Skip to main content

Codex Audentia

Codex: An ancient manuscript text in book form.
Audentia: Latin for “audacity”.

This is not a blog. This is my codex — a working notebook with all my notes and rambles in their full glory. It is raw, unpolished and unfiltered. I write these posts mostly for myself and don’t publicize them, so there’s no newsletter or RSS feed for these, sorry.

Rambles

Educational Resources for Employees

I wonder how I could provide my team with the training they need. Major areas: Negotiation and collaborationJob-related skills and knowledgeThings that would accelerate their career in generalPersonal growth and well-being Negotiation Black Swan method by Chris Voss. The most effective I've found yet. Ship a copy of the book to every new team member and see if they learned anything from it. Also the Vimeo uploads by this user: https://vimeo.com/user104273425 Things that accelerate their career in general Writing good emails. Speaking more clearly. Sales and marketing. I can share with them: The 10-day MBAEbooks that changed my life and…
Aman Y. Agarwal
May 3, 2021
Reflections

Hiring Philosophy

It's been a while since I wrote in this codex. I've been interviewing candidates for SANPRAM, and it's a little overwhelming. One of my core principles in recruiting is to root for their success. It has helped me receive consistently good feedback from them that it's the best recruitment process they've ever been through. But on the flip side, rooting for everyone's success means now I have too many candidates I'd love to somehow fit into my team at SANPRAM. I've grown somewhat attached to them! Naturally, it's not fair to them or to me to hire people who aren't…
Aman Y. Agarwal
May 3, 2021
Rambles

Brainstorming Job Descriptions

SANPRAM needs its first recruiting page. Let's chart out what the page will look like. Hiring Philosophy Trust is foremostRoot for their successLook for students of their craft - the very best way to see if someone's really fit for a role or not.Hire happy people - no complainersBe welcoming to everyone Audience People who want to try something unique, adventurousMotivated to learn new things and succeedMay be frustrated with job/internship hunting (not sure what they're good for, ignored/ghosted by recruiters, impostor syndrome, submitting resumes etc)Want to be given a chance, responsibilityWant to do great workHeart of a teacherEnjoys reading?…
Aman Y. Agarwal
February 6, 2021
Rambles

Brainstorming the careers page

Goals Attract people who are students of their tradePeople who want to try new thingsPeople who are nice and honestPeople who want to make a markGood communication skills What we can offer to such people Ownership and freedom to experimentBeing recognized and celebratedSupportive team and clean cultureVariety of workAbility to hone their craft What candidates may be concerned about Not knowing if they're good or notNot knowing if they'll get selectedTired of applying and not hearing back? Structure Build trust, be remarkable, be encouraging What does every internship post do? Show how cool the company isTalk about the competitive naturePromise…
Aman Y. Agarwal
February 1, 2021
Rambles

The Eccentric CEO Page

Goals of the page: Establish the brand of SANPRAM and myselfGet guests excited about being on the podcast/showGet listeners excited about tuning in Don't just make it like an Anchor webpage - give it more personality! The page should have more things than the average podcast page. Like a description and what makes it unique. Without useful stuff, nobody will remember it! Who is the target guest/customer? A true student of businessEnjoys discussing and sharing knowledgeNot very shyHas a good sense of humorWants to learn and get better.Willing to invest in themselves and their company.A "promising" CEO Accusation audit: There…
Aman Y. Agarwal
December 23, 2020
Reflections

Micro Famous?

While researching podcasts, I accidentally came across Matt Johnson of "Pursuing Results". He drove home what Seth Godin has already talked about repeatedly - that the riches are in the niches. He talked about some ideas that had already been taking shape in my head, so it's good to get validation: Using podcasting and content generation as a way to network with ultra influencers.Appearing on podcasts as a way to hack initial growth. What he says is the backbone of such a strategy, however, is to be very clear about your messaging and value proposition, and your target customers. Without…
Aman Y. Agarwal
October 17, 2020
Rambles

Film and TV business Codex Entry

(This is not a blog. It's a codex - raw, unpolished and brutally frank.) A lot of changes happening. Business models are changing, therefore lots of opportunities. The data is pointing towards starting a distribution company that also does production, instead of a production company that also does distribution. Using this codex entry to save all the ideas in my head right now. Free digital distribution has very low margin: Ads are NOT effective for monetizing online. Look at YouTube's monetization:https://onezero.medium.com/this-is-how-much-youtube-paid-me-for-my-1-000-000-viewed-video-1453cad73847$1000 from 3 million viewers. So if you make a movie for a million dollars, ad revenue will not break…
Aman Y. Agarwal
October 17, 2020
Reflections

My thoughts on branding and promotion

This is not a blog. It's a codex - raw, unpolished and brutally frank. I'm using this codex post to document my perspective on all things promotion and branding, for the benefit of Future Me as well as future team members at SANPRAM. In my view, capturing attention for an idea is about three critical things: Being remarkable: It needs to stand out, plain and simple. Something people haven't seen before, or at least not so frequently that they can gloss it over. It needs to disrupt their regular pattern so that they notice, remember and tell others about it.…
Aman Y. Agarwal
October 10, 2020
Rambles

Where should the money go?

