• Scam Example: "Introducing 'Kesh Kiran Oil'! Our amazing formula guarantees full hair growth in just 10 days! Say goodbye to baldness this month – or we will give your money back!"

2. The "Secret Ingredient" Story
Scammers will often talk about a "secret ingredient" from a rare plant in the Himalayas or a "special formula" that nobody else has. This is just a trick to sound special and stop you from checking their science. If it's such a big secret, it is probably not real.

• Scam Example: "Our 'Root Revival Tonic' contains a secret Ayurvedic herb found deep in the mountains. We cannot share the name, but it is the secret to making your hair grow back thick and strong."

3. Using Confusing "Science" Words
Scammers like to use big, difficult-sounding science words that are either wrong or completely made up. They hope you will be so confused or impressed that you won't ask questions. If the explanation sounds like it's from a movie, just ignore it.

• Scam Example: "Our 'Bio-Growth Serum' uses 'follicular regeneration technology' to increase the blood supply to your scalp and reactivate the hair's natural growth cycle."

4. Tricky Before-and-After Photos
Don't believe the photos. This is an old trick. The "before" photo is taken in bad light to make the hair look very thin. The "after" photo is taken with good lighting and professional styling. Sometimes, they even use a wig. They never tell you how much time passed between the photos.

• Scam Example: A website shows a dark, blurry "before" photo next to a bright, well-styled "after" photo. There are no other details, just a claim of "amazing results."

5. Using Customer Stories Instead of Proof
Instead of showing you results from proper medical studies, they will show you happy reviews from people like "Ramesh K." or "Priya S." These are very easy to fake and mean nothing. Real medical treatments are proven by independent research, not just by quotes from unknown people.

• Scam Example: A website full of reviews like, "My hair was falling out so much. Now it is very thick! Thank you, 'HairGain Max'!"

6. Pressure to Buy Quickly
Have you seen a website with a timer counting down, saying a "50% OFF" sale ends in 10 minutes? This is done to make you panic and buy without thinking. They don't want you to have time to do your own research.

• Scam Example: "Hurry! This special 50% discount ends at midnight! Stock is running out, so buy now before it's too late!"

7. "Our Own Study Shows..."
If you ask for proof, they will show you a "study" that their own company did. This is not real science. Good products are tested by independent labs, and the results are published in medical journals for other doctors to see.

• Scam Example: The company says, "Our research is very advanced, which is why it is not in any medical magazines yet. We did our own successful tests."

8. The "It's All-Natural" Trap
Many scams claim their product is better because it is "100% natural" or "Ayurvedic." But "natural" does not mean it works or is safe. Poison ivy is also natural, but you would not put it on your head. This is usually just a marketing trick.

• Scam Example: "Our solution is guaranteed to work without any side effects because it is made from pure herbs and comes from nature!"

9. Blaming Doctors and Big Companies
This is a classic trick. They say that doctors and big pharma companies are trying to "hide the truth" about their product because it would make them lose business. It's a way to make you not trust real experts and only trust the scammer.

• Scam Example: "Big medicine companies don't want you to know about our simple, cheap solution because they make money from selling expensive treatments that don't always work!"

10. Expensive, Magical Gadgets
Be careful of costly gadgets like special helmets, combs, or brushes that promise amazing results without a clear explanation. They might say they use "special light therapy" or "magnetic waves" to regrow your hair for a one-time payment of over ₹25,000. They are selling a fancy-looking machine based on hope, not science.

• Scam Example: "For a single payment of ₹25,000, this 'Growth Helmet' uses special red light therapy to 'wake up' your hair roots. It's a one-time cost for a lifetime of healthy hair."

Some days, you’ll feel on top of the world, effortlessly sharp and clear. On others, focusing for even three minutes can feel like a challenge. Which led me to wonder:

What can I do to take control of my daily focus?

Through a mix of books, articles, podcasts, and drawing from my own experience, I’ve uncovered seven simple tips that can profoundly transform your ability to concentrate.

While this blog particularly resonates with those familiar with the challenges of ADHD, these strategies are universally applicable for anyone seeking to improve their daily focus.

Ready to dive in?

The High-Level List (save it for later here)

1. Have a low dopamine morning

2. Meditate

3. Write things down

4. Exercise

5. Reduce apps / social media

6. Berocca

7. Stay away from substances

Diving in

1. Have a low dopamine morning

Following advice from neuroscientist Andrew Huberman, I’ve adopted this essential tip for improving my daily focus.

People with ADHD are ‘dopamine deficient’ meaning our baseline dopamine levels are lower than that of the average person. Dopamine is our natural motivator, ie the chemical that fuels our drive to act and pursue rewards. Without enough of it, even simple tasks can feel monumental.

This explains why people with ADHD often find slow and mundane tasks especially challenging. Leading us to eat highly caloric meals, engage in risky activities, and search for ‘shiny objects’ (aka a quick hit of dopamine).

What you may not realize is with every dopamine spike, there is a crash. And with each crash, our baseline is lowered.

