Welcome.
You’ve found the #3 ranked Operations Substack.
Here we write about operations, process, systems, policy and scalable & practical solutions.
We keep this Substack focused on areas of our direct experience and expertise and on suggestions for specific, actionable behaviours. Having said that we generally end up turning what should've been a 137 character tweet into a 2000+ word note.
We have not had an original thought in years: many concepts and models are drawn from, outright plagiarised, or cannibalised from other scholarly and less scholarly works. You are also reading the badly edited missive of an semi-aquatic dwelling land mammal.
Our Expertise
Below is a broad list of topics we'll cover
How to work two jobs or progress your side project while "working"
Recruitment (and how best to use external recruiters),
Remote work and managing remote teams
Outsourcing and managing outsourced teams and freelancers (APAC focus)
Time management (a recap + a few more Au techniques)
Time management and processes for sales & sales roles
The Jungle and a Cartoon Bull from 2035
If you have discovered this publication independent of the Jungle / BowTied Bull then a few concepts may seem a little strange.
"Why is it wearing a Bow Tie?"
"Why does it refuse the semi-aquatic in favour of a Jungle biome?"
"Why is it a cartoon that speaks in third person? (or is it a composite entity? Who knows? Not this this thing.)"
"Is it deliberately trying to hit something on the old Axis II diagnostic criteria?"
“Is it part of a perfectly normal online community that holds perfectly normal beliefs?” (yes)
If you're already lost - start here and see what a cartoon Bull has to say. Over time you may also see an increase in content either reflecting upon the (BowTied) Jungle or documenting parts of our own journeys toward WiFi Money so some context here could assist you (or even better yet - when you’re ready: join us).
Subscription and Support
If you enjoy our writing or derive some benefit from it consider a free subscription or sharing.
If you think this publication could benefit others, than consider a simple share or forward - perhaps with a caveat if needed.
"Bit of an odd / quirky newsletter here - but thought it could be interesting for you. They think they're a Hippo or something. Content's good."
Paid Subscriptions
If you wish to further support our writing consider a paid subscription.
A few thoughts on this as it definitely won't be the right call for everyone.
This Substack publication is not necessarily a newsletter per se. In the near future we don't have any plans to move toward a daily or weekly brief or roundup. Especially given that our post frequency also "could be better" and beyond monthly Q&As we won't be committing to post schedules. Probably the best way to think about it is an interlinked reference archive.
This means that you're not really going to see a flow of paid subscriber only or paywalled articles after you decide to sign up.
A lot of topics we discuss will be for unpaid subscribers. Over time this will be the shorter notes; more opinionated, more subjective and for us at least, a lot quicker to write and edit. We'll also keep some of the longer form notes outside of the paywall as we either intended them as:
more of a public service
a way of giving back
a small contribution to platform and network effects,
or you know what, we just needed something with a bit more substance for top of funnel (Top 7 weird tips to photograph your latte next to your Macbook and what they say about your chronic procrastination habit coming soon)
This means that you're going to see a fair bit of content that would be just as accessible had you remained on an unpaid subscription.
And now for behind the pay wall.
Firstly a paid subscription gives us money and supports our efforts here. It helps keep the gears turning and the keys clacking as we abseil down the rabbit hole.
Does this mean that your money goes to a good, worthwhile cause?
Not really. We spend it on a variety of things to take the edge off.
However, the paid content is where we go into more detail about How We Believe Things Should Be Done. and Do What We Say Not What We Do. We're prescriptive (unreasonably so) and we try and sketch out what's needed at a very high level of detail.
The topics that we discuss and write about aren't really intended for a casual audience (in case, you know, the constant references to Operations didn't suggest a dirge already..). While we'll generally do a high level summary or cover some topics in the monthly Q&A a lot of what we talk about isn't immediately applicable to most people.
In fact, if you asked us for a paid consult our response in most cases is going to be
"Forget Ops for now, just keep doing what you're doing"
And that’s if you make it past our intake and assessment questionnaire
"Is your business experiencing what could be described as hemorrhagic shock?
As best we can, we want to make sure that we're trying to help you solve "real" challenges in your own business or your own day job. The paywall strategy is part of this, as it ring fences a lot of what really won't be applicable to most people and paying for a service often has a wonderful way of sharpening up your thinking around what really is, or isn't a problem.
Next, our format is intended to be a series of interlinked articles and a reference archive. Time to recruit? We've got you. Time to outsource? It probably isn't, but here you go. You're thinking about a consulting sideline? Please read this first and do what we say, not what we do.
The other piece is our monthly Q&A's (also available on Substack Chat). Paid subscribers will get more mental bandwidth and more tailored advice.
Finally if you're not in a financial position currently to afford a monthly subscription but believe it could make a difference to you reach out to us and we can look at some other options for you.
Consulting and Advisory
If you're interested in supporting us in other ways we offer consulting and advisory services. See above though for the type of situations we feel we do our best work in.
On Working Two Jobs
Realistically we'll just tell you to go read the free posts and hit us on the Q&A / DMs. This is really not meant for a revenue sideline beyond Substack and we're really not looking to push this further (we want to support a community, not grift from it, especially as working two jobs may not be best move for a lot of people).
On Operations
We can take a look at your processes and systems. We'll share more in later posts about our methodologies and approaches and what we'd recommend at a high level or from a design perspective. Realistically though, this is a little bit of a difficult position.
The type of organisations that benefit from this tend to be at a minimum SME's (including SOME scale ups) and MNCs - probably not of immediate benefit to you unless you're a looking to outsource part of your day job (not entirely unheard of however..)
If you're running a smaller wifi money operation then our understanding at this time is that you're probably much, much better off either focusing on revenue or seeing someone like @bowtiedsystems (for your sales tech stack). You're likely not at the scale where you need us and there's real risks of majoring in the minor too.
Having said this, occasionally forays into operations and processes can keep you running lean and prevent later headaches (particularly if you are either building to sell or building it to run itself). Part of the longer term goal here is building this project into a basically an outsourced Operations manager that you can refer to without needing a non-revenue headcount.
Closing Notes
Finally you can reach us at bowtiedhippopotamus@gmail.com or on the bird app @BowTiedHippo_
