Ali Abdaal Ltd

I explore evidence-based strategies and tools that can help us be more productive, and build a life that we love.

YouTuber

6med

We're a team of medical students from some of the UK's top universities, who run one-day preparation courses for medical school entrance exams and interviews.

Founder

West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust

(1) Psychiatry, (2) Obstetrics & Gynaecology, (3) Stroke Medicine

Doctor - Foundation Year 2

Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

(1) Cardiology, (2) Geriatrics, (3) General Surgery

Doctor - Foundation Year 1

Kumon

Teaching assistant, helping students aged 5-18 with Maths and English. Specialised in coaching advanced students.

Teaching Assistant

I’m Ali, a YouTuber, podcaster, soon-to-be author and ex-Doctor working in London, UK.

I make videos that explore the strategies and tools that help us live happier, healthier and more productive lives. I also have a weekly podcast called Deep Dive and I write a weekly email newsletter that contains some quick thoughts + links to interesting things.

I studied Medicine for 6 years at Cambridge University, and graduated in 2018. On my YouTube channel (3 million subscribers) I make videos about medicine, tech and productivity. 

✍️ Visit my website and blog: https://aliabdaal.com/
💌 Subscribe to Sunday Snippets: https://aliabdaal.com/newsletter/
🎬 Check out my YouTube videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/Sepharoth64
🎙 Liste to the Deep Dive podcast: https://aliabdaal.com/deep-dive-links
🎙 Listen to the Not Overthinking podcast: https://notoverthinking.com/
🚀 Learn more about my Part-Time YouTuber Academy: academy.aliabdaal.com

I’ve interviewed 100s of the top 1% of people in the world.

Here are 7 lessons they taught me that I wish they taught in school:


1. The Action Mindset (Timothy Armoo) 🦸‍♂️

School teaches you to focus on perfectionism & risk aversion for tests or assignments.

Instead of doing this, you should focus on always taking action instead of overthinking & planning everything.

You can learn & make changes as you go.


2. The Ignorance Tax Paydown (Alex Hormozi) 💯

The only reason you’re not making $10 million a year is because you don’t know how.

This means you have to invest in learning skills & knowledge that make it possible.

Put your focus on learning instead of earning.


3. The Self-Care Formula (Grace Beverley) 💆‍♀️

The bits about self-care that school does teach is to just rest & relax.

In real life, a lot of times self-care means you have to get up & finish a task so you’re not stressed about it.

Sometimes, action is self-care.


4. The Best First Job (Daniel Priestley) 👨‍🔧

Schools often push working for big corporations.

Instead, you should find jobs at smaller businesses because you’ll learn skills like:

1. Accounting
2. Leadership
3. Hiring & Firing

Which are important business skills to learn.


5. The Ideal Future Job (Dr Grace Lordan) 🔮

School teaches you to pick your career based on a title that sounds good, eg:

1. Doctor
2. Lawyer
3. Engineer

But you should make your decision on what day-to-day tasks you’ll be doing.

This is what matters for your enjoyment.


6. The Personal Stock Price Boost (Timothy Armoo) 📈

School teaches you basic knowledge like math & history.

But to be valuable in the workplace, you need to learn specific skills like how to use Microsoft Excel.

These skills allow you to provide value & make more money.


7. The Unfair Advantage (Chris Sparks) 🥇

School teaches you a lot of different things & to be good at all of them.

Instead, you should focus on getting great at 1 thing you can use to make money.

The advantage of specialising in something will make you more successful.


7 lessons I wish they taught in school:

1. The Action Mindset
2. The Ignorance Tax Paydown
3. The Self-Care Formula
4. The Best First Job
5. The Ideal Future Job
6. The Personal Stock Price Boost
7. The Unfair Advantage


Ali Abdaal

I used to wake up tired every morning.

This 9-step sleep routine saved my life (Based on science):


1 - Get Your Hours In

I aim for 7-9 hours of sleep every night.

Studies show that less than 7 hours a night leads to:

1. Depression
2. Weight gain
3. Heart disease

Instead of obsessing about an exact amount, experiment & see where between 7-9 hours has you feeling your best.


2 - Build a Sleep Rhythm

Sleep & wake up at the same time every day.

This allows adenosine (the chemical that makes you feel sleepy) to make you feel awake & sleepy at the right times.

