Tiger Sisters - Everything We Learned at Stanford Business School in 19 Minutes (Part 1)

Starting point is 00:00:00 I paid $250,000 for my Stanford MBA. And yeah, we learned strategy and finance and business operations. But the things that actually changed how we operate, they weren't buzzwords or balance sheets. They were actually mental frameworks. These three frameworks that we're going to talk about today rewired how we think about business and also our personal life. These are tools we still use today to make decisions faster,

Starting point is 00:00:27 build smarter, and to just live better lives. I'm Cherie, I'm Gene, and we're the Tiger Sisters. Today we're sharing three of the six most important tools taught at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. And for each of these, we're going to do two things, just like we would for a real case study at Harbor Business School or the Stanford GSB. The first thing is that we're going to talk through a real-life example of a company

Starting point is 00:01:05 so that we can bring the framework to life for you. Second thing is that we're going to go through a mini exercise so that we can actually practice what we learn through the framework as we go through the podcast. And we'll be right back after this break. This episode of Tiger Sisters is brought to you by Read AI. Yes, and it's not just another note taker. It's like an AI co-pilot that can read, transcribe, and summarize your meeting notes. It reads the energy and vibe of your meetings to give you the next smart steps. I'm obsessed because it's like having a chief of staff that manages your inbox, your work meetings,

Starting point is 00:01:41 basically your entire work life. Yeah, last week I missed a meeting and I was able to type what did I miss. And Reed AI was able to give me the top takeaways, the key points, and also the sentiment. It was kind of like magic. And it works across Gmail, Teams, Notion, Salesforce, Zoom, basically wherever you do your work. And you know me, I never give apps access to my Gmail because that's super private, but I actually made an exception for Reed AI because I personally know the founder, David Shim, because we used to work together at Snapchat. And you guys might remember we actually interviewed David

Starting point is 00:02:14 Schim on season three of Tiger Sisters when he was talking about his new startup, which is actually Reed AI. And now Reed has over four million users. Wow. Wow. And they're giving Tiger Sisters listeners a 30-day enterprise trial, which is worth $30 and that does not require a credit card to sign up. We don't know how long this 30-day free offer is going to last, so if you're at all curious, try it right now. Go to www. reed.a.com slash tiger sisters for a free 30-day extended trial and you don't need to put in your credit card. Sign up through our link because then they'll know that we send you. We're obsessed with Read AI and we think you're going to love it too. And just so you know, this is a two-part series. This is part one and we'll have part two coming soon,

Starting point is 00:02:59 so stay tuned. And while you're here, make sure you click like, follow. and subscribe so that more people can find us, and then also so that you're notified when part two drops. Let's dive into it. Okay, so the first framework is design thinking. Shuri, tell us about design thinking. So design thinking was invented at Stanford's D-school, the design school, and it's completely reshaped how many companies, especially tech companies, approach problem solving. So the whole concept of design thinking really took off with this company called IDEO, which is a famous design company. And they're famous for a lot of things. I think one of the things that people know them for is that they designed the original Apple Mouse, which is kind of hilarious. Iconic. Iconic. And the

Starting point is 00:03:44 whole big idea behind design thinking is that instead of designing around what you think the problem is, you need to design around what the user actually needs. And I love design thinking because it literally works for any type of problem, whether you're at Google or you're at the Gates Foundation, for example. We used it all the time at work. And the whole concept is that it's not at all about being a designer. It's actually about really empathizing with what the user wants and what the user needs so that you deeply understand them. And then you can start to build from that place of empathy and understanding. And like once we actually get into the sort of details of how the framework works, you'll see that it makes a huge difference.

Starting point is 00:04:23 And the reality of it is, is that most products fail not because they're badly built, but because they're actually solving the wrong problem. And here's how it works. There are five steps. The first step is to empathize and talk to your users, understand them and understand what's frustrating them. This is like a whole function now at tech companies. There's this whole sort of group called user researchers and this is what they do like all day long. It's like so baked into the tech building sort of like process now. The second is to define what's actually the root problem here. The third is to ideate. This is to brainstorm. and don't censor yourself, no idea is too crazy or too out there. The fourth is to prototype.

