The Founder's Foyer with Aishwarya Ashok #42 Taste, intuition & rigorous thinking for building products ft. Wes Kao (Co-Founder, Maven & AltMBA)
00:00 Introduction to Founders Foyer
01:40 The Magic of Learnable Skills
05:45 Building Alt MBA: The Experiment
08:57 The Rise of Live Learning with Maven
17:14 Intuition vs. Rigorous Thinking
30:39 The Importance of Deep Reflection
31:32 Balancing Immediate Action with Thoughtful Planning
32:54 Understanding and Developing Taste
38:22 Communicating Taste and Quality
45:30 Managing Ego in Collaborative Work
48:12 The Power of Super Specific Hows
54:08 Practical Applications of Super Specific Hows
Building hype for your ideas, leading the vision, and setting clarity on how to execute on plans are definitely things that we as product builders and creative minds want to get better at. Thinking becomes a great part of this and learning to observe intensely and being able to articulate thoughts are the result of great thinking. So how to communicate and work in a way that’s positive-sum and leveraging?
Wes Kao is an entrepreneur, marketer, coach, and advisor who writes at newsletter.weskao.com. She is co-founder of Maven, an edtech company that raised $25M from First Round and Andreessen Horowitz. Previously, she co-founded altMBA with bestselling author Seth Godin. Wes’ essays are deep reads that help you vividly experience the ‘how’ rather than merely stating points.
In this episode, Wes and Aishwarya chat about co-founding Alt MBA with Seth Godin to Wes' current role at Maven, differences between lazy and rigorous thinking, and actionable insights on turning 'Je ne sais quoi' into an executable framework. Tune in!