How to build a rhythm:

1. Set an alarm
2. Socialise earlier
3. Don't sleep in on weekends


3 - Start with Sunlight.

Another system that makes you feel awake & sleepy is your internal clock.

Morning sunlight triggers this internal clock to make you feel awake in the morning & sleepy 12-14 hours after exposure.

Aim for 10-30 minutes of sunlight every morning.


4 - Morning Exercise.

Exercise releases chemicals called endorphins which make you feel awake.

Exercising in the morning can also trigger your body to anticipate it & make you feel even more awake.

Any type of exercise works:

1. Walking
2. Running
3. Lifting weights


5 - Caffeine Control.

Caffeine blocks the sleepy chemical (Adenosine) receptors that make you feel tired. 

It can take 5-6 hours for just 50% of caffeine to leave your system & even longer to be completely gone.

Try to stop drinking caffeine 8-12 hours before your bedtime.


6 - Catch The Evening Sun.

Since the sunlight is dim in the evening, getting in direct sunlight tells your internal clock that it’s almost time to go to bed.

Do this every day to help you build your sleep rhythm.


7 -Set Dark Mode.

Bright lights at night mimic sunlight & will trigger your body to think it’s time to feel awake.

A few ways I avoid these bright lights are:

1. Using lowlights
2. Using my Kindle instead of phone
3. Avoiding computer use after 10 pm


8 - Expect the Spike.

You naturally have a spike in wakefulness 1 hour before your bedtime.

Instead of getting stressed when this happens, remember it will fade & continue on with your routine.

I’ve found reading a book helps me stay relaxed through this.


9 - Keep your Cool.

Your body temperature needs to drop by 1-3 degrees in order to fall & stay asleep.

If you have air conditioning, set it between 16-19 degrees at night.

If not, open a window or pick up a cheap fan.


The 9-step sleep routine that saved my life:

1. Get Your Hours In
2. Build a Sleep Rhythm
3. Start with Sunlight
4. Morning Exercise
5. Caffeine Control
6. Catch the Evening Sun
7. Set Dark Mode
8. Expect the Spike
9. Keep your Cool


Cheeky hangout at number 10 - couldn't believe it when I got the invite 🤯

How to become a millionaire by 30.

Master these 7 unusual habits 👇


Most people think you become a millionaire by building technical skills.

But it’s all about building relationships. 

I recently sat down with the co-founder of Speechify Cliff Weitzman to discuss the 7 relationship-building habits that make him so successful.


1. Cold email strangers & people you admire 📧

Cliff attributes much of his & his business’ success to this practice. 

There are so many potential benefits of cold emailing people you admire:

• Jobs
• Internships
• Mentorships

I’ve tried this a few times & the outcome has been over a million dollars just by virtue of sending an email.

Master the habit of cold email if you want to build life-changing relationships.



2. Consume content from the people you admire 🎬

Almost everyone who has good ideas is sharing them online.

Whether it’s books or podcasts, consume all the content the person you admire puts out.

This has a similar effect to building a relationship with that person.



3. Get comfortable with asking people to hang out 🤝

Cliff shared a story about how he used to have 2 dinners every night in college to get to know different groups of people.

While this may be easier for extroverts, anyone can develop the skill of interacting with strangers with a bit of effort :)

I’ve used this practice to:

• Get cool ideas
• Build friendships
• Improve my business



4. Bond over Ambition or Vulnerability 💪

While small talk has its place, real bonding happens through sharing vulnerability or ambition.

A few example questions Cliff gave me to spark real conversation:

• What’s your biggest struggle on earth right now?
• What are your top 3 goals in life?
• What gives you energy in your work?




5. Write Thank You Notes 🙏

Studies show this has huge benefits for both the writer & the receiver. 

Cliff gave me an example of how he got a heartfelt response from his thank you note to the founder of Audible.

To use this habit in your personal life, try sending gratitude texts to people you love instead of scrolling social media.




6. Put Good Energy into the World 🥳

When you put value out into the world without expectation of return, loads of value will come back to you.

An example of this is working for free early in your career & being paid or referred to other jobs.

Give without expectation of receiving.




7. Work in Your Zone of Genius 🤓

You should spend your time working on things that feel like play rather than work.

For me, those things are:

• Writing
• Filming
• Teaching

Figure out what area you thrive in & spend your time there.


I ranked 1st in my year in medicine at Cambridge University.

But my first year was an absolute mess.

