The Weekly - Value & Effort
On the capacity illusion, money makers and history's lessons on AI.
Welcome to the Happy Medium newsletter, where I share inspiration and bite-sized musings on creative business each week(ish). Enjoy!
Quick thoughts
Musings on business, creativity, psychology and more.
How to do great work and make great money
Or what services should I offer?
When assessing the products/services you should offer, there are two schools of thought; a) focus hard on doing one or two things incredibly well or b) hedge your bets on a diverse portfolio of work.
Both have their merits. Focusing hard on few things allows you to consolidate your resources and get better and better at that offering. The risk is if the market changes and that one thing is not so valuable, this is a huge disruption to your business.
On the other hand, if you diversify, you may have hedged your bets against uncertainty but you are spread very thin and it’s expensive to maintain expertise in so many different areas.
I believe the solution lies in the happy medium between the two (of course); every business should have offerings that operate in two categories: Money Makers and Stars.
I’ll show you how we work out what those are shortly but let me explain why these two.
Your Star is the product that you are known for, it makes money but it also provides purpose- it’s the logical conclusion of all your expertise, talent and skills. If you are a fashion house, this is your couture line; if you are an architect, it’s your design process; if you are a writer, it’s your column or your book.
The other is your Money Maker. It is the concentrated form of whatever makes you amazing but is accessible - costs little to buy and costs even less to produce. Importantly, it is valuable but accessible. For the fashion house, this is your fragrance line; for the Architect, it could be a building trend report; for the writer, maybe a paid Substack.
These two categories should support each other. The Money Maker provides an introduction to the Star, the Star generates demand for the Money Maker.
So how do you work out what your Star and Money Maker should be?
I like to use this matrix to evaluate my current offerings and assess them against two criteria; time and value.
Let’s add some definitions.
Value - First and foremost the amount of profit that this product or service brings in the door. Secondarily, any other value it contributes - reputational, exposure, or just the joy of doing it.
Time - How long something takes. If it takes multiple people, include their time too. Include any prep time as well as execution time.
Assess each of your services against these two criteria and place them on the on the matrix.
Now draw a horizontal and vertical line across the middle of each axis and you are left with four categories:
Stars
These are the services that take up time proportional to the value they bring in (i.e your couture service). They take a long time but they also cost a lot. They might bring non-financial benefits; exposure, brand awareness, good press etc.
Money Makers
These are the services that don’t take you long but deliver great value (i.e your fragrance). Once developed you can sell hundreds of these with minimal intervention. It’s accessible, easy to scale and doesn’t take much labour per transaction.
Time burners
These take more time than the value they generate. This is where you need to focus your attention on either streamlining so they take an amount of time proportionate to their value, charging more or removing entirely. For example, developing a project for an award submission. Maybe early in your career it was important to chase awards but is the work still proportionate to the value an award might be bring in?
Stocking fillers
They don’t generate much value but they also don’t take much time. Consider whether the value can be increased to push them into the money maker category, or if the time taken can be reduced - for example, can you bundle them with another service, or treat them as a loss-leader to bring in bigger sales down the track. If you’re keeping this category around, make sure you do so intentionally. For example, if you are using a product as an introductory loss-leader offering, have a clear pipeline to help those clients sign on to more work with you, or ensure the scope is very clear so there’s an obvious jumping point to the next tier of service.
This type of matrix is really versatile, you can do this with services, clients, types of projects, ideas for the future or even just the tasks on your list. The purpose is not just to cut underperforming services but to intentionally assess their place in your business.
Let me know if you try it!
Inspiration
Things that have inspired me this week.
Why Leonardo was a saboteur, Gutenberg went broke, and Florence was weird
Dwarkesh Patel with Ada Palmer
If you feel a little overwhelmed by the rate of technology in 2026, it might comfort you to know you would feel the same if you lived in 1326, or 1426 or even 1626 (or basically any period of human history).
This is genuinely the best thing I’ve watched all year - highly recommend.
Capacity is Where the Real Problem Hides (Featuring me 😊)
Clarity over Noise
“Capacity constraints” sounds professional, objective and sensible but what are we really hiding behind when we label something a capacity problem. Often, there is plenty of time and resources - so what is really going on?
I chatted with Tadé Ayeni about the belief we are protecting when we label something a capacity problem.
Thoughts on AI?
You may have noticed that ‘The Weekly’ hasn’t been so weekly lately.
This is because I’m working on another bigger piece all about AI (don’t run away!). As someone who is passionate about software, preserving headspace for the things that matter and how any-size-teams can leverage tech+skills to do big things, I’ve had a lot of people ask me my thoughts on AI.
While I embark on the task of consolidating those thoughts, I would love to hear how you are currently using it, what you wish it could do or even just what your vibe is on it?
You can DM me, leave a comment below or reach me at hello@happymedium.au
Otherwise keep your eyes out for that article in the next couple of weeks or check out my last big piece on solving the world’s problems.
That’s it for this week!
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