Watch people work, then ask.
Jay Margalus · jaymargalus.com/foundations · Entrepreneurship Summit, April 2025
| 2:45 | CES info session | 2 min |
| 2:47 | Two things I read about college this week | 13 min |
| 3:00 | Finishing up hooks | 10 min |
| 3:10 | Douglas Lindsay | 20 min |
| 3:30 | How to watch people and how to interview them | 40 min |
| 4:10 | Feedback and what's next | 5 min |
CES info session
is tomorrow at 6.
CES is the Connolly Entrepreneurship Society, the student venture group that runs out of the Connolly Center. If you want more of this than two days a week, come by.
Two things I read this week
Cornell wants to fix college
A faculty committee spent a year and talked to 6,000+ people, and wrote a 200-page report on where universities go from here. Their list of problems: AI, shaky federal funding, falling public trust, and prices nobody can make sense of.
Is college still worth it? They say yes, "if we clarify and renew the university's purpose." And the purpose they land on is judgment.
a16z wants you to skip it
The Horowitz Andreessen Academy in San Francisco takes about 50 students in fall 2027. It's free the first year, then $60–90K a year, and it isn't accredited. There are no tests and no homework. You build real projects with AI, then do a paid co-op.
The guy running it, Udemy co-founder Gagan Biyani, says "We believe in college."
So which one are we?
- Grab a partner, three minutes. Name one thing we do in here that the academy says college can't do, and one thing the academy does that we don't.
- Then we'll talk about it. Cornell says the whole point is judgment. Where in your project does a person have to make the call, and how are you getting better at making it?
You're building real projects with AI, at a liberal arts college, for a design partner who isn't your friend. Honestly, both of these articles are about you.
Let's finish up hooks
- Hands up if your hook fired on its own, if someone watched it happen, and if it stayed quiet when it was supposed to.
- Didn't get there Monday? Open your laptop, you've got eight minutes. Start with the ledger, since there's no pattern for it to get wrong.
- Already done? Change your guard so it catches what's going to show up in your interview notes: names, phone numbers, emails. Those notes will be real next week.
| You see | Do |
|---|---|
| Nothing fires, ever | Quit and restart claude in the folder. File is .claude/settings.json. /hooks lists it. |
| It printed something, but Claude kept going | You're missing >&2; exit 2. |
| Fires on everything | Matcher or grep too wide. Tighten one, re-fire the "shouldn't." |
jq: command not found | brew install jq, or the python3 line from Monday's deck |
Douglas Lindsay
CEO, The Aaron's Company, the Atlanta lease-to-own retailer. CEO since 2020; led its spin-off into a standalone company. Before that, COO and CFO of ACE Cash Express. W&L; MBA, SMU Cox.
Have your question ready. If nobody jumps in, I'm going to ask him what's still done by hand at Aaron's, and why nobody's fixed it.
People are bad at describing what they actually do.
So watch them do it first, then ask them about what you saw. You need eight conversations and an hour of watching by Fri Oct 9, and Friday's Brief is where you plan them.
How to watch someone work
- Ask first. Your process owner has to be OK with you being there, and nothing on their screen leaves the room.
- Sit where you can see their hands and screen. Don't help.
- Write down the time. 9:14 opens the inbox. 9:16 copies a date into the spreadsheet.
- Count things: tabs, copy-pastes, retyping, every "hang on."
- Ask later. "At 9:16 you did X. Walk me through why?"
| Write this | Instead of this |
|---|---|
| Re-typed the order number from the email into two systems | The system is inefficient |
| Sighed, said "every Tuesday" | She hates this task |
| Checked a sticky note on the monitor before answering | He's disorganized |
| Took 11 minutes; interrupted twice | It takes forever |
Write down what they did. What it means comes later, when you pull everything together.
Write your questions before the call
| Part | What goes there | For example, Team 7 |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Research question. The one thing you're trying to find out. | How does Seasons decide what to reorder every two weeks? |
| 2 | Screener. Make sure you've got the right person. | Do you place the order yourself? |
| 3 | Intro. Who you are, why you're asking, how long it'll take, whether you can record, and that they can skip anything. | "It'll take twenty minutes and I won't use your name. OK if I record?" |
| 4 | The last time. Get them to walk through a real, recent time they did it. | Walk me through the last order you placed. |
| 5 | Probes. Where it hurts, what it costs them, what they've already tried. | What happened the last time you got it wrong? |
| 6 | Close. The two questions you should always end on. | What should I have asked? Who else does this? |
"Who else does this?" is the ten-more test, just asked out loud. Every conversation should get you another name for the list.
What to ask, and what not to
| Kind | Ask this | Instead of this |
|---|---|---|
| Open | How do you handle the waitlist? | Do you use a spreadsheet for the waitlist? |
| Probe | Tell me more about that. What made it hard? | (moving to the next question) |
| Clarify | When you say "a mess," which part? | (nodding) |
| What happened | What did you do last time it broke? | Would you use a tool that fixed this? |
| Feeling | How did that go for you? | That must have been frustrating, right? |
| Leading (cut it) | — | Wouldn't it be easier if an AI did the reminders? |
Don't pitch your idea. As soon as you describe it, people get polite and stop telling you the truth. You should be talking less than a third of the time.
Write your interview guide · 15 min
- With your team (8 min). Write your research question, a screener, and six questions for your process owner. Include at least one "last time," two probes, one clarifying question, and the two closers.
- Swap with the next team (5 min). Circle every question that's leading, yes/no, or about the future. Don't fix them, just circle them.
- Get yours back (2 min). Fix whatever they circled. That's the guide you'll use on your first call.
Put it in Friday's Brief with your research plan, the eight names, and the date you'll observe. Team 1 swaps with 2, 2 with 3, and so on; 7 swaps with 1.
What to write down after every conversation
- Date · who (role, no name) · where
- Tue Sep 29 · purchasing lead, restaurant · by phone
- Three quotes, verbatim
- "I just know by looking at the walk-in." …
- What surprised you
- …
- What they do now, step by step
- …
- What it costs them, their words
- …
- Follow-ups · who else does this
- …
- Do it within 24 hours, or you'll start remembering what you wish they'd said.
- Record it if they say OK, or type notes. Your harness can do the transcribing, but you still have to be there.
- Roommates, classmates, friends, and family don't count.
- Each one adds to your count. That's the first of your two numbers.
This is where your guard hook comes in. Names and numbers in these notes stay on your machine.
Your feedback is
still coming.
I'm hoping to get it to you tonight. Don't wait on it to write Log 3.
Coming up
- Thu Sep 24, 6pm. CES info session.
- This week. Have your first real conversation using the guide you wrote today, and book your observation hour with your process owner.
- Fri Sep 25, 11:59pm. Inefficiency Brief (team). Include your research plan: eight names, one observation, and who's doing each one when · Log 3 (you).
- Mon Sep 28. George Matelich teaches, and then we'll do rules: getting your agent to argue with you.
- Fri Oct 9. Discovery Pack is due: eight conversations and an hour of observation.
Questions.
jaymargalus.com/foundations · jmargalus@wlu.edu · Holekamp 109 · Mon + Wed 1:45–2:30