Here are the 8 strategies I would use if I had to do it all again:


⏰ Manage time effectively

I've run my life through my calendar for the last 10 years, which has been completely transformational.

If you're not intentional with your time you will default to wasting it on random things.


📚 Learn how to study efficiently

Most of us wing it, because we were never taught to learn.

There's a whole bunch of research out there on the best study methods.

I've got a few videos on this too 😉 


👥 Study with friends

This is one of those things that makes studying way more efficient, effective, and enjoyable.

Enjoyable studying helps the process be more sustainable.


🏋️‍♂️ Join way more clubs & societies

If you spend all your time laser-focused on one subject you're missing out on a lot of other life and career experiences.

It will help you get ahead, and also add colour, vibes, and that magic sparkle of enjoyment to your life as well.


🧰 Learn skills in the universal toolbox

Learn skills that are highly transferrable across all areas of your life.

1. Public Speaking
2. Negotiation
3. Video Editing
4. Coding
5. Designs
6. Presentations


💸 Experiment with side hustles

In your student years, you have so much free time.

The stakes are pretty low at that stage of your life too, so take chances.

It'll allow you to build the skills necessary to have more autonomy, control, and choice in the future.


📷 Take more photos

There's something so nice about being able to relive some of those memories years later.

All because you decided to take a couple more pictures a day.


🥳 Surround yourself with energisers

If the people you're surrounding yourself with are the people that are raising your energy level, it just makes life more enjoyable.

Whereas if you spend time with people that drain your energy, it makes life a lot harder and less fun.


Don’t waste your time building websites from scratch.

Creating a website used to take time and coding knowledge.

Not anymore.

I’ve been building websites since 2010 and it’s never been easier to do so without code.

Here's how 👇


💻 What’s a website?

It’s basically your slice of the internet. Anyone can search your URL and find you.

There’s 3 types of websites: blogs, showcases and e-commerce.

This thread gives you recommendations for each, at different price points :)


✍️ Path 1: Publishing content

The need? A website to publish content regularly on.


Level 1: Just content

Substack
• Free
• No setup required
• A newsletter platform that lets you publish immediately
• You can use your own domain if you want to


Level 2: Your own website

I love Ghost and highly recommend it:
• From $9/mo
• A 'proper' website rather than 'just' a Substack account
• Free templates
• Super quick set-up
• Newsletters & memberships

I just used their basic templates for the first 4 years.


Level 3: Customise your website

If you're looking for more customisation, Wordpress is great:
• Free
• Open-source 
• Fully customisable
• Marketplace with thousands of pre-built templates
• Powers 40% of websites on the internet

I now use Wordpress for my website.

With Wordpress, you'll need to pay for website hosting too.

I personally use WPEngine for its security, reliability & performance.



🎁 Path 2: Showcase website

The need? To showcase your product or portfolio.

Example: A freelancer advertising their services.


Level 1: One-page website

Carrd .co
• Free
• Pro version only $19 per year
• Free & pro templates
• As easy as it gets


Level 2: Turn your Notion page into a Website

Super.so
• Create a Notion page & connect to super
• Free option with limited pages and Super.so domain
• Pro version: $12/mo


Level 3: The all-in-one website builder

The two most famous no-code options are Squarespace and Wix.

You get:
• Free domain name for the first year
• Plug-and-play solution 
• Ability to integrate e-commerce



💰 Path 3: E-commerce

The need? A website to sell stuff online.


Option 1: Physical products

Shopify
• The gold standard for e-commerce stores
• Links up with distribution & warehouses
• Themes to choose from
• Very customisable
• Easy to start out and scale up


Option 2: Digital products

Podia
• Basic option to kick off selling online
• $39/mo
• Easy to create a website to sell your products

We used Podia for the Part-Time YouTuber Academy and helped us scale it into a multi-million dollar product.

But, we recently moved to Kajabi for more customisation and scalability

Kajabi
• More advanced 
• $150/mo
• Ability to create an email list


4 Million Subscriber Giveaway 🥳

We’ve hit 4 million subscribers on my YouTube channel, so to say thank you I’m running a little competition.