So — how does a peak dopamine morning impact our daily focus?

If you’re like me, mornings will often look like this:

• Wake up

• Check phone (dopamine 📈)

• Big breakfast (dopamine 📈)

• Drink coffee (dopamine 📈)

• Rush to get out the door (dopamine 📈)

• Listen to music (dopamine 📈)

By now, our brains are overloaded with dope and like any addiction, on the prowl for more. This means performing routine tasks for our jobs/lives will feel nearly impossible because they do not satisfy our craving for more.

• Focus 📉

Here are some simple tips on how to have a low-dopamine morning:

• Avoid checking your phone as long as possible (keep it in another room)

• Drink a full glass of water

• Avoid caffeine

• Avoid a highly caloric breakfast

• Read a chapter of a book (slow, engaged, accomplishment)

2. Meditate

Embracing meditation has been a game-changer for my ability to focus — a practice I turn to even when I am feeling my most distracted.

Whether you’re looking to quiet your busy mind or start your day on the right foot, meditation could be the concentration hack you’re looking for.

Meditation involves focusing the mind and becoming more aware of the present moment. Regular practice helps strengthen your brain’s prefrontal cortex and hypothalamus (linked to focus).

Starting your meditation practice can be challenging, but that is expected. Our minds are used to running a million miles per hour with more inputs in our world than ever before. But it’s important to remember:

There is no such thing as a bad meditation session.

• It can last 5 to 10 minutes

• You can close your eyes, or focus on a particular object

• You can sit in silence, or repeat an anchoring word throughout your practice

If it’s helpful, one app has completely changed my relationship with meditation. It’s called ‘Oak — Meditation & Breathing.’ It’s a simple, free, and effective app I have used for over two years and I love how little it does.

3. Write things down

Writing things down is one of my favorite tips for daily focus because it was passed down to me by someone I love dearly: my Dad.

When I first graduated from college, it felt like my life was all over the place — especially for me and my ADHD mind.

I called my Dad (who also struggles with ADHD) and asked if he had any tips and I’ll never forget his advice: “You need to write things down.”

And he meant that literally.

Despite my many years of writing papers, assignments, filling out forms, etc., he suggested a new way of writing. He told me to go on Amazon, buy a Black n’ Red Notebook, a good pen, and start writing everything down.

Amazingly, the first page in the notebook was intended for my life’s objectives, and, like magic, 4/5 of them happened within a couple of years.

Writing helps in so many ways. It…

• Enhances clarity by slowing down the endless stream of thoughts

• Boosts concentration by focusing on our processes and tasks at hand

• Improves our memory and information retention

Writing has made me noticeably more productive, thoughtful, calm, and organized — so much so that I’ve been doing it for 6 years straight.

And while where you capture your thoughts does not matter all that much, what does matter is making a habit out of it.

That’s why the Twos App is where I choose to write all my things down.

Twos’ simple system of Days, Lists, and Things makes it the closest experience I’ve had to writing things on paper but with the added benefit of some pretty awesome features:

• Auto-detect reminders (aka ‘Call mom tomorrow’ automatically sets a reminder for me to be notified)

• Unfinished to-do carry-over (never leave an unfinished task behind)

• The memories view reminds me of things I've written down weeks, days, months, and years ago

I use Twos for every thought, idea, to-do, dream, reminder, birthday, grocery item, meeting note, Dad joke, memory, etc., and it has yet to fail me once.

If you’re looking for a simple place to begin your habit of writing things down, Twos is for you.

4. Exercise

As my friend Fletch Barnes wisely said, “We move our bodies to slow down our minds.”

Exercise improves circulation, increasing the flow of blood, oxygen, and nutrients to the brain. The impact is overall improved brain health — including memory, problem-solving, and attention.

And for people with ADHD, exercise can be particularly beneficial. Physical activity helps us regulate our dopamine levels, which improves focus and attention, providing a natural remedy for ADHD symptoms.

Whether it be a run, walk, short calisthenic workout, or anything in between — moving your body is a great way to improve your ability to focus throughout the day.

5. Reduce Apps / Social Media

Many apps and social media are designed to give you quick dopamine hits so you crave checking them throughout the day.

Something I learned recently is how Twitter (now X) measures its “key performance” (also known as KPIs)…

This graph represents the “total seconds” users spent on X and the positive correlation that figure has with X's success.

This means X, a $44B company, often seeks ways to keep you on their platform longer — taking your focus away from healthier/better things you could be doing.

Apps can be addictive just like anything else. Sometimes it’s not enough to close them for a couple of hours.

Removing them from your home screen, logging out, or anything you can to add friction to mindless scrolling is essential for your daily focus.

6. Berocca (link to Amazon)

Berocca is the first clean, tasty, non-overwhelming supplement that improves my focus for about 1–2 hours.

It contains high levels of B and C vitamins.

B vitamins help maintain proper nerve function and are involved in neurotransmitters that regulate mood and brain function. For example, vitamin B6 is important to your brain's serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine levels, which are crucial for focus.

