(#38) Counterintuitive points about startups

Much like how Googling is an art, so is ChatGPT-ing, Keep realigning until it feels right

👋 Welcome to the 38th edition of BellaLou, a weekly newsletter where I share my thoughts, learn new ideas, and make connections between self-improvement, crypto, tech, creativity, and whatever else I feel like writing about.

In this issue:

• Keep realigning until it feels right

• Much like how Googling is an art, so is ChatGPT-ing

• Counterintuitive points about startups

• Harry Styles, Tiny Desk Concert

---

Five years ago, I couldn’t gauge where I’m at now. You just move forward, pursue opportunities, and eventually become someone else. A new chapter reveals itself. Life is wild. The only advice I would give is to chase momentum and stay in motion.

---

Much like how Googling is an art, so is ChatGPT-ing. This article explores how creating and understanding natural language is actually quite difficult for computers and requires a lot of work.

From the user’s side, it’s hard to decide what to ask while providing the right amount of context. Prompting seems a lot like programming. 

Key Points 👇 :

• Less prompting, more clicking. If you’re not actively engineering LLM apps, you should very rarely be inputing natural language that is then acted upon by an LLM.

• From the user’s side, it’s hard to decide what to ask while providing the right amount of context.

• Computers, like the ones we use every day, are not naturally good at understanding and using natural language.

• Therefore, in most cases, a “prompt box” should never be shoved in a user’s face. So how should apps integrate LLMs? Short answer: buttons.

• Making computers understand natural language is challenging, and scientists and engineers are working hard to teach computers this skill.

Natural Language Is an Unnatural Interface

---

Paul Graham Gold

Counterintuitive points about startups from Paul Graham’s Essays about start-ups:

• If you follow your instincts they’ll lead you astray

  • “Tell founders things they would ignore”

  • Trust your instincts about people

• What you need to succeed in startups is not expertise in startups

  • What you need is expertise in your own users!

  • Make something ppl want and tell them about it

  • Starting a startup is where gaming the system stops working

• There will be a bunch of custom stuff in the beginning,

  • Don’t design this right now. Rules and standardization will kill you. You’ll grow gradually and find out how it should be streamlined. Don’t skip this step.

  • JUST GROW. Keep your head down and GROW

  • Don’t plan ahead. Because what you make won’t be a product of evolution it’ll be a product of planning.

• Focus on growing 10% a week. Next week! Focus all on next week! Growth hound. Grind it out and get the numbers week after week.

  • Find the perfect shape of the business by just flowing like water flowing down a valley and finding the path of least resistance.

• Don’t do anything unless it’s the thing you need to get growth.

---

🎵 TINY DESK CONCERT - Harry Styles

Such a good concert. I must say that I became a fan of Harry Styles thanks to this video.

Time stamps:

0:15 Cherry

5:10 Watermelon Sugar

10:35 To Be So Lonely

15:20 Adore You

---

Let’s connect 🤝 Twitter, Linkedin