This edition is brought to you by Gamma

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: Adi Tatarko

Adi Tatarko, the co-founder and CEO of Houzz, has transformed the way people design and renovate their homes by creating a platform that combines technology, community, and inspiration. Born in 1972 in Israel, Tatarko's entrepreneurial journey began when she and her husband, Alon Cohen, were renovating their own home and struggled to find the right professionals and design ideas. Recognizing a gap in the market, they launched Houzz in 2009, which has since grown into a global community of over 65 million homeowners, home design enthusiasts, and home improvement professionals.

Key Lessons from Adi Tatarko:

• On following passion: “I truly believed in it. And we were not getting into it [Houzz] in order to get something out of it. It was a journey. I was just super passionate. In the end, when I had to answer myself and be honest with myself, I said, ‘I don't want to stop doing this because I really like it.’ I felt like a child in a toy store in a way. Every day was so magnificent in terms of what I was surrounded by.”

• On early validation: “Go invest the first six months and validate and see that this idea can really scale, people will really use it, you're really invested in it, and you really love it. And then you will not need to prove these things to investors.”

Read more.

Company: Adidas

Adidas was founded in 1949 by Adolf "Adi" Dassler in Herzogenaurach, Germany. Adi, a cobbler's son, had been making sports shoes since the 1920s with his brother Rudolf. They parted ways after World War II, with Rudolf founding Puma. Adi's company, initially named "Adi Dassler adidas Sportschuhfabrik," focused on innovative athletic footwear. The brand gained international recognition when the West German football team won the 1954 World Cup wearing Adidas boots. Adi's wife Käthe and son Horst joined the business, helping it expand into sportswear and equipment. By the 1970s, Adidas had become a household name in sports, endorsed by athletes worldwide.

Key Lessons from Adidas

On branding: Make your product instantly recognizable. Adidas' three stripes, introduced in 1949, became one of the most iconic logos in sports. It's simple, distinctive, and works across all their products

On product development: Let athletes guide your innovation. Adi Dassler regularly visited sporting events, talked to athletes, and observed their needs. This hands-on approach led to groundbreaking designs like screw-in studs for football boots.

Read More.

Presentations for the 21st century

Gamma is one of the fastest growing AI products globally with over 17M+ users…and they’ve grown to this size in <2 years.

Gamma tackles an age-old problem—presentations—in a completely novel way with AI at its heart. Gamma helps you:

1. Create presentations in 1/10th of the time

2. Pull creativity out of your brain and into your presentation/website/documents

3. Spend time on creative work—not mindless tasks like aligning boxes or formatting circles

This is what happens when a new technology paradigm meets archaic, stale software products (not naming any names) that haven’t changed in decades.

I’m excited for a future with more products like Gamma.

Check it out for yourself and see what you can make.

Accelerants

High-performance tool

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Clock Building, Not Time Telling

The "Clock Building, Not Time Telling" framework was developed by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras in their book Built to Last. It's a powerful concept that emphasizes the importance of building a company that can prosper far beyond the presence of any single leader. "Visionary companies are clock builders, not time tellers."

Time Telling relies on a single individual to reactively inform the actions of the group. Clocks centralize that information, so that teams can access it without being exclusively dependent on a single person for guidance.

Why does "Clock Building, Not Time Telling" work? First, it focuses on creating sustainable systems and structures that can endure the test of time. As Collins puts it, "The builders of visionary companies tend to be clock builders, not time tellers. Their primary accomplishment is not the implementation of a great idea, the expression of a charismatic personality, or the accumulation of wealth. It is the company itself and what it stands for." Second, it prioritizes the development of a strong corporate culture and a clear set of core values that guide decision-making. This ensures that the company remains true to its purpose, even as it adapts to changing circumstances. Finally, it emphasizes the importance of succession planning and developing a deep bench of talent. As Anne Mulcahy, former CEO of Xerox, notes, "One of the things we often miss in succession planning is that it should be gradual and thoughtful, with lots of sharing of information and knowledge and perspective, so that it's almost a non-event when it happens."

A trend I’m watching

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The corporate travel industry, valued at $1.4 trillion, is ripe for disruption. Legacy systems are fragmented and closed off, stifling innovation. But the emergence of cloud-native architectures and AI/ML is enabling a reimagination of the travel tech stack. Visionary entrepreneurs like Sarosh Waghmar (Spotnana), Dennis Vilovic (Troop), and Naveen Singh (Center) are building an open, extensible platform - the "AWS for travel" - to power the next generation of travel experiences.

Opportunities abound to leverage this new open travel platform:

• Personalized, AI-powered travel assistants that proactively manage all aspects of a business trip

• Seamless integration of travel booking, expense management, and sustainability tracking in one interface

• Vertical-specific travel solutions (e.g. TravelTech for healthcare, optimized for visiting nurses and sales reps)

• Connecting travel data into CRM and ERP systems to surface insights and workflow automations

With an open foundation in place, startups can innovate on top, enterprises can build bespoke solutions, and a new ecosystem of Marketplace apps can flourish - all working together to finally deliver on the vision of "The Perfect Trip".

Read More.

Tactical reads

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> When you need to make tough decisions
Grit or Quit? Tactical Advice for Founders Facing Tough Company Building Decisions (Read it here)

> When managing your emotions is required
Common Psychological Pitfalls — Managing our emotions is a prerequisite for intelligent investing (Read it here)

> When you're seeking a masterclass in copywriting
Gary C. Halbert: The Boron Letters (Copywriting) (Read it here)

> When understanding the metaverse
Metaverse Identity: Defining the Self in a Blended Reality (Read it here)

> When building a wealth vehicle of N = 1
1-person companies to be aware of (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

⎯

Presentations for the 21st century

Gamma is one of the fastest growing AI products globally with over 17M+ users…and they’ve grown to this size in <2 years.

Gamma tackles an age-old problem—presentations—in a completely novel way with AI at its heart. Gamma helps you:

1. Create presentations in 1/10th of the time

2. Pull creativity out of your brain and into your presentation/website/documents

3. Spend time on creative work—not mindless tasks like aligning boxes or formatting circles

This is what happens when a new technology paradigm meets archaic, stale software products (not naming any names) that haven’t changed in decades.

I’m excited for a future with more products like Gamma.

Check it out for yourself and see what you can make.

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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