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Hey good looking 👋,
November has been a wild one.
I feel like I say this at the beginning of every newsletter, but it’s true.
I just moved into a new home, and it’s been a mix of lifting boxes, finding lost cables, and building new furniture…
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I’ve concluded I’m definitely better at building things that scale 😅
Oh and I’m running a Black Friday 30% OFF all my courses and products at the Designership. Level up with me!
Now let’s dive in.
The 1% rule
Back when I created my Practical UX Research Masterclass (Use coupon BLACK30 to get 30% off) I taught a simple concept:
You don’t need to build the perfect product.
You just need to beat the baseline by 1%.
One of the biggest mistakes designers and founders make is that, they believe they need to build the perfect product from day 1.
They believe from launch they need to compete with companies that have more funding, bigger teams, and years of head start.
And the answer is…
You don’t.
Not head-on.
Not all at once.
You find the baseline.
Which is the average experience and set of expectations.
Then you beat it… not by 50% or 100%… but by 1%.
Your goal is to ship small and incremental improvements over a longer period of time.
One tiny edge.
One small advantage.
One experience that’s slightly smoother, faster, clearer, or smarter.
Some customers will notice.
Some won’t.
But the ones who do… those people become your early adopters.
Then you do it again.
And again.
And eventually, those tiny 1% improvements compound into something competitors can’t catch.
I personally apply what I teach to my own businesses.
I intentionally break up a large complex feature into a number of smaller, isolated features.
This is so we can ship each one faster and test earlier.
Once we gain validation of each seperate function, we then dedicate time to connect it all together.
This is exactly what I’m doing for my new app Nidos.
And then this week… Jensen said it too.
This week, completely by chance, I came across a video of Jensen Huang explaining this exact concept in his own words.
The way he articulates it is perfect.
I watched it, nodded through the whole thing, then immediately shared it with my team.
Hearing it from someone who built NVIDIA, of all companies, was a great reminder.
The 1% rule isn’t just a tactic, it’s a mindset and a way of working.
One that scales from indie founders like me… all the way to trillion-dollar companies.
So whether you’re building a business, a product, a personal brand, or advising clients, try it.
Beat the baseline by 1%, over and over again. That’s how you win.
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Useful lil' links
🏷️ Designership - Get 30% OFF all my courses and products!
Choppity - Generate engaging short clips with AI
Gemini 3 - Google’s latest AI update… OMG worthy!
Antigravity by Google - Google’s newest next-gen IDE
How can I help you?
Here are a few ways I can help you crush your career goals (just like me):
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