#146 - Notes on Education, Friendship and Conversation

Education Coffee is 2xWeekly Newsletter on People, Ideas and Culture.

In this newsletter, I share five inspiring web resources that I have curated after hours of research to ensure that you have the best education coffee in your inbox.

1. Learning from People

On Episode 64 of #LearningStories we chat with Rohit Kumar about his journey as an educator in India. Rohit is the CEO at Apni Shala Foundation. Transitioning from being a software engineer with Tata Consultancy Services, Rohit holds a double master's in education and software systems. However he believes his most important learning came from working with students and teachers at the Akanksha Foundation, American School of Bombay and the Apni Shala Foundation.

He is an educator with 18+ years of experience in various learning environments. Currently he leads Strategy, Social Emotional Learning design and Organizational Development and Advancement at Apni Shala. Rohit also consults with the SEED project (USA), co-facilitating diversity workshops for educators, leaders and organisations in India and USA. In the recent past, Rohit has published on themes such as organisational wellbeing, fundraising, SEL and Mental Health on forums such as India Development Review (IDR) and Teacher Plus. We chat about his time at School and College, creating Inclusive Learning Environments and building a Social Impact Organization to take forward India’s Mental Health Movement. You can find Rohit on Linkedin and Instagram.

2. Learning from Ideas and Questions

This is an excellent masterclass on #ProductMarketFit by Sajith Pai from Blume Ventures. This is years of experience, analysis and observation condensed into a 68 minute talk. Highly recommend this video for anyone building a product/service and struggling with the right market fit. Thank you to the Antler India team for making this available on their Youtube Channel.

Here are #10keylessons from this talk that stayed with me:

1. Every startup is an experiment in the pursuit of truth.

2. Speed of iteration is the single biggest decisive factor in whether a founder gets to product market fit.

3. Performance Marketing is a scalable channel but not a compounding channel.

4. Premature scaling can kill startups. If you try to scale before you hit product market you will then acquire the wrong kind of customers.

5. In the product market phase your goal is to learn and not earn. You have to understand who are the customers that are right for your startup.

6. Most founders spend less than 5% of their time on idea selection.

7. The best startups have zero marginal costs of surveying the next customer.

8. Founders need to spend a significant time understanding the contours of the problem they want to solve.

9. Product Market Fit is a gating mechanism for Series A Funding.

10. Product Market Fit means determining genuine demand for the product and ensuring you have a systematic way of tapping this demand.

You can read more of Sajith Pai's writing on Product Market Fit on his website - https://sajithpai.com/the-busy-founders-guide-to-pmf/.

3. Learning from Books, Websites and Blog

The Marginalian is one of my favourite blog’s on the internet. It was created by Maria Popova in 2006 as an email to seven friends. Here is how she describes the blog in her own words.

Hello. My name is Maria Popova and The Marginalian is a record of my reading and reckoning with our search for meaning: sometimes through science and philosophy, sometimes through poetry and children’s books, always through the lens of wonder.

Here are two of my favourite sections of her blog

1. An archive of her favourite writings on this introduction page.

2. A collection of life learnings from her writing experiment on the Internet.

4. Learning from Films, Videos and Shows

This was a fun conversation between two of my favourite actors, Jim Sarbh and Tillotama Shome. They spoke about how their friendship evolved, their acting process and being there for each other in the good and bad times. It was part of an interview with Sneha Menon Desai from the Hollywood Reporter India team.

5. Learning from Podcasts and Music

Alison Wood Brooks is a behavioural research scientist and professor. She is the author of “TALK: The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves”. She talks about what good conversationalists do in daily conversations in this conversation with Dax Shepherd and Monica Padman on the Armchair Expert Podcast. Some of my notes and thoughts from this conversation include:

1. Be interested in the other person’s story and world view.

2. Try to understand and imagine their day before they met you (food, sleep, movement).

3. Be curious and supportive about the other person’s work and professional identity.

4. Be curious and understanding about the other person’s personal life and responsibilities.

5. Be respectful and understanding about the other person’s daily schedule in terms of their patterns with food, exercise and sleep.

6. Listening patiently without interrupting.

7. Take turns and don’t interrupt when the other person is speaking.

Thank you for reading this edition of #EducationCoffee. I look forward to writing weekly editions of this newsletter this year. I hope to continue to share resources that will add value to your life. You can also review the archive of Education Coffee for free at this link (130+ newsletters here). You can email your thoughts, feedback or recommendations to abhishekashokshetty@gmail.com. I love connecting with other writers and learners on the Internet.

Abhishek