Vitamin C also helps improve mood, directly impacting your focus and productivity.

While Berocca can boost vitamins and minerals essential for energy and cognitive function, its effectiveness can vary from person to person.

Note: You might observe a temporary change to a bright neon yellow in urine color after taking Berocca.

7. Stay Away From Substances

From my experience with substances like sugar, alcohol, and caffeine, I’ve learned firsthand the impact they can have on focus and overall focus.

People with ADHD are particularly susceptible to a habitual relationship with substances thanks to their ability to spike dopamine levels.

Many substances disrupt the natural balance of neurotransmitters in the brain. Avoiding them will help you maintain a natural balance, which supports sustained focus and alertness.

Overall, steering clear of mood-altering substances can lead to more stable and effective brain function, which is crucial for maintaining focus.

In Closing

I hope you find these tips as beneficial as I have. Maintaining focus in the era of social media and stimulants is quite difficult, which is why we need all the help we can get.

Most importantly, don’t overwhelm yourself with change. The last thing you want to do is burn out.

Pick and choose which tips fit your needs best, try them for a couple of days, then weeks, then months, and see what sticks.

Keep these tips top of mind:

• Save this simple list

• Review it as needed

• Adapt them to your goals as you practice

And if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, I’d love to hear them. Thank you very much for reading and have a wonderful week full of love and focus.

Since it is a story-based game, there will be major spoilers ahead.

An Unusual Protagonist

We cannot talk about The Stillness of the Wind without discussing how rare our protagonist is. She’s an aged woman living a lonely life in the middle of a desert, tending to her farm animals and handful of crops. The only thing exciting in her life are the letters from her faraway settled family members, which are handed to her by a sweet old travelling merchant.

Talma receives letters from her brother, her daughter, her sister and other people from her village who have moved to the “big city”. Even when she’s alone in her everyday life, she has people writing to her and telling her tales of their own adventures. The travelling salesman also brings her news of his travels, as well as warnings to take care during the night. He also asks her this one specific question which comes full circle in the ending.

It’s a simple life for Talma, who is a simple person finding joy even in her solitude. This aspect is especially charming because no matter who we are now, we all would like to have an ordinary life in our old age.

Side Character Energy

Talma isn’t special. She’s an old woman and she can barely complete her tasks in the game. She’s extremely slow to maneuver and takes a long time to do the simplest of tasks. As people who have been accustomed to the fast pace of literally everything in today’s world, we will find it extremely frustrating to play as her. But that’s part of the experience of this game, because Talma has that side character energy, which isn’t essentially a bad thing.

Being the center of everything is a difficult position to fill, and Talma can barely make cheese without getting tired.

But that doesn’t stop her from being remembered by people she has known.

Despite being so far away from these people, they remember her enough that she receives a letter each day filled with happiness and remembrance, with just a hint of underlying troubles. That feels like more than enough — to be remembered in happy occasions.

It might feel like little since no one’s coming to visit Talma, but just knowing that these busy people take the time to remember her and to write her a letter is enough to show how much she is loved.

Something Cozy about Dying

I found this game in the cozy genre which sounds like a stretch since the game can get frustrating at times, despite the easy gameplay — something that other cozy games don’t have you feeling. But regardless of everything, the story and gameplay hit close to home without bothering that certain comfort level.

There’s a sublime beauty to how the themes of the game lead us to the acceptance of death and loss. Two things we are, generally, bad at accepting.

Talma’s health is declining which is hinted at through nightmares or hallucinations throughout the game, and when things turn for the worse everywhere — she can barely hold up.

Even the people in her life stop writing her letters after sending her horrible news one after the other. At this point in the game, it’s perfectly clear that Talma will not survive whatever is happening around her, but it’s not a sudden revelation. We come to realize this through a sequence each day. Every solution we can think of will be of no use because we cannot stop the inevitable from happening, even if we try our best.

Inevitability and the Inability to Change it

First, the goats disappear. Then the chickens. Then the well dries up. There’s a constant rain which turns everything a disturbing black.

The letters are all filled with horrible news, but there is worse happening to Talma.

There is nothing left for her to do at the farm. She cannot cook the remaining food she has since there is no firewood and soon the electricity cuts off as well. A terrible storm surrounds the farm and she sits in the silence of the inevitable that is descending upon her. She will die. And she will die alone.

I wondered why the game’s name sounded like such a downer, The Stillness of the Wind, and then I completed the game with tears in my eyes and realized.

At the beginning of the game, there are multiple sounds surrounding the farm as if enveloping it in a warm embrace. The sound of chickens and goats, and Talma’s hearty laughter paired with songbirds. It’s a rich experience of being surrounded with pleasant sounds, but somewhere down the line, they stop.

This is first mentioned by the travelling old man, who mentions how the birds have stopped singing.

Somehow, this becomes a pattern as everything becomes silent as days pass, until there is nothing but the quiet left, engulfing Talma and the farm.

