8 ms·

Can someone just spoil it please? I hate having to waste my time in order to glean insights. Pareto.

deleted 17y ago
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wvenable 17y ago
I normally hate watching videos to get information, but to the credit of the presenter this video is very concise and quick. The whole thing is insightful.
rjett 17y ago
It's only 6 minutes, but if you want the 10 second version, the winning team sold their 3 minute presentation time in class to a company called Frog Design that wanted to recruit Stanford design students. Frog Design paid $650 for this 3 minutes. Lessons learned in this experiment: Successful teams did not frame the problem in terms of the $5 limitation. Instead, they thought of the problem in terms of services they could easily provide where salesmanship and timeliness were valued. The most successful team forgot about the $5 limitation and the 2 hour time limit altogether.
nkurz 17y ago
She teaches a class at Stanford and offers each team $5 of 'funding' in an envelope. She tells them that once they open the envelope, they have 2 hours to make as much money as they can. She cites three teams' approaches: 1) First team opens a free stand that offers to check peoples bike tire pressure for free, then charges $1 to inflate if necessary. This team changes midstream to accepting donations instead of charging, and makes more money. Lauded for rapid iteration. 2) Second team makes lots of reservations at local restaurants, and then sells them to people waiting in line for same restaurant. Didn't use the $5 at all. Lauded for realizing that the $5 constraint was artificial, and that using it constrained their thinking. 3) Third team skipped the exercise, and sold their 3 minute class presentation time as a advertisement to a local company. Made the most money. Instead of presenting, they recruited. Lauded for realizing that the 2 hours was also artificially hampering their thinking. Personally, I found the presentation glib and condescending, and the solutions immoral and dishonest. I'm hoping for good discussion about the issues here, but I would not recommend the video.
- thenduks 17y ago
  Thanks for the synopsis. I'm curious, though, what makes the solutions 'immoral' or dishonest? They seem perfectly legitimate to me.
  - nkurz 17y ago
    There are two levels --- the first is within the context of a class assignment, and the second is as a business operation. 1) The bike tire pressure check isn't bad, but seems to be cheating on the class solution by using outside materials. Once one can 'presume' a pressure gauge and a pump, why not presume further specialized equipment or further outside funding? As a business proposition I was happy with it when they were charging a set price, but I personally feel uneasy with the change to donations. This isn't clear cut, but it's guilt based and I wouldn't do it myself despite the effectiveness. Compare with the Hare Krishna technique of forcing free flowers and then asking for a donation: http://www.garyasanchez.com/what-hare-krishnas-can-teach-us-about-marketing http://www.garyasanchez.com/what-hare-krishnas-can-teach-us-... 2) Selling restaurant reservations is probably fine within the context of the class, but is a violation of the expectations of the restaurant. If everyone were to follow their approach, the system would collapse and the restaurant would need to implement a policy of cancellation charges. My simple view would be that if the restaurant would change their system if you told them what you plan to do, it is immoral. 3) From the point of view of the class, the winning solution feels like a cheap trick. Yes, it makes money, but not under the rules that were officially given. From a business point of view, it takes advantage of a captive audience. What's really being sold is the time of a third party who does not benefit from the transaction, and yet due to social constraints is unable to leave. This strikes me as both immoral and dishonest. I fear that my scruples here aren't entirely consistent, and I'm pretty certain that they reduce my ability to make easy money. But I enjoy being in a situation where I can make decisions based on the answer to "Would the world be a better place if everyone followed this advice?". And for me, on this criteria, the last two solutions fail, and the first is on the edge once the donation approach is taken.
    - rdrimmie 17y ago
      Regarding item 1, in the real world analogy of getting seed money an entrepreneur certainly isn't limited to only using that seed money. They can use their credit cards or their house or their own equipment or anything else. The point of the exercise quite explicitly was to teach people to look past constraints that do not exist, like the $5 limitation you're getting stuck on. There was no restriction on using outside materials, that is a constraint you created on your own due to your interpretation of the presentation. 3) You're also assuming that the students didn't benefit from being introduced to the presenting company. Another poster mentions that it was Frog Design, and if that's the case then it was probably to the benefit of the students as well; Frog Design's a good company.
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deleted 17y ago

