probably picture bell bottoms, long hair, and LSD. You might also think of a very specific graphic design and illustration style, seen on concert posters and album covers: curly, cloudy, barely legible lettering, trippy color combinations, and decorative meandering borders. This style was first conceived in San Francisco by a handful of designers in the late 1960s. Their job? Make posters for bands like The Byrds, the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Steve Miller Band, Jimi Hendrix … all of whom were just getting their start, competing for nightly stage time at venues like the Fillmore and the Avalon.

But these designers didn’t invent that now-iconic style. In fact, they were heavily influenced by an art movement that started in the late 1800s called Art Nouveau.

Watch here. [6 mins]

Market Examples #053 Newsletter

This is a great newsletter if you want to learn more about marketing with case studies and not platitudes.

In the latest newsletter, they explore how companies created something of extreme value adjacent to their business to drive people to their core products.

Case in point - The Michelin Guide. Some may not have realized that the famous star rating for high end restaurants was born out of a tire company. Here’s its story.

Clermont-Ferrand, France, 1900.

Andre and Edouard Michelin had just started making tyres.

The problem was there were less than 300 cars in France.

So hoping to encourage car ownership they published the world's first Michelin Guide.

It was the ultimate guide for new motorists: maps, instructions on how to change tyres, locations of fine restaurants, etc.

And they printed 35,000 copies and gave them away for free.

Over the next decade the number of motorists soared. And so did demand for the guide.

The brothers started charging 7 francs and ramped up distribution. By 1908 different versions were being sold throughout Europe.

It would have been easy to rest on their laurels. But each year the brothers took pride in improving the guide.

Shortly after the First World War they hired inspectors to visit restaurants. And the first Michelin stars were awarded.

By 1930 each new edition was a regular on France’s bestseller list.

Why am I telling you this?

Well, The Michelin brothers made something so useful they never had to worry about selling tyres.

Car enthusiasts loved the Michelin Guide. What sort of tyres do you think they bought?

Read about other examples here.

Bonus Read: The Psychology Of Space: Proportion

Leave today better than yesterday ✌️.

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