Good gardens require good soil, and good soil takes compost and plenty of time. Jesse shares his experiences composting soil for his garden, and how it applies to business. Like compost, good business ideas take time to execute. They can be executed more quickly, but that often involves more complexity. Mark and Jesse then pivot to discuss complexity in business plans, and when it's worth pursuing complex solutions to problems.

Jesse's rule of thumb: if the business strategy is simple, but the implementation is complex, it's probably worth doing. Many things that appear simple on the surface involved solving complex problems. YNAB's direct import function is a good example. Direct import means that users can link their bank accounts to their YNAB account, and transactions automatically appear in YNAB for them to categorize. It's an important part of making YNAB a smooth and easy to use tool. The intricacies of actually pulling bank data from various banks, each with their own constantly changing API's and backend implementations, is very complex and requires a lot of effort to solve. On the other hand, if a business strategy complex at the outset, before you get into the details of actually pulling it off, it's probably a bad idea!

Mark Butler

The Money School: https://moneyschool.works

https://markbutler.com

https://letsdothebooks.com

YNAB

https://www.youneedabudget.com

The algorithm has come to rule media, and it is a voracious beast. It consumes as much content as people can create, as often as they can create. The ones who rise to the top seem to be those who create the most content, on as many platforms as possible, but what do the economics of this look like? Mark asks the question whether playing the content game is worth it for a business, and if so, what kind of business?

Many would agree that making content purely for quantity's sake, to appease the algorithm and get in front of as many eyeballs as possible, can be a soul sucking endeavour, but not all businesses seem to benefit equally from this type of marketing effort. Some businesses, espcially highly skilled service providers, do just fine relying on word of mouth marketing, and in fact, the more ubiquitous content creation becomes, the more special and valuable word of mouth referrals become.

Books referenced in this episode:

• Anathem by Neal Stephenson

Mark Butler

The Money School: https://moneyschool.works

https://markbutler.com

https://letsdothebooks.com

YNAB

https://www.youneedabudget.com

Jesse shares one of his recent experiments, inspired by a guest on the Art of Manliness podcast. The challenge was to delete the apps on your phone, especially the ones you feel a "pull" from -- a pull to open it and check it every time you see it (most social media apps would meet this criteria for most people). As Jesse explains, phones don't just suck up your time, they suck up your attention, which is arguably even more valuable. Deleting your apps creates a barrier between your brain and that instant dopamine hit, which can restore some balance to your attention span over time.

It's a simple experiment to try, and the stakes are low. If you really need to access an app, you can always reinstall it, use it for a given task, then delete it again. Chances are, you'll find many apps that you don't need that often.

Mark Butler

The Money School: https://moneyschool.works

https://markbutler.com

https://letsdothebooks.com

YNAB

https://www.youneedabudget.com