When there is nothing, there is the wind. But in the last moments of Talma’s life, even the wind has left her, leaving her in a still state.

The game is incredible in showing everything in a subtlety which is overlooked if not paid close attention to. While I was focused on the frustrating slowness of Talma’s movements, everything changed around her.

It was never about farming and reading letters from Talma’s family. It was always about the way everything changes even when we remain the same.

Talma is the same as ever, as also mentioned in the letters. She is happy even in her solitude, and she enjoys looking after the farm which was passed down to her, while her siblings and her daughter went to succeed in the city. She stays the same, just like the farm stands like it always had, with memories of the past.

But life is ever-changing, and we cannot stop what we cannot control.

A Lonely Yet Fulfilling Life

Keeping all the sadness aside, the game’s message isn’t just about death and loss. That would’ve been such a typical take on such a thought-provoking game. It’s also about having no regrets.

Now, you might be wondering where I got that from, and it’s an easy answer: from a letter and the final words of the travelling salesman.

Hear me out now. Talma’s life is bound to her farm but she never shows any disinterest or remorse. She doesn’t feel like she has to tend to the farm. She does so out of her own accord and she enjoys it. She laughs while petting the goats; she works hard to tend to the crops; and she has to walk painstakingly slow to the well to get water that can only water five crops. That’s a decision, right there.

And she doesn’t regret it. Just like her sister doesn’t regret her decisions as she dies with a smile on her face. Even the travelling salesman doesn’t show any remorse when he last meets Talma. In fact, his dialogues made me weep like a child because there was no grief in his words. He was simply saying goodbye as if the world wasn’t ending around them.

So, yes, the game is about living a life you have no regrets over, even if your existence is bound to just one thing. We don’t need to be someone with power or incredible riches. Sometimes just having a few goats and chickens is enough. Of course, the goats and chickens are a metaphor. Don’t go out and buy animals on a whim, people.

I would know because I sold one of my goats to buy a Billy goat, and regretted it the very next day in the game. And then my goat and its baby disappeared, which had me feeling angry until the chickens went away too. I had so many regrets in the game.

Don’t be like me, folks. Don’t regret not doing the things you want to do. Eat all the cheese, and have a feast every night.

That’s a metaphor as well. Or is it?

I hope you enjoyed reading this piece on the 2019 cozy indie game The Stillness of the Wind. Feel free to watch this complete playthrough of the game. You can also find and support more of my work here on Medium. Thank you for reading!

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Now, the problem with being passionate about problem-solving was that when I saw a problem, my instinctive reaction was “How can I solve it?” I was a problem slut: I was attracted too easily to too many problems. That means:

• I usually ended up burning out quickly trying to solve all the problems myself.

• I also often felt frustrated when I couldn’t get enough buy-ins and resources to solve the problems.

• And, worst of all, I got bored easily when executing the solution, as I have already fallen in love with another problem.

After many episodes of burnout and frustration, I learned my lesson. If you ask me now what my job is, I’ll answer: multiplying value. That means that I only work on problems worth solving, in a way that delivers the optimal value for the customers.

By focusing on multiplying value rather than solving problems, one actually becomes a better problem solver.

Here are 17 explorative questions to help you sharpening your thinking, divided into 3 sections.

Section 1: Assessing if your problem is worth solving

This section is useful if you already have a problem in mind. You might come across it from reading customer feedback, talking to the support team, or watching a customer recording. Using the dating analogy, this is the part where you make sure your crush is worth falling in love with.

#1: Is this problem merely a symptom of a bigger problem?

It’s always worth taking the time to ask the 5-Whys and make sure that you get to the addressable root cause and not just solve the most visible symptom.

One simple example: If a sign up to a certain feature is low and you see that there are some usability issues in the form, it’s easy to jump straight and fix those form issues. (Or worse, you see the usability issues first, and then you dig the sign up number to confirm that this is a problem. That’s a confirmation bias right there!)

Meanwhile, the sign up might be low because the feature isn’t bringing adequate value (quality issue), or it doesn’t bring the value customers need (product-market fit issue). This is why it’s important to dig qualitative and quantitative insights to get the full picture.

#2: How impactful is this problem for the customers?

The answer to this question isn’t as simple as ‘nice to have’ or ‘must have’. There are three dimensions you need to consider in assessing the impact of a problem:

• Reach: the number of customers this problem is impacting. This is a real, objective number.

• Intensity: how deep the pain caused by this problem is. This one is a slightly arbitrary scale of low-medium-high, or you can use a scale of 1–10, up to you. As far as possible, the assignment of the score should be based on user research.

• User segment: who are the customers impacted by this problem. Some of your customers are more valuable to the business than others. You can use a multiplier here, e.g. segment A and B are 1x in value, but segment C has 2x value.

Impact = reach intensity user segment

Thinking about these three dimensions separately allows you to assess the importance of a problem more comprehensively.

#3: How will solving this problem benefit the company?

