Codex Audentia

Oct 10

My thoughts on branding and promotion

By Aman Y. Agarwal Reflections No Comments

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....

Oct 02

Where should the money go?

By Aman Y. Agarwal Rambles, Reflections No Comments

(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 / bookkeeping Sales and direct outreach (emails, phone)…

Oct 01

The urge is real. What can I do?

By Aman Y. Agarwal Miscellanous No Comments

(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…

Aug 26

The Cure for Impatience

By Aman Y. Agarwal Essays, Reflections 2 Comments

(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,…

Aug 25

Underrated: Getting Into a Routine as a Solo Entrepreneur

By Aman Y. Agarwal Reflections No Comments

(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‘…

Aug 14

Website design for SANPRAM

By Aman Y. Agarwal Rambles No Comments

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? Honesty Credibility/Expertise Consistency Humour, human connection Who is the audience? Executives, business leaders,…

Aug 04

Rambling About World’s Best Technical Fluency Syllabus

By Aman Y. Agarwal Rambles No Comments

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…

Aug 02

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

By Aman Y. Agarwal Miscellanous, Rambles No Comments

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…

Jul 25

Landing Page for Tech Fluency Training

By Aman Y. Agarwal Rambles No Comments

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…

Jul 13

“Minimum Successful Product”

By Aman Y. Agarwal Rambles No Comments

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,…

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