(This is not a blog. This is a codex - raw, unpolished and brutally frank.) In this codex entry, I'm exploring my thought process around how my company should spend its money at this particular stage - what I can delegate or outsource, what I can't. For a recap, I'm running a services company with one employee (myself). At this time, I don't even have enough in profits to pay myself a salary. Right now, I'm doing every single thing myself. Here are all the things that need to get done: Accounting / bookkeepingSales and direct outreach (emails, phone)Marketing: content…
Aman Y. Agarwal
October 2, 2020
Reflections

The urge is real. What can I do?

(A splash page that pops up at 10 PM every night, to help me go to sleep early) I want to keep watching the video at night, keep scrolling the social media site, or keep browsing that website. The urge and inertial are too great. I want to indulge because I'm in the mood - after all, what is life without some joy? It's completely fine. I accept these urges. These sensations in my mind and body want me to feel happy, and I am grateful. Think about how you'd feel the next morning. Think about the books you could…
Aman Y. Agarwal
October 1, 2020
Reflections

The Cure for Impatience

(This is not a blog. It’s a codex – raw, unpolished and brutally frank) I try hard to resist comparing my business with others and feeling ashamed of my accomplishments. It still sometimes gets me whenever I'm reminded of someone younger than me doing 100x better - or whatever "doing better" means nowadays. As you can see, this impatience comes tightly packed in a box that also includes envy, low self-esteem and other assorted chocolates. So, how do you deal with it? How do you truly internalize the idea that "it's about the journey, not the destination"? As human beings,…
Aman Y. Agarwal
August 26, 2020
Reflections

Underrated: Getting Into a Routine as a Solo Entrepreneur

(This is not a blog. It's a codex - raw, unpolished and brutally frank) I'm a new, full-time business owner trying to create something that has never existed before. So I get to deal with uncertainty every single day. There is no clearly defined path, no obvious answers and no safety net (I'm all in). It has now been over 45 days since I've been working on my business full-time, and my main struggle so far has been developing a routine, which is the fundamental "infrastructure" on top of which any profession is built ('The Great Work Of Your Life'…
Aman Y. Agarwal
August 25, 2020
Rambles

Website design for SANPRAM

A great online business needs a great website. The goal: NOT to introduce the company, because based on my marketing strategy, most leads would likely know what we do before they know the company's name. Therefore the goal is to build ON TOP of that trust, and further cement the relationship the reader has with us, and leave a remarkable, lasting impression. It's a good way of establishing the overall brand, and what we believe in. Questions to ask myself How do you build trust and rapport?HonestyCredibility/ExpertiseConsistencyHumour, human connectionWho is the audience?Executives, business leaders, entrepreneurs. Or those who aspire to…
Aman Y. Agarwal
August 14, 2020
Rambles

Rambling About World’s Best Technical Fluency Syllabus

Brainstorm Ramble Aug 4 Learning process:1. Visualize desire/motivation2. Learn high-level components3. Learn lower level components So, start with what the person is trying to do, and then go down the levels of abstraction one by one. In the essay, we start at a very low level of abstraction (how a computer works, kitchen etc), and then build the story of how modern technology works. We also built some intuition around the high-level trade offs. Next, since the goal of the program is to empower the imagination, as well as the ability to understand what people are talking about. And then…
Aman Y. Agarwal
August 4, 2020
Miscellanous

Don’t be too rational, be skeptic of the Arithmocracy

Watched some more talks by Rory Sutherland today, and as always they are amazing. Took notes. - People with data and numbers tend to control conversations and win arguments, because most people like certainty. Usually nobody gets fired for being rational, and most people are terrified of looking silly and stupid. - The problem with using "data" to guide every decision with rigorous rationality, is that your models of the world are wrong. You will never have enough information to accurately capture how humans work. - Any metric that becomes a target, ceases to become a useful metric. When companies…
Aman Y. Agarwal
August 2, 2020
Rambles

Landing Page for Tech Fluency Training

In today's Ramble, I will write out my freerunning thoughts on what my new landing page for the technical fluency program should look like. I believe my target learners are busy executives like myself, so I won't have extremely long copy and fluffy marketing speak. I want to communicate the WHY behind the course, then the HOW, and then the WHAT is least important. I also have to limit the number of learners I can take per month to 5, so I need to make sure the process for getting into the training program is not open to all. My…
Aman Y. Agarwal
July 25, 2020
DenseLayersRambles

“Minimum Successful Product”