We’re giving away a productivity booster kit, worth $2000 including:

💻 A brand new Macbook Pro
🎧 Airpods Pro
📚 Kindle Paperwhite
🔥 and a bunch of other tech + tools to help you out

When I started making videos in my bedroom 6 years ago, I could never have imagined that things would get this huge or intense, or that the journey would be as fun as it’s been. Huge thank you to everyone who’s supported along the way 😛

Also massive shoutout to my team of wonderful people - while most of the public-facing stuff is me and my face, we’ve got an incredible team working behind the scenes to help make this all happen, for which I’m grateful everyday 🙏

ENTER the giveaway here: https://lnkd.in/edQH4AvN

One thing I've really started to appreciate more is the power of asking the right questions.

For the first time ever, we had all 14 team members together in real life (and Adi, one of our editors, even flew over from India to be with us). We talked about a bunch of stuff, including our goals for the year, our projects for the next 6 weeks, and resolving other important questions about the business.

I also used this time as an opportunity to get feedback from the team as to how we can improve as a business.

Whenever I’d asked for ways in which we can improve the business in the past, it never really prompted much of a discussion. It’s just a really hard question to answer. So, what I found helpful this time was reframing it into a more specific question.

For example, instead of asking ‘how do we make the business better?’, I asked the following three questions instead:

👉 What’s one thing that we should continue doing that makes us the best place to work?
👉 What’s one thing we should start doing that would what would make this the best place to work?
👉 What’s one thing we should stop doing that would make this the best place to work?

And this prompted about 5 hours worth of conversation, just by being more specific with the questions I was asking.

So, this got me thinking. What are the other areas of life in which asking a better (or more specific) question will lead you to the answer you’re looking for?

One area that comes to mind is the question: ‘what do I want do with my life?’

This is an impossible question to answer because it’s so broad. But, if we ask some more specific questions, it makes answering it far more manageable.

For example, asking the question ‘What would I want written in the achievements section of my Wikipedia page?’ or ‘What would I want my closest friends / family to say at my funeral?’ both help us answer the question of what we might want to do with our life. But, the more specific questions are far easier to answer.

So, what’s one area of your life in which asking a more specific or different question might give you a better answer?

Your gut is killing your productivity.

I recently interviewed one of the leading health experts Sophie Medlin for her tips on how to look after the gut day to day

This is what I learnt 👇

🎯 Aim for 30 plants per week:

Eating a load of a variety of different types of plants improves our gut health by encouraging the growth of different species of bacteria.

This doesn't just mean green-leaf plants.

Plants include:
1. All fruits and vegetables
2. Legumes
3. Grains
4. Milk made from nuts or grains
5. Nuts and seeds

🍱 Aim for variety over consistency:

When you have more variety in your diet then it encourages more diversity of the gut microbiome.

🥬Aim for 30 grams of fibre per day:

Every day most people are consuming less than half of what they need in terms of fibre.

Fibre is a type of carbohydrate that we don't break down, instead, it acts as food for the good bacteria in your body.

Tip to get enough fibre:

1. 5 servings of fruit/veg, having wholegrains with 2 or 3 of your meals per day. (including seeds, nuts, and dried fruit for snacks.)

2. Find ways to maximise the fibre in your diet. (for example, swapping white for brown rice)

3. Calculate it.

💊 Aim to take a probiotic:

There have been studies to show a significant reduction in psychological stress.

Such as a reduction of cortisol and other chemical parameters of stress and anxiety we can measure.

I've been taking Heights for over two years now as my daily probiotic.

🐠 Aim for 2 portions of oily fish per week:

Oily fish contains long chain omega-3 fatty acids.

It helps to promote the population of good bacteria that help control inflammation in the body.

E.g. Salmon, Mackerel, Sardines

Don’t waste your time and sign up for every AI tool.

It’s killing your productivity.

Here are the 6 AI tools I use on a daily basis 👇


💬 ChatGPT - the Allrounder

You can do pretty much anything with ChatGPT:

1. Write poems
2. Do research
3. Write sales emails or draft stuff

ChatGPT is pretty decent at any task.

It also helps me be more productive

When I’m out of ideas, want to learn more about a topic, or if I'm doing some research, I ask ChatGPT. 

It’s not 100% correct all the time, so do your due diligence.


🧠 Notion

I use Notion for everything, so I'm super excited by Notion AI. 

Basically, you can now use AI directly in Notion to improve your productivity.

Some bits are still a bit basic, but I find it really useful for summarising information.


🙊 Speechify 

This app reads out information to me.

I can read pretty fast but whenever my mind starts to wander, listening to studies is just a bit more engaging.

