Dear friends,

Every week, I’m sharing an essay that relates to what we are building and learning at Alan. Those essays are fed by the article I’m lucky enough to read and capitalise on.

I’m going to try to be provocative in those essays to trigger a discussion with the community. Please answer, comment, and ping me!

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Our responsibility to build the Future

What we must never forget, especially when there is such a density of talent as at Alan, and such ambition as at Alan, is that we have a responsibility.

A responsibility because we want to be market innovation leaders.

Therefore, the progress we make, the advances we achieve for our members, and the innovations we bring to society, would not happen without us.

If we stop, the market actually regresses, stagnates, as it did before we entered it.

People, companies, and the system often settle for mediocrity, and can even regress, as we have seen throughout history, from the Romans, Greeks, and Egyptians to the Middle Ages.

Technology does not improve on its own.

Europe could have been completely outpaced in terms of artificial intelligence if we hadn't decided to bring forth a player like Mistral.

Sometimes, it just takes one decision, one team working together, a small group of people to do magical things that have a significant impact on society.

It is what we are doing right now at Alan, every day.

So let's not forget this, let's remain very humble about it, but let's fully embrace our responsibility to continue creating the innovations of tomorrow, those that, I hope, will create a better world.

Some good articles I have read this week

👉Nothing to Lose (Farnam Street)

•  Kobe Bryant:

  • "If you really want to be great at something, you have to truly care about it. If you want to be great in a particular area, you have to obsess over it. 

  • “Greatness isn't easy to achieve.”

  • “There's a fine balance between obsessing about your craft and being there for your family. It's akin to walking a tightrope.”

  • “You can't achieve greatness by walking a straight line."

👉Vision, conviction, and hype: How to build 0 to 1 inside a company | Mihika Kapoor (Product at Figma) (Lenny's Newsletter)

• Vision & the importance of prototyping more! I want us to prototype 10x more

  • You want to ensure that there are beautiful designs and prototypes that help communicate what this future world looks like

  • Simply describing a product idea in words is not as compelling as seeing a testimonial from a user on top of a prototype or a mock

• Their Hackathon is one week long. 

• Product sense is just having good intuition.

• Use every opportunity to do research: 

  • When you meet people at dinners, events, family,... Use it to learn how to pitch Alan OR to get feedback from how they interact with the healthcare system OR with Alan if they are members OR why they don’t use Alan

  • Talking with someone will produces anecdotes that stick in your mind

  • People are much more likely to react to an idea than to nothing.

• Internal release: I know we didn’t like the pressure sometimes, but I think it makes a lot of sense and are great opportunities to learn! Put ideas out. 

• Do project anniversaries!

👉The Points Guy - Inside the Business of Air Miles (Net Interest)

• “With points in the mix, airlines, consumers and banks all end up as winners: Airlines make money selling rewards; consumers enjoy the indulgence of free travel; banks recruit new customers and profit from more spend on their card.”

  • What would be the equivalent for us? A lot of interesting learnings!

  • Likely doesn’t work that well in Europe

👉The GitLab way: Kindness, transparency, and short toes | David DeSanto (CPO) (Lenny's Newsletter)

• They even record coffee chats. 

• Should we have a public feature request list? 

• “If you think you're communicating a 100% accurately, that's probably 60 or 70% for the other person, and shoot for 150%.”

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