I’m 30 now. So what?

Most Critical Learning

Value capture before value delivery systems teach people to adopt the same mindset of value capture before value delivery. This is how it does it:

• Education introduces it to us by selling courses (value capture) which then leads to job placements (value delivery)
• Healthcare, legal & businesses sells/reinforces it to us by selling product/services (value capture) which then leads to solve the job to be done (value delivery)

Entrepreneurship is essentially flipping the system. It is one of the top tools to get exponential rewards by building product/services which REPEATEDLY prioritises value creation/delivery over value capture.

Internet (web 1.0 & 2.0) disrupted education, healthcare, legal & business by giving access to data (UGC or professional) to every person on the planet because it is the embodiment of value delivery before value capture.

Reliance Jio disrupted Indian market by making the access to data cheaper.

1000s of companies has disrupted different industries by building product/services which offers data consolidation & knowledge extraction from that data.

The ironical thing about all of this is this: It’s our destiny to become what we fight. Why? because value creation & value capture runs in cycles where one can be bigger than the other at different scenarios. One such scenario is monopoly or duopoly where value capture >>>> value creation. Since value creation is essentially deploying a better solution than the current baseline solutions available in the market, deploying a better solution requires a cycle of value creation >>>> value capture. And, not a lot of companies are able to both identify the need & build the viability so they starts becoming value capture before value creation systems. Reasons are more internal than external. Internal complacency is the opening for disruption. Whether that disruption is done from inside or outside depends on the companies who are at the risk of disruption.

The cyclical balance between value creation & value capture needs an adaptable mindset to steer the companies in the right direction of either value creation >>> value capture or vice-versa at the right time.

That’s why there are very few companies who remains at the top of their respective markets. Disruption is inevitable.

A lot of companies uses a different method to delay the disruption - method of fencing the entry to that market with the help of secrecy, frictions or/and restrictions (mostly with the help of governments via IPs & legal systems).

Now, self-serve knowledge extraction from the consolidated data via no navigation internet (using AI) is the next phase of disruption which will again follow the value creation/delivery over value capture.

The above is the most important learning in my 30 yrs of existence. And, it’s time to reverse the flow in both personal & professional life:

• 20s → bottoms-up: value capture → value creation
• 30s → top-down: value creation → value capture

(I’ll be buying my first domain today.)

What has changed in 10 yrs?

• Consumption: Prevention >> cure
• Focus: Goals-driven curiosity >> knowledge
• Incremental Growth: Action >> perfectionism, intent
• Sustainable Growth: Purpose & systems >> motivation, memory & intent
• Exponential Growth: Learning from other’s mistakes >> making your own → Community >> individual achievements
• Time Management or Overthinking or Procrastination: Right now, schedule it or forget it
• Leadership: Values >> skills; Giving >> networking → Value creation >> value capture
• Value Capture (reward): Outcome >> output
• People or Outcome: You don’t know what you don’t know → Continuous cycle of value creation to value capture

Why’s the 30s the new 20s?

Information overflow leading to distractions & hence delay in YOUR ARRIVAL. - more on this later

Inspirations for writing this

• Clayton Christensen - Link
• Mark Manson - Link
• NF - Link