Especially when it’s in Barack Obama's voice 😂


✍️ Lex

I use Lex to avoid writer’s block

Lex learns my writing style and auto-completes sentences for me.

Tbh I usually end up rewriting what the AI has written, but it helps me overcome my writer’s block and sparks new ideas :)


📹 Grain

Grain gives me an AI transcription of my Zoom calls

You need to look back at the call in a week’s time? Grain generates a summary for you.

You can also highlight sections of the call, which is helpful when you need to share it with anyone who didn’t attend the call.


🎙 Otter.ai

Ever had an idea while walking down the street?

Otter makes it easy to record ideas whenever they hit.

And the best thing?

It transcribes them in real-time and makes them available to my team.


We're hiring 🥳

I’m always on the lookout for talented individuals that can help level up the business.

You’ll find details for all the roles we’re currently looking for (and a couple where we’re always looking for extra help) on this page 👇

https://lnkd.in/egrZC5Md

Here are some of the available roles we're hiring for: 
🎬 Video editors
✍️ Writers
🎨 Designers 

 Any questions just drop a question below :) 

Open article: Tired of traditional jobs? by aliabdaal.com

I’ve got a simple productivity tip that I’ve been finding very helpful recently: using YouTube videos to track my time.

Last weekend I was doing a bunch of work on my book and I’d blocked out the whole day - literally 11am to 8pm - to work on it. I’m now at the final stages of editing it, so it’s mega crunch time trying to tie up all the loose ends before it gets sent to the publisher.

But, the problem is that whenever I block out the whole day to do something, I’m always left wondering ‘how much time did I actually spend on this thing?’.

I’ll never actually sit down for 9 hours and just write. I’ll get up, eat some food, chat to someone, and get distracted many times throughout the day.

So, I decided to use a super primitive technique for tracking my time: I used a 3+ hour Lord of the Rings soundtrack on YouTube as a time tracker (I'll link it in the comments 😜). When I was working I pressed play to listen to the music. Then when I stopped working or took a break, I paused it.

The result?

Throughout the whole day, I literally did about 2.5 hours of actual work. In other words, I only managed to listen to 2.5 hours of the soundtrack in the 9 hours I’d set aside for myself to work on the book.

This was super interesting to me because it was a very low tech way of not fooling myself about how productive I’d been, because I could clearly see the runtime on the YouTube video.

This meant 6.5 hours of my ‘book time’ was spent faffing around, or procrastinating, or getting distracted, or working on stuff other than the book.

Not that there’s anything wrong with this. It’s totally find to take breaks and there’s no need to beat myself up about it. But if I’m telling myself I worked really hard and the objective data says I only worked for a couple of hours then I’m only doing myself a disservice. So, it’s useful thing to do.

I usually track my time using Rize.io, which is probably my favourite time tracking app and one that I’ve personally invested in. But sometimes simple is better.

Even though Rize gives me all this brilliant time tracking data, and I use all these different productivity techniques, there’s just something magically simple about using a video soundtrack to track my time. It’s simple and tells me everything I need to know.

So, I just thought I’d share this time tracking strategy in case anyone else is interested in giving it a go.

Here's everything I carry in my backpack.

Hopefully, you can get some inspiration for your own backpack setup 🧵


🎒 @petermckinnon Backpack

It was really important for me to discover a bag that fits a lot of stuff and made it easy to organise.

This bag does both of these things and has been super durable.


💻 Macbook Pro

My trusty 14-inch Macbook Pro with the M1 Pro processor, 32GB of Ram and a 1TB solid-state drive - this is good enough for basically everything I need to do.

Plus, it's also got my @dbrand skin.


📱 iPad Pro

I always carry with me the 11-inch iPad Pro with the Apple Magic keyboard.

I like how handy it is in airplanes, trains, small coffee shops, and essentially anywhere I don't want to bring out my laptop.

Again it's the same theme as my laptop :)


👨‍💻 Laptop stand

I like using the Oripura laptop stand from @HermanMiller - it folds down super compact and slots right into the notebook compartment of my backpack.

I can open up and have a really good productivity setup wherever I go.


📷 Camera

My go-to camera is the @Sony a7c Camera.

I use a 16-35mm Lens with a Peter McKinnon VND Filter and a Sony ECM-B1M Mic.

It's pretty lit how everything integrates and makes it very easy to film.