Starting point is 00:05:07 Build a scrappy, low-stakes version of what you think the solution could be. And fifth is to test. Put this in front of users and watch how they react. Watch how they behave and what they do, not just what they say. I can share an example for my own experience, which is that when I was working at Snapchat, one of the things we were doing is working on building out augmented reality shopping. and the first sort of vertical that we focused on was beauty. So the idea was that we would use augmented reality to sort of like help you shop and

Starting point is 00:05:38 decide what sort of like lipsticks or mascara or blush, et cetera, that you should buy. And the idea is that you would try it on through Snapchat. So before we actually did that, we went to a beauty store out in L.A., on Abit Kinney and spent an entire afternoon there just like watching people, interact in the beauty store and like seeing how they decided what to buy and like talking to them and asking them about their process of like how do you decide what you need for beauty like how do you what do you look for when you're trying these on in store and then using that that was basically the entire sort of like user interview section so that we could really understand what their

Starting point is 00:06:20 needs were like how important being in store was versus where they really just trying to see it like on their skin and compare the color or was it really important for them to actually be in person. So that's kind of and that that part was really fun. So that's what I was saying is that like doing the sort of user research is actually not just very enlightening. I think as a like a builder and a, you know, a builder of products, it's actually a really fun part of the whole process. Totally.

Starting point is 00:06:49 And it sounds like there was a lot of empathizing you need to do and a lot of observation. Okay. And the mini exercise for this section is to pick one problem in your life where you feel kind of stuck and then think through the five steps of design thinking. Now ask yourself, the person that I'm designing for, what are they afraid of? What are they needing? And how can I better and more deeply understand them? It might be your boss, your partner, or your customer. First, write down all of their feelings first and things that you can observe before brainstorming any solutions. And we want to hear from you guys. comment your answers below, especially if you had like an aha moment or anything like that, and we'll reply to our favorite ones. And we'll be right back after this break. Hey friends, it's Sheree and Jean from Tiger Sisters. We need your help. We just dropped our very first audience survey, and it's actually really important to us.

Starting point is 00:07:44 Why? Because we want to create the best content for you, and learning more about you helps us to do that. It takes less than five minutes to fill out, and as a thank you, we're giving away a $100 gift card at the end of the season. to one listener who fills out the survey. The link is in the video description. Please fill it out. Thank you for being a part of this with us. Tiger Sisters is just getting started.

Starting point is 00:08:03 And next is Framework 2, which is Test and Learn. Gene, can you tell us about this? Yes. Okay, I love this one. Test and Learn is a framework, but it's also very much just an entire mindset. This framework is taught in Stanford's startup garage, and it's also now in a book called Lean Startup.

Starting point is 00:08:21 The whole point of this is to stop waiting to be perfect, to just start trying things and being scrappy. And for most students and honestly most people, this is a giant wake-up call because everyone is so used to being perfect and thinking about the strategy instead of just going out, putting out something scrappy and just doing it and trying it. And the biggest lesson here, which is kind of a little bit controversial, is that a lot of times your really well-thought-out business plan is nothing more than a fantasy. And the main takeaway, from this framework is that your MVP, or what's called the minimum viable product, is what actually teaches you everything you need to learn to build out your product. And many times when you

Starting point is 00:09:05 put your MVP out there and you get a response from your customers, your business plan will definitely have to pivot and change. Yeah, for sure. I feel like a good example of this is our own experience. Well, Gene and I about a year ago developed a business plan for Tiger Sisters, and it was a pitch deck basically. And the idea was that Tiger Sisters was going to be a reality TV show. But we had a little MVP, we tested things out, we talked to a lot of people, gathered data. And soon we realized this was not the right time or the right environment, macro environment to start that idea. And so that business idea, you know, for the most part, that strategy went out the window. And now we have a pivot of that idea, which is Tiger Sisters, the podcast, which is what you're watching and listening to right now. And I would say the MVP, like if you guys go back to watch our first few episodes, they were very MVP. First of all, we just had one camera. We were sitting at the kitchen table. We had way worse mics.