Guess what, what the customers need and what the company wants aren’t always aligned. I was that bright-eyed, idealistic young woman trying to solve customers’ problems when the company couldn’t care less because it wasn’t profitable for them to do so. After all, companies are created to make a profit by serving customers’ needs.

I have one trick to tip this one in your favor: think about how this problem can harm the company in the long term. Maybe there’s no clear short-term incentive to solve this issue for the business, but over time, it can erode the trust in your company and hurt long-term profitability.

#4: Does it align with the company/product’s long-term vision and strategy?

Even when a problem is impactful for the customers and profitable to solve for the company, it might not align with its vision. A simple example is if the problem is on the web, while the company wants to focus on the app.

Saying ‘no’ to an important problem when it doesn’t align with the company/product’s vision is paramount to maintaining focus. To quote Michael Porter, ‘The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.’

#5: What do you need to deprioritize to work on this?

You only have a finite resource and when you work on a certain problem, it means you’re not working on other problems. That’s your opportunity cost: the potential loss from a missed opportunity.

Think about the next thing(s) you’re going to work on if you’re not working on this problem, and make sure that you can afford that cost.

#6: What happens if you do nothing?

Thinking about the cost of delay, or the cost of doing nothing, is a powerful exercise to do. You also get to see that some problems are like a fire — you either have to solve them now or rebuild later. Other problems are like a leaking roof — it gets worse and worse slowly until the whole roof falls down. Some other problems are like a puddle of water — it’s annoying but it doesn’t harm anyone as long as everyone knows to walk around it.

Section 2: Finding a problem that matters

Going back to the dating analogy — you know what wise men say, ‘Being single is great because you get to think about what you really want in your partner!’ Similarly, when you’re not thinking about a particular problem, you have more space to think above and beyond.

This is also what usually differentiates a more junior and senior product managers. Senior PMs would identify and scope opportunities to make the product 10x, instead of just 10%, better.

#7: What is the customer’s job-to-be-done?

Jobs-to-be-done (JTBD) framework prompts you to think wider than your product usability problems. When a user flies from London to Dublin, their goal is not to ride a plane, it’s to meet their colleagues. If you’re an airline company, your threat of substitution isn’t just fellow airlines, it’s also Zoom and Google Meet.

Understanding the reason your customers ‘hire’ your product gives you a clear direction to improve your product. Airbnb users are looking to have a nice holiday, not just a place to stay — hence Airbnb Experience was born.

#8: How can I build a deeper moat for my product?

A moat is a deep pool of water surrounding a castle — it serves as a way to defend the castle against an attack. Building a moat in business or product means making it hard for new entrants or competitors to steal your customers.

One of the most popular way to build a moat is creating network effects: where increased numbers of people using your product increase the value of your product for each individual.

Network effects are obvious in products like social media(which is useless if you have no friends, or nobody to follow) or marketplace (which again is useless if the customers can’t find the product/service they need, or the sellers don’t find any buyers). But you can also implement network effects in other products by making an activity that’s typically done on your own (e.g. exercising or investing) and adding a social element to it.

Network effect is just one way to build a moat. You can also deter customers from switching by creating emotional attachment to your product, patenting your technology, etc. Recommended reading: building growth moats without network effect.

#9: If a new hotshot founder creates a pitch deck to disrupt my industry, what will they say about my company/product?

Your company/product might have been created a few years ago with the same ambition: to disrupt a broken industry. You named 50-year-old companies as the enemy and pitched your solution as the revolutionary savior.

The irony is that you can easily slide into being that old enemy in just a few years time if you stop innovating.

The society is evolving faster than ever and the bar is raised constantly. If you don’t disrupt your own product, somebody else will.

#10: What future situation can make my product irrelevant?

The pandemic came as a blow to many companies. Products relying on people traveling or gathering suddenly became paralyzed, and they had to pivot quickly to online events or other means to make money.

Pandemic at the scale of Covid-19 is probably a once-every-century occurrence, but it doesn’t mean there won’t be other situations that make your product irrelevant. Regulatory change is one possible scenario.

It also doesn’t have to be an overnight revolutionary change. A slow evolution such as the rise of renewable energy, electric vehicles, plant-based meat alternatives, job sharing, etc can impact your product. Keep a lookout because the future is already there, it’s just not evenly distributed.

Section 3: Discovering the best solution

When people talk about product discovery, often the focus is on problem discovery. The old adage of ‘PM owns the problem, engineers own the solution’ could also make PMs reluctant to go into the solution space.

I totally agree that a PM shouldn’t decide on, or, God forbid, specify the solution in a silo. But a PM should still be driving the solution discovery process, by amassing the expertise of engineers, designers, data scientists, and the stakeholders.

#11: How much is our appetite to solve this problem?

To put simply, how much resources do you want to allocate? How long do you want the designers and engineers to spend on this? A task can expand to fill the time and space it’s been given, as the Parkinson’s law suggested.

It’s important to clarify the boundaries early and communicate them to the team.

#12: What is feasible to build?

A good solution is desirable by the users, viable for the business, and feasible to build with the resources and constraints you have.

