The stories from Bessborough are devastating.

1) My Stan Lee story happened when I was in 5th grade. I was visiting NYC with my Dad and had read the address for Marvel in the comics I read constantly. I begged my Dad to take me and to his credit he did. And guess what? It was just an office.

2) We were down in the lobby and I was kind of crushed. I don’t know what I expected, The Thing and the Yancy Street Gang to be sitting around smoking cigars? Anyway, my Dad was taking a beat to figure where we were going next and a guy came up to us.

3) He was wearing a white shirt and tie and said to Dad “Is he disappointed because. The Marvel offices were just offices?” My Dad said yes and then the guy who had gray around his temples and a mustache said “hold on a second” and opened one of those office mailboxes with a key.

4) He then handed me a thick stack of EVERY SINGLE MARVEL COMIC COMING OUT THE NEXT MONTH. “Here you go. Keep reading Marvel comics” he said and then walked off. I left in a daze and about 15 minutes later it hit me “Gray around the temples, mustache... That was Stan Lee!”

5) Later when I wrote on the Ant Man movie I told Kevin Feige the story, the year, look of the guy etc and Kevin said “That’s exactly the kind of thing Stan would do and he would have been there then. That was him.” Rest In Peace Stan Lee and thank you for the comics.

💬 I often get Q’s like these:

How did you get your first customers for WIP? How did you grow BetaList’s traffic? Etc.

Makers are looking to reverse-engineer success. I see it everywhere.

I don’t think it works that way and the answers to those questions are mostly useless. 💥

I have built dozens of different products over the last couple of years. The vast majority failed. 😭

Surely if I know the answers to these questions, but still fail over and over again, these answers aren’t that useful. 🤷‍♀️

So what’s a better question to ask? 🤔

99.9% of the questions I receive are about the products that did well. In a way that makes sense, because we quickly forget about those that didn’t succeed.

🧠 This is known as survivorship bias.

Focusing on what survived, while ignoring what made it survive in the first place.

The real question, what you really want to know, is this:

What makes @WIP, @BetaList, and to some extent @AllStartupJobs succeed where my countless other attempts failed?

What separates a failed product 👎 from a successful product 👍?

Honestly, I don’t know. I wish I did.

It’s like Steve Jobs said “I’ll know it when I see it.” 👀

Same is true when we make products. We don’t know upfront what will work. But once we see an inkling of a product that does have potential, it’s not that hard to spot.

Right, screw it. Here's a thread on *that* FBLive by Alex Cairnie about #Govanhill. Lets do a watch-through shall we? (Mind, I'm a resident of Govanhill, and a sociologist. I'm also 5'3, and a visibly queer woman so if half his claims are true I should be living in terror)

00:30: Welcomes viewers and uses points out that his videos are only getting attention b/c they're 'horrific'. Directs folk to his Youtube page. So already clout hunting.

1:08: "I've been warned to stay out of Govanhill. I'm a marked man" (proceeds to use a beanie as a disguise)

1:30 "Laughing and joking aside, here's somebodys front garden." Proceeds to show litter and claim its thrown from windows and this is 'common'. I know a handful of streets with litter issues like this, but its neither common nor unique to #govanhill and other deprived areas.

2:10 "Don't be under any illusion I'm only showing you the bad bits" - only shows you the bad bits.

3:45: He's had offers of help, but hes said no because hes not responsible for 'anybody elses safety' Good lord.

5:01: "Its not that bad. But its not all good either" -Correct

6:00: TW: child abuse - He starts claiming to have been contacted by a health professional and told about child abuse 'in the area'. Huge ethical issues here as the 'professional' who has 'been in the game a long time' is reporting to Facebook Dude and not authorities.

LACHIT BORPHUKAN : AN UNSUNG WARRIOR OF THE AHOM KINGDOM & THE GREAT BATTLE OF SARAIGHAT

Originally named as Lachit Deca, Lachit Borphukan, the fierce and invincible Ahom Commander, was born during the early 17th century at Betioni in the Golaghat district of modern Assam.

His father, Momai Tamuli Borbarua was the ‘Governor’ of the kingdom and also ‘Commander-in-Chief’ of Ahom army under King Pratap Singha during his reign starting from 1603 to 1639. Lachit received military training from an early age and joined the Ahom King Jayadhvaj Singha...

...(1648-1663) as a scarf-bearer.  The post ‘scarf-bearer’ or ‘Soladhara Barua’ is considered as a part of the incumbent king’s personal staff. Owing to his military training Lechit was appointed "Ghora Barua", Supdt. of the Royal horses. When Chakradhwaj Singha became king..

..of Ahom dynasty in 1663,he appointed him Suptd. of The Royal Guards &finally he was appointed as Borphukan by the king.Then onwards,he was known as Lachit Borphukan.Borphukan used to be top councillor in Ahom Kingdom. This position was embedded with executive & judicial powers.

Assam was facing incessant Islamic invasion since Jan1662, when Mughal General Mir Jumla II attacked Ahom capital Gargaon. He never defeated Ahom king Jayadhwaja Singha as king retreated to hill &continued Guerrilla warfare.Prolonged fight &prospect of stalemate disturbed Jumla.