This edition is brought to you by Sanebox

Good morning to all new and old readers! Here is your Wednesday edition of Faster Than Normal, exploring one short story about a person, a company, a high-performance tool, a trend I’m watching closely, and curated media to help you build businesses, wealth, and the most important asset of all: yourself. 

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Today’s edition:

Cheers,
Alex

P.S. Send me feedback on how we can improve. I respond to every email.

Stories of Excellence

Person: Adena T. Friedman

Adena Friedman, the President and CEO of Nasdaq, has been a driving force behind the company's transformation into a leading global technology and analytics provider for the financial industry. Born in 1969 in Baltimore, Maryland, Friedman's early fascination with finance and technology led her to pursue a career on Wall Street, where she quickly rose through the ranks at Nasdaq. Since assuming the role of CEO in 2017, Friedman has prioritized innovation, corporate responsibility, and diversity and inclusion, positioning Nasdaq at the forefront of the evolving capital markets landscape.

Key Lessons from Adena Friedman:

• On hiring: "Great teamwork comes from having hired great team members. As you might imagine, I am responsible for hiring a lot of people at Nasdaq, and I find that a person’s résumé is only a very small piece of the puzzle that defines a person and whether they are a fit for our company. … The differentiator in whether or not they end up at Nasdaq is what kind of person they are. Are they a lone wolf or a collaborator? Are they myopic or empathetic? Do they talk about “I” or “we”?"

• On productive paranoia: "No matter how successful your company is, you have to take great effort to avoid the trap of believing that what worked yesterday will necessarily work tomorrow. This is a big part of how we operate at Nasdaq. I wake up every day just a little paranoid that I haven’t asked the right questions or thought critically enough. … Never be afraid of saying “I don’t know,” but of course the next sentence should be “but I will find out.” And never be too proud to learn."

Read more.

Company: Mastercard

Mastercard was founded in 1966 as the Interbank Card Association (ICA) by a group of banks, including United California Bank, Wells Fargo, Crocker National Bank, and Bank of California. The initial goal was to create a competitor to BankAmericard (now Visa). In 1969, ICA partnered with Eurocard in Europe and changed its name to "Master Charge: The Interbank Card." The company rebranded to Mastercard in 1979. In 2006, Mastercard went public, raising $2.4 billion in its initial public offering. The company has since grown into a global payments technology leader, processing billions of transactions annually across more than 210 countries and territories.

Key Lessons from Mastercard

• Make your brand ubiquitous. Mastercard's logo is one of the most recognizable in the world. You want your brand to be so omnipresent that it becomes synonymous with the category.

• Embrace coopetition. Mastercard competes fiercely with Visa, but they also collaborate on security standards and technology initiatives. You can compete and cooperate simultaneously. This approach has helped both companies grow the overall market for electronic payments.

• Adapt to changing payment technologies. Mastercard has embraced mobile payments, contactless technology, and cryptocurrency. You can't afford to be wedded to a single technology or business model. Stay flexible and be willing to cannibalize your own products before someone else does.

Read More.

Save 4+ hours each week on email

SaneBox is the one productivity tool all founders need but probably haven’t heard about — until now. SaneBox uses powerful AI to keep your email organised so that important emails land at the top of your inbox while everything else gets filed safely away so you can find it easily, saving you hours of email time.

Here’s why TechCrunch, Forbes, and The New York Times love SaneBox:

• Saves hours wasted sorting through low-priority emails

• Keeps your inbox clean and clutter-free

• Allows you to concentrate on high-value tasks

• Makes unsubscribing from spam a breeze

• Schedule emails to reappear when you need them

No wonder PCMag called SaneBox "the best thing that's happened to email since its invention.”

SaneBox also offers other premium features that help you manage your business effectively.

Sign up today and save $25 on any subscription.

Accelerants

High-performance tool

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The Demand Matrix

The Demand Matrix is a framework developed by Ramit Sethi, bestselling author, to help evaluate the profitability potential of business ideas.

It plots ideas along two axes - price and number of customers. The most lucrative "Golden Goose" quadrant has both high prices and high customer demand. The "High End" quadrant can charge premium prices but has lower demand. "Mass Market" ideas have more customers but lower prices.

The matrix forces you to critically analyze an idea's revenue potential before investing effort. It avoids the pitfall of chasing an idea that cannot scale or be monetized effectively. As Ramit says, "If you can't even find your customers for your customer research, how will you find them when it's time for the sale?"

A trend I’m watching

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With $10T worth of small-to-medium sized businesses needing to transition from retiring Baby Boomers to the next generation over the next two decades, there's a huge opportunity to redefine the American Dream around business ownership rather than home ownership. Inflation and debt have made the traditional path to middle-class stability through real estate increasingly unattainable.

Some promising business models and startup ideas to make SMB acquisition more accessible:

• A "next-gen Carta" platform to streamline employee ownership structures and transactions

• Marketplaces to match SMB sellers with prospective buyers and provide tools to facilitate deals

• Innovative financing options like profit-sharing or revenue-based investment vs traditional loans

• Business acquisition training programs and "buyer bootcamps" to educate aspiring entrepreneurs

• Bundled back-office services to support new owners and ease the ownership transition

Companies like Flippa and Microacquire have started building marketplaces for online business acquisitions. Pipe and Capchase offer non-dilutive financing options. But there's still a lot of opportunity to innovate across the full business buying journey, especially for brick-and-mortar SMBs. With the right models and support structures in place, business ownership could become a more viable path to financial security and economic empowerment for the masses.

Read More.

Tactical reads

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> When you need to deliver negative feedback
Hate delivering negative feedback at work? 19 phrases to help make giving difficult feedback easier (Read it here)

> When learning to grow yourself
You must always be growing yourself ahead of your portfolio (Read it here)

> When you want to make listening a superpower
Listening, really listening, is a rare superpower (Read it here)

> When understanding online security
The Next Big Thing in Consumer Security (Read it here)

> When managing finances in a couple
Managing your finances as a married couple (Read it here)

1 question

That’s all for today, folks. As always, please give me your feedback. Which section is your favourite? What do you want to see more or less of? Other suggestions? Please let me know.

Have a wonderful rest of week, all.

Recommendation Zone

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Hire remote employees with confidence

Two years ago, I hired an offshore assistant for the first time. Since then, I’ve recommended many people do the same. It’s been one of the highest leverage things I’ve done, helping with everything marketing and customer support (for The Intelligence Age) and personal matters and email management.

Athyna is a service that quickly (<5 days!) finds remote employees across 150+ countries for you or your team. They cover roles from sales and marketing to creative and product, and have worked with companies like Facebook, Zoom, Uber, Microsoft, Salesforce, and Amazon.

I’ve personally used Athyna and recommended them to my Brother, Will, who runs a fashion label, and several close friends running their own businesses. To date, they’ve all had very positive experiences.

If you’re in the market for talent, visit their website to explore options and cover all your hiring needs.

Why Faster Than Normal? Our mission is to be a friend to the ambitious, a mentor to the becoming, and a partner to the bold. We achieve this by sharing the stories, ideas, and frameworks of the world's most prolific people and companies—and how you can apply them to build businesses, wealth, and the most important asset of all: yourself.

Faster Than Normal is a ‘state' of being’ rather than an outcome. Outlier performance requires continuous, compounded improvement. We’re your partner on this journey.

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