

Fragile Plan vs Robust Plan - revorad
http://sivers.org/robust

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sytelus
I think the correct terminology here is "anti-fragile" inlight of Nasim
Talib's new book.

Fragile = something that can't withstand randomness

Robust = something that can withstand randomness to a point

Anti-fragile = something which gets _better_ when exposed to randomness

OP's plan here demonstrates anti-fragility, not just robustness. Overall great
article about how to crowdsource pool of knowledge and turning it in to a
business.

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gtani
Just noticed this yesterday, amongst lots of CAP theorem and lcokless data
structures: [http://muratbuffalo.blogspot.com/2013/06/antifragility-
from-...](http://muratbuffalo.blogspot.com/2013/06/antifragility-from-
engineering.html)

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SkyMarshal
Good article, but incomplete without a cost comparison. What's the overall
cost/revenue difference b/t the fragile plan/s (which cost little but failed
and made no revenue) and robust plan which succeeded but required 50+
freelancers.

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sivers
Great point. I don't have the answer, but here's something to consider:

That brilliant journalist I hired, the person who was ready to take on the
responsibility of writing 16 books in a year, needed $90k salary.

Finding people to answer some specific questions about their existing field of
expertise has cost very very little. 48 researchers cost less than $60k.

~~~
SkyMarshal
That's interesting, I particularly liked the part where you realized coming up
with the right questions was the way forward, and based on that info I suppose
you could value your 200 questions at roughly $30k, since that's the extra bit
journalist would have had to do otherwise.

On a side note, thanks for all your writings over the years, I've learned a
ton and still use some of them for both personal reference and for referring
friends & associates.

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mooreds
I will be interested to see if there's editorial consistency between the books
and between the years. That seems like it'd be a lot easier to achieve if
there was one voice behind each book.

On the other hand, it's not like these guides are novels, so maybe it doesn't
matter as much.

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cookingrobot
The books look really interesting. Did you confirm demand before starting the
project?

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sivers
Nope. Doing this for my own self-education. It's really more of a hobby than a
business. See [http://sivers.org/eg](http://sivers.org/eg)

~~~
cookingrobot
That's great - nice hobby!

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dreamfactory
$50 per book seems very high. I'd probably buy the whole set at $5 each.

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SkyMarshal
Not for someone seriously considering investing their time, personal savings,
and opportunity cost in doing a startup in one of these countries.

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sivers
Yeah. Originally I was going to price them at $200 each.

("For the cost of one night in a Hong Kong hotel, this will save you weeks or
even months of research.")

Definitely only of interest to someone really planning on setting up a
business in one of these countries in the next year or so.

I often drop $39 on random Ruby, JavaScript, or web design ebooks.

That said, now that I've tried the $50 price point, I might try something much
cheaper next year just to see what happens. If I do, then all the people who
bought it at $50 this year will get it free next year.

~~~
white_devil
> I often drop $39 on random Ruby, JavaScript, or web design ebooks.

I'm sure you do, but unlike me, _you 're rich_. I practically _never_ buy any
books, but I'm interested in buying your guides.

When I first saw the $50, I was a bit disappointed and felt like it was
expensive, especially for an independently published _PDF_.

Then I realized that I do want one reasonably bad, and that each book is
potentially highly valuable, so I guess the $50 price can be considered
justified. It's just that I'd like to buy several, but I'm not sure I'm
comfortable doing so at that price point.

