Global first
JC Newsletter #224
Dear friends,
Every week, I’m sharing an essay that relates to what we are building and learning at Alan. Those essays are fed by the article I’m lucky enough to read and capitalise on.
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Global-firstÂ
When running a company in multiple countries with specific healthcare systems, how to approach local vs. global?
It is easy to fall into the trop of trying to reinvent the wheel in each country, constantly explaining why we should globalize and why our country needs this or that health service. That is why you see a very low number of healthcare companies operating in multiple countries.
For Alan, the way we think about it is: rather than asking ourselves if a component could be reused in another country, we should ask ourselves each time why it could not be.
Having spent a lot of time pitching to customers, engaging with them, and testing the product in our three countries, it is so much better to standardize our health experience because the needs are pretty much the same.
The needs are to have access to the same preventive programs, the same medical needs, and the same insurance stack. Globalization goes beyond health experience, it is billing, onboarding, insurance risk management …
Companies cannot afford to maintain different experiences and designs across countries. Given the opportunity and ease of having a unified experience, we should reduce divergences, streamline marketing and go-to-market strategies, simplify product development, and focus on providing the best experience regardless of the country.
This accelerates business, increases quality and shortens go-to-market for a new country.
Some good articles I have read this week
Health
👉Pourquoi les jeunes français se distinguent par une navrante performance : l’absentéisme (Le Figaro Emploi)
Very interesting data points on absenteeism and how it is increasing with the new generation.
Building companies & culture
👉CEO Andy Jassy’s 2023 Letter to Shareholders (Amazon)
Culture & innovation:
Be customer obsessed AND inventive, thinking several years out.
Deliver quicklyÂ
Dissect a customer experience, assess what’s wrong with it, and reinvent it.Â
Don’t be satisfied until the customer experience is perfect
The primitive definition is interesting for engineering. What would it mean for us? Think about it. Some really good arguments about it.
How they think about healthcare. They are building a great infrastructure for pharmacy.
👉OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Brad Lightcap on The Future of Foundation Models (20VC)
Altman's thesis is that models will keep getting better and that we'll be amazed at the timeline and where we are.
I completely agree that the best way to sell more products is to make the product better. I think it's an investment we will make in Spain, Canada, France, and Belgium. That's why I'm very driven by globalization, among other things.
What they share about the best leaders having lots of ideas, a very fast iteration cycle, and being able to explain very well what we will do and why is super important, and I think it applies not only to CEOs.
👉Patrick Collison (Stripe CEO) - On Craft & Beauty (Dwarkesh Podcast)
A lot of the most successful companies are those that are distinguished by the extent to which they exhibit appreciation for and skill in realizing craft and beauty.
Craft and the pursuit of it is as important as it's ever been.
People very demonstrably care about aesthetics, and if they're a company, they care about the aesthetic characteristics of the products that they produce.
The best people consider themselves craft people in their domain. And above almost all else, they want to work with the best other people.
AI
👉The AI Workforce is Here: The Rise of a New Labor Market (NFX)
I'm really interested in the idea of creating a digital SDR.Â
I also really like the idea of automating complete workflows, thinking about what that means.
👉Intel's Modular Vision, Meta MTIA 2, Google Axion (Stratechery)
When I look at the volumes from Accenture ($450m bookings), it's quite impressive. And the description of use cases is also interesting.
Design
👉UX Bites #17 — Mindllama, Uber Eats & more... (UX Bites)
Some good product inspirations on how to generate curiosity that we could use in some of our programs.
I find the gift in Uber Eats interesting, even though I prefer what we are doing with Berry's.
There are interesting things for gamification and programs.
I think the last point about the Customer Life Cycle and how we want to push more is very interesting.Â
👉Anthony Hobday on X: If a new designer asked you to suggest ONE thing they could do to quickly improve their interface design skills, what would your answer be? (X)
Some excellent advice that I list here, in the thread, with more details:
Start replicating the design of an experienced designer, make an exact copy.
The key to being a top creator is to be a top consumer.Â
We are heading towards interfaces created with near 0 costs at light speed, on demand, customised to each user based on use-case
Articulate the reason behind every design decision you make.
Copy interfaces very closely to learn
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