How great is life without a buddy?
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Weekly Report CW 18
Climbing the ladder together
Going through adventures and challenges together creates friendships that stick. These two guys try to climb the ladder but don’t realize that they stay in position. Sometimes, situations in life are exactly like this.
What memories come up to you when you thought you’re making progress with a buddy, but you were not? How did you realize? And what happened next?
Describe your mission
When the project part starts at OnSaPa’s StrategyGuide, we write down what the project is doing in a few sentences. It’s easier said than done. Especially if a company or project does “a lot of different things.” This is why we focus on one particular thing with our partners. Let’s take Runkeepers mission as an example here:
“Our mission is simple: we want to get the whole world running. That doesn’t mean you have to do 26.2 miles, but working on a product that improves people’s lives should excite you. From race training to regular old endorphins, we’re helping the world get healthy the best way we know how: together.”
So what I see here from OnSaPa’s point of view is a combination of vision, mission, and values. And it confuses me. Do you now know what Runkeeper actually is? The “What” is in this statement somehow missing.
When we talk about “mission” at OnSaPa, we talk about the tangible part of a project. It’s more an internal part for the founders of a project, nothing to put as copy-paste on a website. It’s especially for their contributors to understand what mission they join. The mission is an answer to the mantra that we created before in the StrategyGuide. The mantra is a motivational purpose said in three to four words, strongly connected to the Why.
So let’s say the mantra for Runkeeper is “Keep everyone running.” Now how are you going to achieve that? What’s the product’s mission that keeps everyone running and healthy? What are the people at Runkeeper building so that everyone keeps running? Let’s write a short draft answer to these questions here:
“Runkeeper is an app that makes people track their running progress. It’s very easy to use, without AD’s and available for free, so that everyone who uses it feels excited to become more healthy and happy every day.”
— just a draft
Next week, I’m focusing on two partners on this mission part for their project. What are they going to do to fulfill their personal vision? What are they going to build in the next two years? I’m sure there will be simple and good answers that contributors can join easily.
What is OnSaPa™ doing?
OnSaPa is a strategy consulting firm for individuals. OnSaPa’s goal is to work with people who want to contribute to a planet of harmony and progress. Before starting a new partnership, OnSaPa finds a person’s core values, motivations, and why they do what they do. OnSaPa then supports selected partners in combining their vision of life with the work they love.
Through the OnSaPa StrategyGuide, the personal vision and a suitable project are written down over three months so that partners can move strategically and with clarity towards a larger goal. Then OnSaPa supports their partners in getting ahead with weekly check-ins and background work, such as research work, for unlimited time. The StrategyGuide helps to brief all people who come to the implementation of a mission. This strengthens teamwork, and everyone steers “On The Same Page” towards the same goal.
Why writing things down?
If you work as a designer, you might have experienced the endless changing minds of your clients. If you are working for a fixed fee, this can hit you hard. Recently, I worked as a motion designer for an advertising company and asked questions such as “what is your client's goal?” — “What are your clients offering in three to five words?” — “What is the exact target group I should create these ADs for?” and I wasn’t surprised that there were no clear answers. They just said: “The client changes their mind all the time, so we have to pitch something cool.”
So when we create a StrategyGuide with OnSaPa’s partners, they can precisely brief all people who will work with them. No one wants to spend money on unnecessary production costs, especially when money is minimal.
I learned this lesson from the traditional animation studios: You have to be clear in your story first, write a script, go ahead by drawing the storyboard — and only if it works with stick figures as animatic—then you go into production. It doesn’t make sense to write the story in production mode. Except you have endless time and money and the guts to burn out creative people along the way.
So this is why we write things down at OnSaPa before we let partners start going into production. Then we iterate on the surface, but we don’t change the DNA. And yes, it takes about three months to create this fundamental piece for most partners that will reflect everything that builds upon that.
The Five Friday Questions (CW18)
I end every week with a Friday Report and five questions, as we implemented it at OnSaPa GmbH to keep a consistent feedback relation.
What was good?
- I had a dispute with a partner that flourished into something better
- Went ahead on the mission drafts of both OnSaPa partners
- The new pricing model for OnSaPa is crafted
- Added OnSaPa client’s to discord
- Turned bank accounts and all transactions into categories
- Got invited on a new NFT-Platform: foundation.app/ottinzky
- Minted an NFT on foundation
- Making friends with artists in the NFT-Space
What to look at in the future?
- Check if OnSaPa-Consulting works in cohort/groups
- Building a knowledge base for OnSaPa
- Clarifying the StrategyGuide’s sections with examples
- Get rid of some of the 31 domains I own
What was shitty?
- Endless search for app’s to automatize and categorize bank transactions
- 3D-product still not done: Zerolens has lots of tiny problems with their beta, but their support is nice.
What should stay as it is?
- Consistency
What was neglected?
- nothing
That’s it for post #6 — I will be back next week.
Enjoy a wonderful weekend!
Otto