Starting point is 00:10:06 We didn't have these awesome mic flags. Like it was just everything about it was much lower quality. But the whole concept was like we think we have, you know, good ideas and lessons and conversations that are important to put out there. And I think people will really love to sort of like be able to. part of this community and conversation. So let's just put it out there, even if the actual, like, quality of the video is not as high as other podcasts or as high as we could make it. Which honestly was okay to start with because it totally worked. I think we were still delivering value. The information that we were putting out there was it sounds like really helpful. And we read every single comment.

Starting point is 00:10:46 And we know the quality had to improve because you guys were like, the microphones suck. And we're like, we know we're trying to do better. But everything has been. test and learn for the last nine months for us on this podcast. Yeah, exactly. But I guess the whole concept like bringing it back to MVP or minimum viable product is that if we were waiting and like put all this effort into making the perfect set and like having the perfect equipment and having like all the perfect angles before we put out the first one, it would have been I think much slower to actually get information and know what to do because it would have taken so much longer. for those sort of startup costs versus just putting something out there and then reacting to

Starting point is 00:11:29 the market. Yeah. Basically, seeing how you guys react to our videos. Yeah. Some other ways that other companies have done it in the past is even more MVP. So like a really good example of this is Dropbox. So the way they started their MVP is that they built zero product. They literally made a three minute marketing video describing how Dropbox would work and they

Starting point is 00:11:53 released it and in that one day they got 75,000 signups for it. So based on that, they were like, oh shit, people really want our product. Like, let's actually build it out. And the online retailer Zappos did the exact same. They didn't start out by having a fulfillment center. They bought shoes at a local store and shipped them manually just to test out to see if people would purchase them online. I thought of another example. Another one that is pretty well known and a little bit more recent is Class Pass, which when they first launched and they were sort of like matching people up to different classes, everyone thought it was, you know, obviously some sort of like automated system. But in reality, it was just a spreadsheet and the people who worked at ClassPass manually

Starting point is 00:12:37 signing people up for those classes on the back end. There was no technology actually behind it. They were just like, okay, let's see if this concept even works and let's, you know, do it manually ourselves and pay for it ourselves. And a fourth example that I just have top of mind for me is with DoorDash. It's the DoorDash lore with Tony Shue, the founder, one of the founders. And how DoorDash started was that they just put up a website. I think it was called like Palo Alto Delivery. It was like there were a bunch of Stanford students.

Starting point is 00:13:08 They would take in an order on the phone. If anyone called in and made like a food order, the Dorash co-founders would then make the order themselves at the restaurant and go pick it up and then deliver it themselves. and it was super manual in the beginning, but they saw that there was proof of concept there. Yeah, same idea. All right. Now on to the mini exercise. And I think you guys know what's going to be.

Starting point is 00:13:29 So basically think of one problem that you've been thinking through and you haven't sort of tackled yet. And now think of the simplest way you can test it out. Maybe it's a Google form. Maybe it's an Instagram post. Maybe it's a text message. And just do it. And that's all it takes to get your first learning.

Starting point is 00:13:46 And then tell us in the comments what you guys do. And honestly, the answer or the clarity that you're looking for is probably hiding behind one very simple test. And if you wait for the perfect moment or the most opportune moment, likely someone's scrappier will beat you to it. Okay, Sherey, now let's move on to Framework 3. It's reversible versus Irreversible decisions. Take it away. Okay. Let's talk about decisions and decision making.

