Monzo, marathon, pandemic & winners - Edition 6
Monzo growth
One of the co-founders of Monzo has written about how Monzo, a bank, grew in the early stage. It’s striking to note that even without no prior knowledge of marketing they were able to quickly sense that marketing would be key to their success. They were able to amass huge waiting lists and turned the media to their advantage. As the author noted at that time banks were old stodgy and not technologically progressive. Here he was pitching to folks a new modern friendly bank. The storytelling worked. He also played “scarcity” tacit to his advantage.
Eliud Kipchoge: Inside the camp, and the mind, of the greatest marathon runner of all time
It’s interesting to note the rituals and the mental model of the greatest marathon runner. He doesn’t look at social media to get the dopamine effect. He doesn’t drink alcohol and lives quite a spartan life while training. Almost as if he is afraid of all the success will get to his head.
Precedented Times
The pandemic makes us feel that we are living in an unprecedented time. The reality is that life has never been this good. The reality is that human beings have a very short memory span and that’s why knowing history is important. History is humbling. Human beings have survived a lot of hardships in the past and it has lessons for how to deal with such events in the future.
Why Winners Keep Winning
Winners keep winning because winning gets you some legitimacy and a headstart. Once you have an advantage after that one doesn’t need to do better but merely doing average will still make you a winner.