Dennis’s Serendipity Digest - USA Expansion, High Standards, but... Why South Park’s Storytelling Rule Matters Most

Hey,

just got back from the EO Berlin Chapter retreat. And now write to you from the Berlin Zoo, surrounded by exotic trees and the bubbling of the water fountain.

Enjoy.

📸 Photo of the Week

Two ideas

1. I’ve been contemplating a bold move: expanding our Salesforce consulting services into the US market. Recently, I spoke with someone in a similar business who gets 70% of his revenue from the US and only 30% from Germany. That conversation got me thinking.
   

   We’ve been laser-focused on Germany because, well, focus is supposed to be a good thing, right? But the US market is a much bigger pie, and I can’t ignore the potential.
   

   Our Quote-to-Cash (Revenue Cloud) practice is well-positioned to make an impact in the US, given our deep expertise and strong track record. Yet, I can’t shake the concern—will this expansion be a strategic growth move or a distraction?
   

   Well, there’s only one way to find out.

2. Recording the “Meine Erste Million” podcast is a blast. And of course I was excited when I arrived at the EO chapter retreat and I get greeted by a fellow entrepreneur with “I love what you do with the podcast”.
   
   Just a couple of observations from recording the first few episodes. By the way, we do everything ourselves so far. And we keep it like that for at least another two episodes. That means I get to learn a lot and I walk you through some of my observations from doing this.
   
   Recording the pod is fun. I get to hear about stuff in detail that excites David, like him going to a shooting range or his favourite newsletter on money and how the casual tone inspired him. I also get to share some of the stuff that gets me excited like learning about other people’s entrepreneurial paths or getting DEXA scanners to Europe. So the recording of the pod gives me energy (one of my most important currencies).
   
   Once we’ve recorded an episode I currently do all the post editing myself. That means I skip a workout on the weekend and instead spend 2.5-4 hours editing the audio, coming up with chapter titles, writing a podcast description, brainstorming the title of the episode and then publishing it to the relevant platforms. This part is kind of fun, but I already see how I outsource the editing and the publishing to someone else. But, right now I am grateful to do it, because I notice quite a few details, like how the story during an episode evolves. How transitions from one topic to the next work (or don’t). Oh and how many swear words I use (ups).
   
   And then what’s been surprisingly rewarding is, when people just reach out to me out of the blue and say “hey I liked the story about LA…” or “cool pod, when is the next episode coming…”

Three cool links

1. New Episode Alert: “Meine Erste Million” (in German) just dropped—this episode dives into a cool cash-business idea that’s worth a listen.

2. Storytelling 101: The South Park creators break down the secret to compelling storytelling in just 2 minutes. This will change the way you look at narrative.

3. Jeff Bezos on high standards, I think he does a good job at articulating how to teach high standards on two pages. Worth reading.

Personal note

That’s it for today.

Now do me a favour… tell me what you think!

I wrote it. You read it. How was it?

P.S. - if you wanna go read this on a rad website (seriously) or send to a friend, here’s the link: check it out!