Week #14 Email Update: What the science says about entrepreneurs being born or made
We’re deep in week 25 of 2022 with the exhilaration of getting out of a cold plunge and jumping into a hot tub. That feels soooo good!
Here’s the new EDGE podcast episodes, a new scientific study about salaries you’ll find interesting, what I’m reading, watching and writing about that will help give you the edge to win in your business and life. Let’s go….
New EDGE Podcast Episodes
- How I Built a Company that Makes the Fastest Bicycle Wheels on the Planet with Martin Crotty Founder of Princeton Carbon Works | Ep. 324
Marty is an accidental entrepreneur, hell bent on making the fastest bicycle wheels imaginable. This is a story about how an idea, a great product, and a global pandemic resulted in a flourishing global business on track to become an industry leader.
Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
- Marketing Hacks Used by AirBnB, Reddit, Tinder, Amazon, Salesforce, Puma and Us with Danielle Jenkins | Ep.325
Traditional marketing doesn’t always get you a competitive advantage, especially when you’re going against Fortune 500 companies that have big budgets.
We break down the marketing hacks that came from unconventional marketing thinking that we’ve used as well as companies like AirBnB, Reddit, Tinder, Amazon, Salesforce, and Puma.
Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
- How I Built a Company that Makes Building Financial Models Easier for Startups with Rami Essaid CEO of Finmark | Ep. 326
Rami talks about how a financial modeling mistake in his last company cost him millions and lead to the idea to make financial modeling easier and more reliable for startups.
Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
- 401k Series Part 4 – How to stop getting 401k refund checks | Ep.327
It might sound like a good thing to get a refund check, but not from your 401k company program. A refund check means that money gets taxed and doesn’t grow tax free. Matt explains how to fix that.
Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
- How I Built the First Talent Marketplace for Hiring Freelance Salespeople with Lavie Popack CEO of Overpass | Ep. 328
You’ll come away from the episode with great information on where to find and hire a sales team along with how Lavie built Overpass.
Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
- Venture Capital with Nicholas Brathwaite Founding Managing Partner at Celesta Capital | Ep. 329
Nic and I talk about the state of venture capital (VC), what types of startups should seek VC funding, when a company should look to raise venture capital, what is a true “value added” investor, come case studies and more on startups and venture capital.
Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
- Are Entrepreneurs Born or Made? Here’s What Science Says with Danielle Jenkins | Ep. 330
Are entrepreneurs born or made? Danielle take a look at what the science says and what we think. You decide. Write in and let us know what you think. Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
New Information Worth Sharing:
Here’s what a new study says about making salaries transparent.
Tomasz Obloj of HEC Paris and Todd Zenger from the University of Utah’s business school compiled the salaries of almost 100,000 US-based academics in eight states over a period of 14 years.
Their findings show that pay transparency had a big effect on both pay equity, how fairly the academics were paid, particularly in regards to gender, and on pay equality, how similarly the academics were paid compared with their peers.
Once wages and rewards become transparent, there is both internal and external pressure to close those gaps, Obloj observed.
But the extent to which making pay transparent helps erase unfairness was remarkable, he said. The gender pay gap, for example, was reduced by up to 45% in transparent organizations compared to those in the study that didn’t disclose such data.
Inequality of pay also dropped by about 20%, Obloj said, noting that pay transparency leads to what he called overall “wage compression,” whereby all the salaries in a given organization become more similar, with fewer outliers.
Obloj and Zenger came up with a third finding that could also hold lessons for companies exploring pay transparency: When salaries were made public across organizations, the link between pay and performance was significantly weakened, by about 40%, meaning, in this situation, that higher academic salaries were less closely tied to observable metrics like publications, grants, patents, or books.
The authors also noted that while work achievements were rewarded less highly in transparent companies, the link between achievement and pay was actually more clear and data-driven in transparent companies than in their non-transparent counterparts.
A real world case of salary transparency has been going on at Buffer, a company based in San Francisco with a remote work force, that has been publishing how they do everything, including but not limited to how much and how they calculate salaries.
If you’re interested you can check out exactly how much everyone, including the Founders and CEO make at Buffer here.
If you implemented some sort of transparency like salaries in your company I want to hear from you. Please reply to this email with what you do and I’d love to have you on the EDGE to talk about it.
What I’m Reading
How to Think Like a Roman Emperor- The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius by Donald Roberson
I heard someone recommend this book on a podcast a while ago and had it on my list to read/listen to. It has over 3,400 five star reviews (five stars is the highest) on Amazon. I guess I’m a little late getting to reading this.
Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius was the final famous Stoic philosopher of the ancient world. The Meditations, his personal journal, survives to this day as one of the most loved self-help and spiritual classics of all time. Psychotherapist Donald Robertson weaves stories of Marcus’ life from the Roman histories together with explanations of Stoicism – its philosophy and its psychology – to enlighten today’s listeners. He discusses Stoic techniques for coping with everyday problems, from irrational fears and bad habits to anger, pain, and illness.
I’m listening to the book and about 1/3 into it and so far it’s good. Recommended.
Best price I found for the book or audio version is here >>>
What I’m Watching
House of Gucci
We weren’t sure if this was going to be a good movie or not, but we wanted to see something new. When we saw Al Pacino, Lady Gaga, and Adam Driver in it we decided to gave it a try. Glad we did.
Inspired by a true story of how a small store turned into a global business empire only to be run into the ground by family members helped by Patrizia Reggiani, an outsider from humble beginnings, who marries into the Gucci family. Then her unbridled ambition unravels their legacy and triggers a reckless spiral of betrayal, decadence, revenge, and ultimately…murder. Yea, murder! The ending caught be by surprise.
Read more and watch it here >>>
What I’m Writing About for The EDGE’s Print Subscription Newsletter
I’m still writing the book I committed to a few weeks ago. In last weeks email I reported I had written 8,000 words.
Scrivener (thanks for the software recommendation Kelly!) reports that this week I have 30,621 words. Right on! More on this soon.
The week almost over. Attack what’s left!
Brandon
P.S. Would it be crazy for me to ask you to drop us some stars and a short review for the EDGE podcast? It’s quick and easy.
Thanks for being generous with your time for the support!
Drop some love with stars and a short review on Apple or Spotify
P.S. Make sure to subscribe to the EDGE in your podcast player so you don’t miss any episodes >>>
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