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 20 new additions to the Zettelkasten - here’s the three that stood out most to share with you:

🟨 What changed when I stopped being the decision bottleneck

🟦 What early markets actually need before they buy Idea

🟥 What effort can’t teach you

I noticed this while working on Mulch, a personal CRM app I am working on with a friend.

At first, I created the tickets and he chose which ones to work on. It felt reasonable. But over time, he started asking me about every detail before doing anything. Not because he couldn’t decide, but because the system made it feel required.

All the information lived with him.
All the authority lived with me.

So I changed one thing: I let him create and own his tickets. If he noticed something broken or missing, he had the authority to tag and fix it.

Almost immediately, new features started appearing - things I never would’ve thought to add. Because he was using the product differently than I was, he saw problems I couldn’t see and solved them without needing to explain or ask.

We were already aligned on the goal (a functional MVP) and trusted each other’s ability to build. Once authority matched information, the work just moved.

That’s when it clicked for me:
progress didn’t speed up because we planned more - it sped up because decisions were made closer to where things were happening.

📎 Takeaway:
Authority should live where the information is freshest - everything else is friction disguised as control.

—🗃️—

When a market is truly new, people aren’t comparing options.

They’re trying to understand what’s even possible.

I’ve noticed that many AI products reach for bold positioning - big claims, sharp differentiation, futuristic language. But in a still-early market, none of it really lands. Not because it’s wrong, but because there’s nothing to compare it to.

The real problem isn’t persuasion.
It’s orientation.

In emerging markets, users don’t yet have a mental model. They don’t know what a “good AI toothbrush” even means.
Before anyone can want a product, they need help seeing the problem clearly.

That’s why early winners aren’t always the most innovative - they’re the most legible.

Take DoorDash. Food delivery wasn’t new when they entered the market. What they did better than incumbents was describe the job more clearly: enable local restaurants to offer delivery. It didn’t feel futuristic. It felt obvious - once someone showed restaurants.

That’s the pattern.

Describe a problem so precisely that people feel understood. The reaction isn’t “That’s impressive,” but “Oh - that’s what’s been bothering me.”

The best early tools don’t feel magical.
They feel obvious.

📎 Takeaway:
In new markets, clarity creates demand.

—🗃️—

For a long time, I thought growth came from effort
trying harder, thinking smarter, wanting it more.

But effort isn’t what drives growth.
Feedback is.

And feedback only shows up when you hit reality.

That’s what benchmarks do.
They force contact.
They give you something external - something that doesn’t care how much time you spent, how thoughtful your process was, or how motivated you felt.
It just tells you whether it worked.

Without benchmarks, you can confuse motion for progress.
You can change a lot without actually getting better.

Growth doesn’t come from how hard you push.
It comes from how often you let reality push back.

 📎 Takeaway:
Stop optimizing for effort.
Start optimizing for feedback.

—🗃️—

Closing Thoughts

What slows progress isn’t lack of effort or intelligence.

It’s distance.

Distance from information.
Distance from understanding.
Distance from feedback.

Reduce the distance, and progress compounds.

Thanks for reading Verstreuen! 👋 

Until next week
-GH

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