Assuming that you’ve done your homework from question 1–11, I assumed that your solution is likely desirable and viable. The feasibility aspect is the one you need to figure out now, by leveraging the expertise of your engineers (and other technical function such as data scientists).

The importance of this discovery can’t be overstated. There’s a world of difference between an array of solutions. For example, my team at Bulb was exploring giving energy savings advice on the app. The solution can be an array of:

• Creating a banner linking to a blog post containing generic advice

• Breaking down the advice and making it look ‘native’ to the app

• Personalizing the advice by only showing the ones applicable to the users (e.g. don’t say ‘improve your house’s insulation’ if the house is a new-built)

• Personalizing the advice by showing the saving amount (e.g. by doing this, you could save £20 / year)

The third and fourth solution requires user data that we might not have, so it might not be feasible for now. Equipped with this knowledge, you can make a decision e.g. build the second solution now, while doing some research on the value of #3 and #4 to see if it’s worth building. Which brings me to the next point: diminishing return.

#13: Where is the point of diminishing return?

The most complex solution is almost certainly the most expensive one to build. The good news is, your customers might not need it! A solution that takes half the time to build might perform 80% of the job — diminishing return principle might apply here.

You can test this by building an MVP version of the solution, ship it to a small % of users, and measure the impact. Improve the solution via small iterations rather than spending months and months building the perfect solution.

#14: What would the Red Team say about this solution?

The ‘Red Team’ is an exercise to look at your solution as if you’re the enemy, biggest critic or competitor. The job of the Red Team is to poke holes in the solution and challenge you with everything that could go wrong. It’s a useful exercise because your actual competitor might do the same thing later.

You can also imagine the most cynical press review you might possibly get. Especially if your company is under quite a lot of spotlight, this might be a completely feasible scenario. (I still remember the time the press wrote the headline ‘Facebook asks users for nude photos’…)

#15: What is the riskiest assumption we have here? How can we de-risk it?

Solutions are based on assumptions — that customers want to do certain actions, that engineers can build something in a certain way, etc. Your team might have different confidence level in those assumptions. And each assumption also has different level of importance in making your solution works.

Try to map out those assumptions in a 2x2 scale of confidence and importance so you can identify which assumptions you need to de-risk.

#16: What is the smallest chunk of value we can deliver?

As much as possible, I avoid building for months and releasing a fully-fledged feature in a big bang. No matter how much research and testing you’ve done, the true test of a feature success is when it’s launched to the wild. Time lag between research and launching increases the chance of changes in requirements, trends, and appetite.

For that reason, I always advocate for phasing your build plan. Focus on releasing small chunks of value and iterate.

This is also important when your feature is solving an apparent pain point. Your customers will appreciate a solution that alleviates 60% of their problem now, rather than something that alleviates 100% of the problem but in a year’s time.

#17: Am I the best person to solve this?

You might be thinking — What? After going through 16 questions to refine this problem and define the solution, you wanted me to give this to someone else?

Yes, particularly if your company is scaling up quickly and you’re becoming a more senior member of the team. Don’t be afraid to give away your Legos — that’s how you actually grow. By empowering a more junior team member to work on this problem, you get to a) learn new skills (e.g. delegating, mentoring) and b) free up your time to do more impactful work.

Benchmarked Apps

Three types of apps were benchmarked:

1. Large Listview of 1000 items: Each item includes a static image and an infinitely rotating image.

2. Bulk Images Animation: 200 images are simultaneously rotated, faded, and scaled.

3. Bulk Lottie Animations: 36 Lottie animations displayed on a single screen.

Benchmarking Methodology

• Each benchmark was conducted on an M1 Mac.

• The benchmark apps were run on Oneplus 7 device for Android and iPhone 8 and iPhone 15 for IOS.

• In Android, Memory & CPU usage were measured using Android Profiler on the release apk for both flutter and React Native.
  In IOS, each benchmark app was run in release mode. Memory & CPU usages were measured using Allocations & Time Profiler instruments respectively.

• FPS was measured on “profile mode” for Flutter app and a JS minified & dev mode disabled build for React Native but with metro bundler connection. (Since RN performance stats are supported only when connected to metro bundler)

• Here’s the benchmarking source code : https://github.com/nateshmbhat/flutter-rn-performance-benchmarks

• For animation , built in Animation api is used in Flutter and industry standard Reanimated v3 is used in React Native.

Framework Versions Used :

React Native : 0.74.1 | Flutter: 3.19.5 | Dart: 3.3.3

Listview Performance

This app uses built in ListView and Animated api in flutter. Uses the latest Reanimated v3 library in React native and built in FlatList. Both the lists are being used as is without explicit optimisation or fixed height extents.

