When we created MarsBased, back in early 2014, I asked my co-founders to do a simple thing that helped us to be more alineated in years to come.

I didn't know it back then, but Amazon does something very similar, wherein they write their own press release for the thing they want to launch, and work backwards from there. Here are the key aspects of this approach:

The Amazon press release method

Purpose: The purpose of writing a future press release is to:

• Clarify the product vision.
• Focus on customer needs from the start.
• Ensure alignment among team members.
• Test the viability and appeal of the product idea.

Key Components: A typical Amazon internal press release includes:

• Headline and subheading.
• Opening paragraph summarizing the product.
• Problem statement from the customer's perspective.
• Solution description.
• Quote from a company spokesperson.
• How customers can get started.
• Customer testimonial.

The press release is written from a future perspective, as if the product has already launched successfully, with a customer-centric approach that highlights why the product matters and how it enhances the customer experience. Struggling to create an exciting press release may signal that the product idea needs further development. This approach acts as a “gut-check” for product viability, serves as a strategic guide during development, reinforces Amazon’s principle of customer obsession, and aligns the team around key goals and features.

So, after this too long of an introduction, here's what we did in early 2014 with the founding team of MarsBased: I asked them to write me an email answering the following questions:

• Where do you see yourself in one month and what will be MarsBased like then?
• Where do you see yourself in three months and what will be MarsBased like then?
• Where do you see yourself in six months and what will be MarsBased like then?
• Where do you see yourself in one year and what will be MarsBased like then?
• Where do you see yourself in three years and what will be MarsBased like then?
• Where do you see yourself in five years and what will be MarsBased like then?
• Where do you see yourself in ten years and what will be MarsBased like then?

I then collected all the answers and sent each one of us individual emails into the future to be received exactly in one month, three months, six months, one year, three years, five years and ten years.

What happened then is very fun but also enlightening.

The most immediate emails, we totally obliterated the goals and vision by a huge stretch. We totally contradicted Bill Gate's famous saying of "We overestimate what we can do in the short term and underestimate what we can do in the long term". We totally knocked it out of the park, exceeding our goals with flying colours in the first month, six months and even the three years.

But then, it all changed: for whatever reason, we overestimated our capacity in the long-term and we clearly deviated from our guesstimates wildly.

While we can't draw anything substantial from this, it turned out to be a great experiment because we never exected the emails to arrive, and they were always a refreshing surprise. They prompted us to have a conversation about it and to re-align as founders and partners of the company.

Anyways, back to the recommended stuff I left out last week!

Recommended content

• 🎙️ Great episode with lots of wisdom nuggets, chatGPT prompts and other useful stuff from My first million.
• 📈 My good friend Joan has gotten the Apple spotlight: Everyday.app is the app of the day today! It's my habits tracker app and has been for at least five years now.
• 📝 Sam Altman wrote Reflections, about what happened in the last 12 months.
• 📝 Marc Antoni Macià (founder of Novicap), wrote How to Build a HoldCo: A Practical Guide to Owning and Managing Multiple Businesses.
• 📝 Joshua Wood's, "Write in the moment".
• 🧵 Great Twitter thread by Ignacio Arriaga about Bench's closing.
• 📉 The US is collapsing from within. That country is in shambles. And it's getting worse: Luigi Mangione and the Making of a Modern Antihero.
• 💡 Great guide to optimise for SEO on ChatGPT.
• 📧 Congratulations to Jaime Novoa for 10 years of his newsletter: Dealflow.
• 🏥 I signed up to get access to the beta of Holo, a new health app with Francesc Navarro (ex-Factorial, itnig) at the helm. Looks promising and he's an extremely bright and passionate entrepreneur. He'll crush it.

My projects

• 🎙️ We reviewed 2024 at Foc a Terra (in Catalan).
• 📅 We are back with events! I announced our first 2025 event: Corporate Innovation Summit 2025.
• Still lagging behind when it comes to blogging and podcasting for MarsBased, as we're looking for a marketing person to help me with that!
• We wrapped up a very good year at MarsBased, with 2.5MM in revenues, a team of twenty and a full pipeline of new projects for 2025:

Asks

• 🏢 I still need an office in the center of Barcelona. Thanks, Greg, Marc B., Marc C., Jorge & Laia for reaching out with proposals!
• I will need some of your patience because I am feeling unwell this week and have had to cancel many meetings. I plan to bounce back during the weekend.
• Any betatesters like me to try Holo? They need feedback when they launch next month.
• I'm looking for a guitar player to bring back my punk rock band RES! to life.

Until next week!