Starting point is 00:14:15 This one is pretty famous and called the Bezos Framework. And it's a little bit spicy because supposedly this is what they use at Amazon. And it all stems from this infamous memo that Jeff Bezos wrote a million years ago, which was about type 1 versus type 2 decision making, where type 1 is irreversible and then type 2 is reversible. And the gist is that people usually treat every decision like they're exactly the same, that they're all irreversible decisions. And what that does is that makes decision making a lot. slower and that's actually what kills innovation. Okay, so just to review, type one decisions are the irreversible ones. These are the ones where you have to think very slowly about it, have a strategy, and think about the long-term effects. So move slowly here. And then type two is reversible. These are

Starting point is 00:15:08 ones that you should experiment on and move quickly on. So important decisions should be type one. They should be irreversible. Like hiring the first engineer, the first engineer, the first person on your team. That's pretty important and you need to get that right. So that would be an irreversible decision. Experimenting with something on your website, changing the color of a button. That's type two. That's reversible. You don't have to give those type of decisions as much brain power because you can just experiment, test and learn and move on. Yeah. And I can think of aside from Amazon, like thinking about my own experience, I feel like entire companies are based on the premise of type one versus type two decisions. So for example,

Starting point is 00:15:49 when I worked at Zinga and we were working, I worked on Farmville the whole time, like all different iterations of Farmville, we were obsessed with type two decisions because we experimented on everything. So like every single thing you ever saw on the screen in Farmville, and this is true for so many like websites and games that you see and you interact with nowadays was tested. So whether the button was like a total like rectangle with sharp edges versus a button with rounded edges, we test that. So that's like a kind of, that sounds like a throwaway decision, but things like that would actually make a difference. And we could move really quickly on just testing them all the time and not worry too much about like an irreversible outcome, basically.

Starting point is 00:16:31 Okay. So it's time for the mini exercise. We want you to make a list of all the decisions that you have to make. They could be big ones. They could be small ones. And next, we want you to sort them into type one irreversible or type two reversible decisions. And for the decisions that are reversible on your list, go and try to test one of them out today. Make a small like test and learn MVP and see what results you get. I think my main takeaway from this framework is that doing things at speed is a skill, but also knowing what deserves speed versus deserves, you know, a lot of intentful thinking. That's strategy. Startups die not necessarily from bad decisions, but from slow ones.

Starting point is 00:17:15 So those are the first three mental operating systems that I learned while at Stanford. The first is design thinking. The second is test and learn. And the third is irreversible versus reversible decisions. And these aren't just frameworks that you use to build decks or sort of like do inane busy work. These are actually tools that we use every single day in our lives to build faster, to launch, and to get unstuck. And I would say not just in work, but also in sort of like your everyday decision making for things outside of work.

Starting point is 00:17:52 For example, reversible decision versus irreversible decision, getting a divorce, put it into a certain bucket. Is it reversible? Is it not reversible? Sometimes it is and sometimes it's not. It's funny. Yeah. It's like dating versus getting married.

Starting point is 00:18:08 What do you mean? Like dating is a reversible decision. decision. Like you could just be dating and then break up. Yeah. Or if you're married, then you're connected by the law. It's harder to break up if you are married because there are a lot more legal loopholes to go through. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways. We did say we would wrap up. And throughout this episode, we had a bunch of our mini exercises. Please let us know if you try it. And we love to hear what some of your learnings are in the comments below. We read every. comment and we try to respond to every single one. And make sure you like, comment and subscribe,

Starting point is 00:18:48 especially if you want to see part two because then you'll get a notification. And also if you're listening on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, please rate us five stars so that more people can find us. And stay tuned for part two of this series where we talk about the decision-making frameworks that actually helped us decide to leave our corporate jobs to launch our own companies and to to structure our life like a product roadmap. See you guys next time. Bye. Hey, everyone.

Starting point is 00:19:19 Quick break to share something special, Sisters Macha. We've launched limited batches of ceremonial grade, single estate, single cultivar, matcha, straight from the family farm Sherey worked on in Japan. It's pure, authentic, and crafted with intention. Head to SistersMacha.com to grab yours before it sells out. Make Macha your daily ritual for lasting energy and focus.

Tiger Sisters - Everything We Learned at Stanford Business School in 19 Minutes (Part 1)

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