Click to see : Benchmark Results

Android :

Flutter :

• FPS: 60 (no jank)

• Dart heap memory usage: 7–8 MB

• APK size: 16.8 MB (7.6 seconds to build)

• Process memory: 120–130 MB (remained same when scrolling)

• CPU: 5–8% (remained same when scrolling)

• No jank or framedrops even on rapid scrolling

React Native :

• FPS: 50–55 (noticeable jank)

• APK size: 21.9 MB (23 seconds to build)

• Memory: 160 MB (when not scrolling), 180–190 MB (scrolling)

• CPU: 11–13% (when not scrolling), spiking to 25–30% (scrolling)

• Occasional framedrops and blank items while scrolling

IOS :

Flutter :

• Memory:
  iPhone8 : 48 MB (remained same when scrolling)
  iPhone15: 93 MB (remained same when scrolling)

• CPU: 40–60% (remained same when scrolling)

• No jank or framedrops on rapid scrolling

• Archive size: 71.5 MB (Build Time : 30 seconds)

React Native :

• Memory:
  iPhone8 : 1.05 GB and drops to ~453 MB on scrolling.
  iPhone15 : 1.12 GB and drops to ~430 MB on scrolling.

• CPU: 120–140% for first 5 seconds, then drops to ~50% when not scrolling. Spikes to 140–150% on scrolling.

• No framedrops but sometimes abruptly stops the scrolling when scrolled rapidly (user has to scroll again)

• Archive size: 112.3 MB (Build Time : 318 seconds)

Android : Flutter scrolled smoothly with no memory or CPU spikes during scrolling, whereas React Native exhibited frame drops and significant CPU & Memory spikes.

IOS : Very high memory usage in React Native. Flutter uses least amount of memory and CPU. Interestingly on ios, unlike android, memory usage drops to half in React Native on scrolling while CPU usage spikes.

Bulk Images Animation

Click to see : Benchmark Results

Android :

Flutter :

• FPS: 58–60

• Dart Heap: 13.4 MB

• APK size: 11.6 MB (19.6 seconds to build)

• Memory: 128–135 MB

• CPU: 8%

React Native :

• FPS: 58–60 (with occasional drops)

• APK size: 21 MB (20 seconds to build)

• Memory: 380–396 MB

• CPU: 12–16%

IOS :

Flutter:

• Memory:
  iPhone8 : 49 MB
  iPhone15 : 94 MB

• CPU:
  iPhone 8 : 50–60%
  iPhone 15 : 23%

• No visible janks or framedrops

• Archive size: 71.2 MB (Build Time : 33 seconds)

React Native:

• Memory:
  iPhone 8 : 1.2 GB (Low Memory warning and eventual crash)
  iPhone 15 : 1.38 GB (No crash)

• CPU :
  iPhone 8 : 135–140% (Eventual crash after about few seconds)
  iPhone 15 : 200–300% for first 3.5 seconds then reduced to 50–60%

• Severe janks, framedrops and eventual crash in iPhone 8. Only initial janks in iPhone 15

• Archive size: 112.3 MB (Build Time : 317 seconds)

Android : Both frameworks maintained a similar FPS, but React Native experienced FPS drops at animation restarts and significantly higher memory usage.

IOS : High CPU and very high memory spike in React Native and eventual crash in older iPhones. Flutter seems to run fine with lower resource consumption.

Bulk Lottie Animations

Click to see : Benchmark Results

Android :

Flutter :

• FPS: 36

• APK size: 7.6 MB (20.8 seconds to build)

• Memory: 220 MB

• CPU: 11%

Android :

• FPS: 43

• APK size: 18.5 MB (23 seconds to build)

• Memory: 240 MB

• CPU: 22%

IOS :

Flutter :

• Memory:
  iPhone8 : 150–165 MB
  iPhone15 : Increased up to 255 MB and remained at 255 MB

• CPU:
  iPhone8 : 120–140%
  iPhone15 : 50–70%

• Archive size: 72.9 MB (Build Time : 29 seconds)

React Native:

• Memory: Increased slowly upto 125 MB and remained at 125 MB (both iPhones)

• CPU:
  iPhone8 : 100% for 6 seconds then reduces to 50–60%
  iPhone15 : 60–80%

• Archive size: 133.5 MB (Build Time : 304 seconds)

Android : React Native had higher FPS than Flutter but had higher CPU and memory usage.

IOS: React Native consumed less memory and CPU than Flutter.

New Update : As per flutter’s recent 3.22 release article, lottie rendering performance has significantly improved for it’s impeller rendering engine. This benchmark uses Flutter 3.19.5. I’m yet to run this benchmark with impeller for this new version on android.

Starter Project Comparisons

When we first create a project in react native or flutter, an unexpected finding was that the Apk Size for react native is significantly higher than that of flutter app for the starter project.

Although this particular case is not a perfectly fair comparison (given the fact both starter apps are different) and can be excluded as a performance benchmark result, it does present some interesting observations.

Note that app creation time is more in React Native since the entire react-native library gets downloaded when setting up a new project while flutter sdk already needs to be downloaded before creating new app.

Final Verdict

Android : All benchmarks consistently showed Flutter’s APK sizes were smaller, and its CPU & memory usage was marginally better than that of React Native.

