Welcome to Verstreuen, meaning “to scatter.” Each week I share highlights from my Workframe system, the process I use to turn books and notes into structured insights. Here, scattered ideas find connection and become something worth sharing.

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🗃️ This Week’s Highlights

This week's notes come from 17 new additions to the Zettelkasten - here’s the three that stood out most to share with you:

🟨 The more unexpected the success, the fewer the competitors

🟦 Gatekeeping as stewardship

🟥 Tiny experiments > big expectations

Most people chase obvious opportunities. They go where the market is largest, the numbers cleanest, the slides most convincing. But that’s exactly where the competition is thickest.

The real breakthroughs come from places that look unserious, too small, or just plain weird. And the reason is simple: markets don’t just grow by adding more customers - they expand when someone redefines what the market even is.

When Nintendo launched the Wii, critics laughed. It was underpowered, gimmicky, a “toy.” But Nintendo wasn’t trying to win the graphics arms race. They redefined gaming itself: not hardcore entertainment for young men, but family-friendly motion play. Millions of people who never considered themselves gamers suddenly joined the market.

This success was unexpected because it didn’t fit the dominant definition of value. And that’s the deeper lesson: the best opportunities hide in the blind spots created by those definitions. When an industry insists that “better” means one thing - faster, richer, bigger - the blue ocean lives in asking: What if it means something else?

That’s why unexpected success has so few competitors. Everyone else is still fighting inside the old definition. The winners aren’t just playing the game differently - they’re playing a different game entirely.

 📎 Takeaway: Don’t chase a bigger slice of the pie - change what counts as the pie.

—🗃️—

The other day, my girlfriend and I were heading downtown when she pointed out what she claimed was one of the best public bathrooms in the city. Then, in a hushed tone and with a serious look, she said:
“Gatekeeping your public toilets is essential.”

It was funny - but also true.

We usually think of gatekeeping as selfish or exclusionary. But in reality, gatekeeping can be a form of care. Boundaries don’t reduce value; they protect it.

Everyone appreciates a clean restroom - but when it’s everyone’s job to maintain it, it often becomes no one’s. That’s how decay sets in. It’s the tragedy of the commons, just on a small scale.

And it’s not just about bathrooms. This applies to communities, shared tools, even our attention. When everything is wide open, everything tends to fall apart.

That’s what Donella Meadows pointed out in Thinking in Systems:
Every commons needs a structure - to educate, assign, or regulate.

• Educate: Set clear norms for responsible use

• Privatize: Give someone ownership

• Regulate: Add boundaries to prevent misuse

I’ve seen this in practice. At work we start with open documents where everyone contributes. It’s great - until it became a mess. The solution, we’ve found, isn’t to lock documents down, but rather to add templates. That structure didn’t limit creativity - it preserves it.

That’s stewardship: not about shutting people out, but creating the conditions where openness can last.

 📎 Takeaway: Gatekeeping is care. Boundaries don’t kill the commons - they keep it alive.

—🗃️—

When my mom first brought home an iPad, I used it for everything - homework, random origami videos, and GarageBand to make music. I had no plan, just curiosity. Most of what I made was a mess: chaotic loops and strange jingles. But I loved it.

One day, I played a track for my family. To my surprise, they liked it. My sister even used one of my “throwaway” songs in a gymnastics routine.

What started as pure play ended up mattering more than I ever expected.

Anne-Laure Le Cunff formalizes this idea: Instead of aiming for something huge - like “write a book” - start with small, curiosity-driven experiments. For example: “Write one blog post a week for six weeks.”

The less pressure you put on your creative work, the more likely it is to surprise you.

Big goals can narrow your definition of success. Tiny experiments, on the other hand, keep things playful and open. They’re low-risk with high upside.

This mirrors a line from The Black Swan:
“The outcome of a human endeavor is often inversely proportional to its expected value.”

The over-prepared project often disappoints. The casual experiment sometimes changes everything.

📎 Takeaway: Don’t chase the masterpiece. Scatter small bets. The surprise is the point.

—🗃️—

Closing Thoughts

Taken together, these three ideas sketch a simple framework for creating leverage in messy, unpredictable environments:

1. Run small bets (Tiny Experiments).
Big goals often trap you. Tiny, curiosity-driven actions compound into momentum - and sometimes into breakthroughs you couldn’t have planned.

2. Redefine the game (Unexpected Success).
Don’t fight for the obvious prize. Look for blind spots where value is defined differently - that’s where competition is thinnest.

3. Protect the commons (Stewardship).
Redefining value only works if it’s sustainable. Boundaries and structures keep your focus, your community, and your creations from collapsing under entropy.

Together, they form a cycle:

Exploration (try tiny bets) →
Discovery (stumble on an unexpected angle) →
Preservation (gatekeep and structure so it lasts).

That cycle is how scattered ideas become enduring leverage.

Thanks for reading Verstreuen! 👋 

Until next week
-GH

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