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I normally hate watching videos to get information, but to the credit of the presenter this video is very concise and quick. The whole thing is insightful.

rjett 17y ago

It's only 6 minutes, but if you want the 10 second version, the winning team sold their 3 minute presentation time in class to a company called Frog Design that wanted to recruit Stanford design students. Frog Design paid $650 for this 3 minutes. Lessons learned in this experiment: Successful teams did not frame the problem in terms of the $5 limitation. Instead, they thought of the problem in terms of services they could easily provide where salesmanship and timeliness were valued. The most successful team forgot about the $5 limitation and the 2 hour time limit altogether.

nkurz 17y ago

She teaches a class at Stanford and offers each team $5 of 'funding' in an envelope. She tells them that once they open the envelope, they have 2 hours to make as much money as they can. She cites three teams' approaches: 1) First team opens a free stand that offers to check peoples bike tire pressure for free, then charges $1 to inflate if necessary. This team changes midstream to accepting donations instead of charging, and makes more money. Lauded for rapid iteration. 2) Second team makes lots of reservations at local restaurants, and then sells them to people waiting in line for same restaurant. Didn't use the $5 at all. Lauded for realizing that the $5 constraint was artificial, and that using it constrained their thinking. 3) Third team skipped the exercise, and sold their 3 minute class presentation time as a advertisement to a local company. Made the most money. Instead of presenting, they recruited. Lauded for realizing that the 2 hours was also artificially hampering their thinking. Personally, I found the presentation glib and condescending, and the solutions immoral and dishonest. I'm hoping for good discussion about the issues here, but I would not recommend the video.

thenduks 17y ago
Thanks for the synopsis. I'm curious, though, what makes the solutions 'immoral' or dishonest? They seem perfectly legitimate to me.
- nkurz 17y ago
  There are two levels --- the first is within the context of a class assignment, and the second is as a business operation. 1) The bike tire pressure check isn't bad, but seems to be cheating on the class solution by using outside materials. Once one can 'presume' a pressure gauge and a pump, why not presume further specialized equipment or further outside funding? As a business proposition I was happy with it when they were charging a set price, but I personally feel uneasy with the change to donations. This isn't clear cut, but it's guilt based and I wouldn't do it myself despite the effectiveness. Compare with the Hare Krishna technique of forcing free flowers and then asking for a donation: http://www.garyasanchez.com/what-hare-krishnas-can-teach-us-about-marketing http://www.garyasanchez.com/what-hare-krishnas-can-teach-us-... 2) Selling restaurant reservations is probably fine within the context of the class, but is a violation of the expectations of the restaurant. If everyone were to follow their approach, the system would collapse and the restaurant would need to implement a policy of cancellation charges. My simple view would be that if the restaurant would change their system if you told them what you plan to do, it is immoral. 3) From the point of view of the class, the winning solution feels like a cheap trick. Yes, it makes money, but not under the rules that were officially given. From a business point of view, it takes advantage of a captive audience. What's really being sold is the time of a third party who does not benefit from the transaction, and yet due to social constraints is unable to leave. This strikes me as both immoral and dishonest. I fear that my scruples here aren't entirely consistent, and I'm pretty certain that they reduce my ability to make easy money. But I enjoy being in a situation where I can make decisions based on the answer to "Would the world be a better place if everyone followed this advice?". And for me, on this criteria, the last two solutions fail, and the first is on the edge once the donation approach is taken.
  - rdrimmie 17y ago
    Regarding item 1, in the real world analogy of getting seed money an entrepreneur certainly isn't limited to only using that seed money. They can use their credit cards or their house or their own equipment or anything else. The point of the exercise quite explicitly was to teach people to look past constraints that do not exist, like the $5 limitation you're getting stuck on. There was no restriction on using outside materials, that is a constraint you created on your own due to your interpretation of the presentation. 3) You're also assuming that the students didn't benefit from being introduced to the presenting company. Another poster mentions that it was Frog Design, and if that's the case then it was probably to the benefit of the students as well; Frog Design's a good company.

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