🪜 Tripods

I carry 2 Tripods with me, the Joby Griptight Tripod and the PGY-Tech Mantis Tripod.

One for my phone and one for my camera.

It's super handy for time-lapses, or when I have to take group pictures.


🐁 Logitech mouse

My favourite mouse is the @Logitech MX Master 3S.

It's a perfect mix of ergonomics and performance, and it fits with the theme of my setup. (It's white)


📸 Insta 360 Go II

I can attach this camera straight onto me with a necklace.

It's made it much easier to capture first-person shots for the vlog and other more active sports.


💾 SanDisk 2TB SSD

I've enjoyed this super portable and lightweight SSD.

It gets the job done and is handy for when I'm editing.


📓 @Leuchtturm1917 notebook

I've been enjoying journaling recently and it's great for thinking more strategically about business and life.

As a bonus, it's also really relaxing for me to write.


🎧 Sony headphones

To complete the setup I use @Sony's WH-1000XM4 noise cancelling headphones.

Again, I have them in white to complement my white/pastel colour coordinated setup.

The time management system that changed my life.

The Trident Calendar 👇


Time management is the most important skill you can learn.

I’ve tried dozens of time management systems.

But the Trident Calendar has truly been a game-changer.

The Trident Calendar is a 3-system approach.

You divide your time into:

1. A year
2. A week
3. A day


📆 The Year

Start by planning out the months of the year.

Across the top of a page, write the months of the year.

Down the left column, write the number of days.

Write down your events & plans for the year on those days.

Seeing your entire year on 1 page gives you a chance to plan:

1. Trips
2. Holidays 
3. Upcoming events

If you want to build this calendar on your computer, use my free template that I've linked in the comment section below ;) 


🤓 The Week

Next, plan your ideal week.

You only have 112 available hours in a week so it’s important to make use of all of them.

So, open a Google Calendar. 

Then input time blocks of what your ideal week looks likes, including:

1. Wake & Sleep time
2. Deep work
3. Exercise

This gives you structure to follow during your days & weeks.

It also lets you know what days you have free time to plan & reschedule things.

The flexibility of this will increase your productivity & allow you to prioritise certain activities.


🧠 The Day

Finish off your Trident Calendar by planning your ideal day.

This involves following the days on the weekly schedule you already made.

The add or remove blocks depending on what you need to get done that day.

To ensure every day is meaningful for me, I also like to jot down 3 daily quests (i.e. priorities) in the following areas:

1. Work
2. Health
3. Relationships

This helps to keep me focused on the most important activities 

The system I use for my multimillion dollar business:

The CASTLE method 🏰.

Follow these 5 steps to start your own business from scratch (with 0 experience) 👇


🤓 Step 1 - Conceptualise 

Start by coming up with a bunch of business ideas.

Try to find something that’s in the middle of: 

1. What you like
2. What there’s a market for 
3. What you can be the best at

Feel free to use AI for these ideas.


🏗 Step 2 - Assemble your MVP.

Instead of spending 6+ months perfecting a product, create a free minimum viable product (MVP).

MVP = a product with just enough features to generate leads and find out if it's something people would buy.


Two examples of MVPs are: Webinars & Scorecards.

E.g. for a webinar, create one teaching people about your desired business. 

E.g. For scorecards, create one (using ScoreApp) asking questions related to your business, which helps to validate your business idea.


Btw if you’re interested in starting a business, I’m doing a workshop with Daniel Priestley tomorrow (Wednesday 24 May), where you’ll learn everything you need to know about building a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and generating leads using Scorecard marketing.

The knowledge I've gained from Daniel and using scorecards has directly translated into $2M worth of sales to my business, so it’s well worth checking out and it’s totally free. 

See comments for sign up link :) 


🤝 Step 3 -Shape your product towards market fit.

Use your scorecard as a survey to find out what people in the market want.

You might’ve thought your product would be A but the market tells you they want B instead.

Use this information to shape your product towards B.


🚀 Step 4 - Launch your product.

You’re now ready to launch your product to the public. 

This can be done using:

1. Paid ads 
2. Classic door to door sales
3. Influencers to promote it

Do what you can to get people to buy.


🙌 Step 5 - Scale & expand your business. 

It’s time to get your product into new: 

1. Markets
2. Audiences
3. Locations

I’m no expert, but 2 great books I always recommend for this are $100M Offers & Dotcom Secrets.