This is a term I've just coined, for my personal projects. It's a good way to see if something is worth doing or not. An MSP is the minimum you need to accomplish, to get the project to a state where even if it plateaus and never grows beyond that, you're pretty happy about the result and are willing to leave it running forever. Link to LinkedIn post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mngrwl_minimum-successful-product-i-like-to-think-activity-6687924119507492864-DHHI Actually, copying the original post here in case LinkedIn shuts down 10 years later and nobody can find it anymore: MSP is the minimum I would have to build and accomplish,…
Aman Y. Agarwal
July 13, 2020
Rambles

Technical Fluency Course for Non-Engineers

This is a new project/business idea about teaching non-technical people about modern computing technologies in a rapid fashion without learning to code, to build systems thinking and technical fluency which is way more valuable than writing your first 5000 lines of code. Inspiration:Was talking to Taylor Kennon in the gym at 1040 about him getting ripped off by a developer, and offered to explain to him the overall tech ecosystem etc. Prepared a talk about it and gave it in the gym itself a few days later - my first talk was terrible because there wasn't enough time, but it…
Aman Y. Agarwal
July 12, 2020
Rambles

Audiobook Tool Idea

So I had an idea about how a tool that would allow people to easily record voice versions of their Medium articles, and automatically did the noise removal and balancing etc for them using machine learning. I imagined that most people don't really want to spend all their time doing audio editing, which is why a lot of online articles don't have any audio versions on them. I also imagined that a lot of people would enjoy turning their blog posts into "podcast"-like episodes, but are deterred by all the technical mayhem involved. I feel like recording and hitting "publish"…
Aman Y. Agarwal
May 27, 2020
Miscellanous

May 2020 Codex

(Semi-random things I learn or think about in May 2020) May 22 Learning Chinese I've been on a 8-day unbroken streak of using Memrise to learn Traditional Chinese characters. I've discovered the Heisig Method and am using it, and I believe in it. After all it won't be a waste of time in any way! The plan:- Learn to recognize and recall 3000 traditional hanzi, learning 20 per day.- After reaching 1500, start reading and listening to Chinese texts in parallel using LingQ to acquire spoken vocabulary.- After learning Chinese, I'll learn Japanese again. It will be much easier. Learning…
Aman Y. Agarwal
May 3, 2020
Miscellanous

Listening to Alex Rodriguez

Alex Rodriguez spoke on Ed Mylett's podcast. Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9kKEkA-zvE Takeaways: - Alex is all about process. He believes that if you do the little things and stack the little wins consistently (=work ethic), and see them as the big wins - over time they add up to great skill and achievements. The great achievements are not in your control - the little wins are. Don't think so big, think about the little steps. He says that he is most proud about the fact that in all his 25 years of playing professional baseball, he never once missed his pre-game preparation…
Aman Y. Agarwal
April 16, 2020
Miscellanous

Notes from Shake Shack Owner Danny Meyer

Notes from a Tony Robbins' podcast where he interviews Danny Meyers: https://www.tonyrobbins.com/podcasts/from-hot-dog-cart-to-hospitality-empire/ "Hospitality Quotient": as opposed to simply IQ or EQ1. Kindness and Optimism ('...skeptics and cynics don't usually care how other people feel')2. Intellectual Curiosity3. Work Ethic4. Empathy5. Self Awareness6. Integrity Danny says the above cannot be taught and trained, but can be detected through interviews. Interesting hiring practices at Southwest Airlines and Zappos. Danny says that when he gives a talk about company vision and values etc, usually there are a couple people who fall asleep etc. He makes sure that he adds at the end that "Hey,…
Aman Y. Agarwal
January 26, 2020
Miscellanous

Lessons from FBI’s top hostage negotiator

I'm a big fan of Masterclass.com, and would be a customer if I had the time commitment. Today I saw that Masterclass.com has a new course by Chris Voss on negotiation: I saw the trailer, and then I watched one sample lesson that talks about the concept of "Tactical Empathy". This only reinforced what I've known before (we call it Emotional Intelligence), but putting it into the perspective like Chris does really helped drill the concept into my head and made it a practically learnable skill. Then I went down the rabbit whole. I watched a TEDx talk by Chris.…
Aman Y. Agarwal
December 18, 2019
Reflections

Let’s be terrible together.

If you've seen my front page, you know that I love writing, teaching and sharing ideas. This blog website shall be my codex; my personal manuscript, inspired by Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Atlanticus. The Atlanticus is a twelve-volume series of handwritten notebooks in which he documented his ideas and studies on a great variety of subjects, from botany to weaponry. These private scribbles give us a peek into the brain of a prolific man, and have allowed us to recognize his endeavours although half a millenium has passed since. Giant crossbow design by Da Vinci; and his self portrait I…
Aman Y. Agarwal
November 27, 2019
Designed by

best down free | web phu nu so | toc dep 2017