10/23/20 Recommended issues: Death Tech & First 1k Customers

Good day!

Each week we handpick newsletter issues by independent writers you may have missed that provide new or unique perspectives. 

If you read last week's and would like to subscribe or leave a review of any of the highlighted newsletters, you can do that here: Bad Astronomy Newsletter, Extra Points, Avoid Boring People and No Grass in the Clouds. The narrowSCALE community really appreciates it!

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Here's what's worth reading this week...enjoy!

Before we launch into the newsletter, I have a question for you, my readers:

At narrowSCALE we’ve been working to put hundreds of thousands of newsletter issues into a database. We think readers might find it interesting to be able to search actual newsletter issues to find already written content on topics you care about… or to learn more about which newsletters REALLY write about what you’re interested in (as opposed to relying on some description of a newsletter).  

I’d love to know if you would find something like that useful? 

Yep!   

Nope!

Thanks!
Now on to what to read this week...

DEATH TECH … WHAT IS IT? WHO DOES IT?

Who Gets to Solve Death in Divinations by Nathan Baschez on 10/21/20

This newsletter issue makes you really think about the technology industries around death and about the demographics of people advancing them. While this might sound morbid and boring, it was fascinating to ponder the difference between working to improve end-of-life quality and the experience people have around death vs. people working to actually lengthen life. The former, often referred to as "realists", are mainly women (and recipients of much less venture financing); the latter (referenced as "immortalists") are more men, generally very wealthy, who receive a lot more funding. It’s worth a read to be more aware of this space and also to form your own views a bit more on where time/energy/money around death/life should be placed. (2326 words; 8.5 minutes) Read it... 

First 1000 

First 1000 newsletter offers a mini case study each week about how a company acquired its first 1000 customers (like Stitchfix, Zapier, Doordash, Morning Brew, etc). The issues are not too long, they’re well structured, and most importantly, your brain will tuck away some interesting ideas that you will be able to pull out sometime in your career or life… And before you say “I’m not an entrepreneur, so this isn’t for me”, I’d argue that the skills/actions it takes to get 1000 people to try something can be incredibly useful to almost anyone (think about HR leaders trying to get people to try new wellness programs, think about trying to recruit people to participate in your non-profit/school/favorite-charity fundraising event, think about creating a sports team with your colleagues, etc). There will be times in your life when you’re trying to convince people to try/do/use something, so you may as well have as many tools in your toolbox as possible. Read it...

A few random facts I learned this week from reading newsletters:

• Only 3.5 percent of the (reported) global Covid deaths have come from Africa, even though Africa accounts for 17 percent of the world’s population. (10/22, Why Is This Interesting)

• 24% of the US population considers themselves "religiously unaffiliated"... Seems a bit ironic that these "religiously unaffiliated" people now constitute the largest “religious” group in the United States. (The number rose from 16% of the population in 2008 to 24% in 2019) (10/13, The Cottage)

• Orson Scott Card (author of the incredible book "Ender's Game")  has written 17 books that take place in Ender's world (who knew!?)...If you haven't read Ender’s Game or heard of it, read it. But it sounds like many of the others can be skipped… (Also, if you have a passion-- or nostalgia-- for the book, you may enjoy this newsletter issue by a writer talking about the influence the book had on him over the years) (10/16, Here’s the Thing)  

I hope you found the above interesting! 
And if you have any questions or thoughts on what narrowSCALE is working on, please let me know.

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Thanks and all the best,

~Jessica