Your main takeaways from this thread should be: 

Start with a free product to get leads & do market validation + research. 

Use this to build a product & launch it.


In summary, here are the 5 steps to start your business from scratch: 

1. Conceptualise
2. Assemble your MVP
3. Shape your product towards market fit
4. Launch your product
5. Scale & expand your business


There are many areas of our life where the more time / effort we put into something, the less we gain in return. 

This is commonly known as the law of diminishing returns.

The classic example of this is the impact of money on our level of happiness - while money can make us somewhat happy, that’s only true up to a certain point. (Daniel Kahneman, for instance, says this point is around $75,0000 per year).

Another example is personal productivity. Beyond a certain number of hours worked, our output tends to plateau and then gradually begins to fall.

So, this got me thinking. What are the areas of my life where I actually get compounding returns (i.e. exponential output) the more time I put into it?

I think one area where this is true is with habit building.

For example, we’re likely to get compounding returns with our fitness level the more consistent we are at going to the gym. And we’re likely to get compounding returns for our business the more time we spend marketing it and trying to grow it.

But, there are some area of life where compounding returns are less expected.

One of those areas is starting a YouTube channel.

You might think that putting more hours into YouTube would lead to diminishing returns. But, the number of hours you put into YouTube doesn’t really matter. What actually matters is the number of videos you create.

So, if it takes you 20 hours to create one video and 50 hours to create two videos, then it actually makes sense to spend the added time creating the extra video because that massively increases the odds of you succeeding on YouTube.

I think another area is having team members.

You might think that having someone on your team for a long time will lead to diminishing returns as they get comfortable in their role. But, if that person is consistently levelling up, building their organisational knowledge (i.e. they know how the business works), and get faster at doing good work, then that’s clearly a massive advantage compared to another business that constantly has to hire new people.

Similarly, there are compounding returns to having clarity of focus.

It’s very tempting to try to do too many things with our life. But this makes it very hard to make any significant progress. Instead, if we just focus on one thing - whether it’s a niche on YouTube or a workout plan or whatever - we’ll probably get some decent compounding returns.

So, are there any areas of your life where you’ve experienced compounding returns from putting more time and effort into something?

Our idea of productivity is wrong 🛑

A lot of us think of productivity as a constant grind.

Instead, productivity is the steps you take to achieve your goals.

Let me explain 👇


1 - Your dreams are a point on the horizon 🌌 

They give you the direction of travel.

But they don’t define your journey. 

Your horizon is where you need to point yourself (a horizon goal). 

Horizon goals guide you on what to prioritise without telling you how to do it.


2 - Precise goals are risky 📏

You don’t want to define your horizon goals too narrowly. 

If you make them too concrete and specific, you only move in a certain direction.


3 - Life is full of surprises and changes 😱

You might end up in a different place than you thought you would.

Why restrict yourself to a set path?

Horizon goals show you whether you’re on the right path, but you might only land in the vicinity of your goals.


E.g. I want to be a musical performer 🎶

That’s my horizon goal. 

Will I be DJ Ali, a pianist or a singer?

I’m not sure. Who knows what I’ll learn along the way?

But I know that I want to focus more on music. 

I can enjoy the journey without pre-defined expectations.


Matthew Dicks introduced me to the concept of Horizon Goals while I interviewed him for my podcast. 

He also talks about incrementalism.

It’s the belief that each step leads to small incremental changes. 

You might not notice them at all. But over time, they pile up.

And they will produce enormous results.

So have an horizon goal and keep making progress :)


Taplio

Ali Abdaal's Linkedin Analytics

Ali Abdaal

What is Ali talking about?

Who is engaging with Ali

Ali Abdaal's Best Posts (last 30 days)

Want to drive more opportunities from LinkedIn?

Taplio

.css-1jgreyo{background-image:linear-gradient(284deg, rgba(39,43,72,1) 0%, rgba(33,47,183,1) 100%);color:transparent;-webkit-background-clip:text;background-clip:text;}Ali Abdaal's Linkedin Analytics

Ali Abdaal

What is Ali talking about?

Who is engaging with Ali

Ali Abdaal's Best Posts .css-qqfgvy{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);}(last 30 days)

Want to drive more opportunities from LinkedIn?

Ali Abdaal's Linkedin Analytics

Ali Abdaal's Best Posts (last 30 days)