IOS : Very high resource consumption by React Native compared to flutter except in Bulk Lottie animations app where flutter consumed more resources.

Next Steps :

• Do performance benchmark with React Native’s New Architecture enabled.

• Improve visualization of the metrics for ios.

Upcoming posts

Will soon be posting more detailed benchmark comparisons along with snapshot data for memory and cpu usages.
So, stay tuned for that !

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I mean, it’s possible, but the meaning of better than 99% of people or becoming in the top 1% is not exactly the top 1%.

You can become the top 1%.

But most of the time, it means focusing on becoming high-value individuals.

It focuses on becoming the most effective person.

Is it easy?

I have researched it in books, articles, and YouTube videos.

All of the tips that I’ve found come down to one character. One tip. One skill. Which foundation most of the traits of successful people, which I will explain in this article.

I know that what you might think is being disciplined, consistent, mastering one skill, and having a big IQ.

All of that works, but the cover behind all of that is one characteristic.

Discipline and consistency for success

Discipline is important.

Especially if you want to start pursuing things or building habits. I always prioritize becoming disciplined because discipline is a skill. It can be built and practiced.

Even so, discipline is not the only one, even though it’s very important for becoming a successful individual.

Other than that, there is consistency.

We all need to be consistent in order to achieve success.

Consistency doesn’t guarantee success, though, but it will help you progress toward success. That’s why I combine consistency with discipline in order to guarantee success.

The formula is like this: you work hard, which needs discipline. Then you maintain that work for many years, which is consistency.

If one of them is empty, you might not achieve success.

Discipline without consistency

For example, I am training for a marathon.

I have a highly disciplined approach to my training sessions, following a strict routine every time I train. However, I only train when I want to — sometimes once a week, sometimes three times a week, and sometimes I skip a week entirely.

When I do train, I follow my plan with great focus and intensity, but the irregularity in my schedule means I’m not consistent in my efforts.

Consistent without discipline

The other example is becoming consistent but not disciplined.

I go to the gym every day, without fail. I am very consistent with my gym visits, never missing a day. However, I lack discipline in my workouts. I often spend my time at the gym chatting with friends, scrolling on my phone, and not following a structured workout plan.

Despite my consistent attendance, my lack of discipline means I’m not making much progress toward my fitness goals.

So, discipline and consistency are connected and best friends.

Without those two, it might not be effective for you to achieve success.

But…

Discipline and consistency aren’t the main keys to success.

How about mastery?

The other one is mastery.

Mastery in one skill or another is very important. Competition in this era is pretty hard.

• There are people who don’t need college but can be masters at coding.

• There are people who have no musical background who become great musicians.

• There are many cases where mastery can be built and trained.

This is important because the only way you can become the top 1% is to master one skill.

In one skill, you can gain an audience, monetize, bring value to other people, sell your service, and do many other things.

This is why it’s one of the most important parts of your engine for success.

But…

Mastery is not everything.

High IQ can make people successful?

The last one I want to talk about is IQ.

There are many people with high IQs, but not all of them take action. Having a high IQ could help you accelerate all of your progress. I have friends who don’t need to study for more than an hour but still manage to pass the test.

Having an IQ is important, but having a high IQ is not necessary.

The more you learn and improve yourself, the more you become smarter and better. Just focus on that.

But…

A mere IQ cannot guarantee success.

What’s the one key to success?

All of those that I have mentioned are important.

If you have both four of them, you will succeed easily.

Even so, there’s one trait or character that can help you achieve success, like miracles. I experience this, and I know this will be the number one trait to become the top 1% or 99% better than most people.

It’s Attitude.

You might work hard and have a high IQ.

But if you have a bad attitude, it will be much harder for you to have connections, friends, and magnets to other miracles.

I will give you an example of this. I work at a tech company and am known for my excellent coding skills and high IQ. I always meet project deadlines and stay very disciplined in my work routine.

I’m really good at solving complex problems and creating new solutions.

However, I often have a bad attitude. I’m frequently rude to my coworkers, dismissive of their ideas, and quick to criticize without being helpful. My negative behavior creates a tense work environment, and my coworkers find it hard to work with me.

Even though I’m good at my job, my poor attitude lowers team morale and makes teamwork difficult.

Other than that, you might close the possibility of gaining help from other people. People might not be interested in you. People might avoid you. This is why attitude could become a magnet for miracles.

You just make people love you and trust you easily.

Attitude to achieve success

You are alone in your progress to success, but you are not alone in your progress to achieve success.

Attitude can help you even if you don’t have a high IQ, skill, discipline, or consistency. Well, it doesn’t mean you don’t have it entirely. Having a decent skill, discipline, and consistency helps you.

Adding those with a great attitude helps you a lot—not only in progressing to success but in achieving success.

Focus on becoming positive and helping other people out.

Be friends and make connections.

Sometimes, connections can help you more than money can.

This is why attitude is important.

It could connect you to miracles and “luck” that people have been seeking for a long time.

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