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← People and their mental models

Justin Jackson's mental models

7 claims Justin Jackson made fit 6 mental models. Most often: Value moves to what stays scarce, Circle of competence, Feedback loops. Everything they said here.

Models they name

Their own words name the idea.

Power laws

In many things a few cases account for most of the result, so the average misleads and the outlier decides.

Used by 24 others

Building the hardest feature in a product yields disproportionately greater returns than easier ones.

  1. Justin Jackson Canadian bootstrapper and writer on small software businesses Choosing to tackle "the hardest feature" generally produces power-law-level returns, as opposed to tackling something less hard. Do the hardest thingjustinjackson.ca · 4 Jun 2026All korrents from this piece
    Choosing to tackle "the hardest feature" generally produces power-law-level returns, as opposed to tackling something less hard.

Second-order thinking

Ask "and then what?": follow a decision past its first effect to the ones that come after.

Used by 92 others

Nearly every widely distributed technology produces negative second-order effects.

  1. Justin Jackson Canadian bootstrapper and writer on small software businesses There will be negative second-order effects of almost every widely distributed technology. What has technology done to us?justinjackson.ca · 19 Apr 2026All korrents from this piece
    There will be negative second-order effects of almost every widely distributed technology.

Models we see in what they say

Our reading: their claim applies the idea without naming it. The claim is theirs; filing it here is ours.

Value moves to what stays scarce

When something becomes cheap and plentiful, the value moves to whatever is still rare next to it.

Used by 61 others

When a skill becomes widely attainable, people feel pressure to seek a rarer, higher-leverage skill to prove their value.

  1. Justin Jackson Canadian bootstrapper and writer on small software businesses When rare skills become more attainable, people feel pressure to move "up the stack" to prove their value. Will Claude Code ruin our team?justinjackson.ca · 4 Mar 2026All korrents from this piece
    When rare skills become more attainable, people feel pressure to move "up the stack" to prove their value.

As AI makes coding easy for everyone, the ability to code stops being a meaningful edge for entrepreneurs.

  1. Justin Jackson Canadian bootstrapper and writer on small software businesses Indie entrepreneurs need to stack every advantage they have, and increasingly "coding" won't be the advantage it once was. The value of software in a Fable worldjustinjackson.ca · 11 Jul 2026All korrents from this piece
    Indie entrepreneurs need to stack every advantage they have, and increasingly "coding" won't be the advantage it once was.

Circle of competence

Know the edge of what you really understand, and act inside it.

Used by 8 others

The most valuable problem to pursue is the hardest one someone is genuinely positioned to solve.

  1. Justin Jackson Canadian bootstrapper and writer on small software businesses Doing "the hard thing" means pursuing the highest-value problem you can find that still sits inside your zone of expertise; the hardest problem you're personally in a position to win. Do the hardest thingjustinjackson.ca · 4 Jun 2026All korrents from this piece
    Doing "the hard thing" means pursuing the highest-value problem you can find that still sits inside your zone of expertise; the hardest problem you're personally in a position to win.

Feedback loops

Shorten the loop between doing and finding out; whatever a loop rewards is what you become.

Used by 60 others

As more people build software with faster cycle times, they will learn lessons faster that once took colleagues decades to acquire.

  1. Justin Jackson Canadian bootstrapper and writer on small software businesses As more people build software and cycle time compresses, they'll start to absorb lessons that it took their colleagues decades to learn. Will Claude Code ruin our team?justinjackson.ca · 4 Mar 2026All korrents from this piece
    As more people build software and cycle time compresses, they'll start to absorb lessons that it took their colleagues decades to learn.

Specialise and trade

Do what you are relatively best at and trade for the rest (comparative advantage); it holds until power or change breaks it.

Used by 12 others

Even as AI makes building software easy, people will still prefer to buy some software off-the-shelf rather than build their own.

  1. Justin Jackson Canadian bootstrapper and writer on small software businesses My guess is that people will still want to buy certain types of software and tools "off-the-shelf." The value of software in a Fable worldjustinjackson.ca · 11 Jul 2026All korrents from this piece
    My guess is that people will still want to buy certain types of software and tools "off-the-shelf."