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#147. Minimum viable product.
Shem Opolot
November 14, 2025
Hi! Welcome to The Friday Fix! You’re reading this because you probably stumbled upon this post somewhere on the internet instead of where it should be—in your inbox. But no worries; we can fix that.
Who am I? I’m Shem Opolot, a health professional turned content creator, passionate about helping people be their best selves in life and work.
Why should you subscribe?
I have over ten years of work experience in healthcare, program management, and data analytics on two continents. So, I know a little about helping you work smarter
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I’ll occasionally make you laugh
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Hi! I'm Shem Opolot, and this is The Friday Fix, my weekly newsletter. If you've received it, you’re either subscribed or someone forwarded it to you. If you fit into the latter (yes, I’m the kind of person who uses words like “latter”) camp and want to subscribe, then click on the shiny button below:
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HAPPY FRIDAY 🎉 The temperature in D.C. dropped almost suddenly this week. So it’s officially big-ass coat, sundown-at-4pm, and chapstick-in-every-pocket season here. I miss Uganda, man.
***
There are many new songs in the playlist this week, and if you want to save the master playlist for all the songs ever added, here it is.
LIFE.
Minimum viable product.
I once had a great idea.
I wasn’t even as bullish on community as I am now when I had this idea, which shows you how, like a sculpture carved out of rock, all the different versions of you, including the future ones, especially the future ones, are already inside you, waiting for someone, or something, to use a pickaxe to draw them out.
Anyway, I had a good idea.
I was living in a society where poverty and plenty were bedfellows. Where wealthy people adorned their car dashboards with fur and poor people frequented bars and restaurants they couldn't afford.
I was living in a society where people wouldn’t give you money for a business idea, but they’d sooner force you to drink that money’s worth in shots of tequila on their bill.
I was living in a society where people ignored the beggar at the hotel entrance on their way to fundraise to end some calamity elsewhere.
It was a society that could stretch out and touch generosity, but only on its own terms.
That’s where my idea came from.
Do you recall playing with a magnifying glass as a kid? Standing in the sun and hovering it over your hands, waiting to feel the concentrated heat? That’s what I wanted to do.
Except the sun’s rays would be the generosity of the people, the open hand would be those that benefited from that generosity, and my idea was the magnifying glass that focused the generosity.
As the magnifying glass, I wanted to mobilize and organize those in need on one hand, and on the other, mobilize and organize those willing and able to meet the need.
As a giver, you could donate your time, money, or property. For example, you could donate money, pro bono legal services, clothes, food, etc. I found there was always an organization/individual in desperate need of what the giver had to offer.
But wait, there was more.
To sweeten the deal, I created a token system that quantified whatever people gave and rewarded their giving with coins.
But what good were the coins if you couldn’t do anything with them? So, I invited companies to shine their light onto my magnifying glass, challenging them to prove that “corporate social responsibility” wasn’t just a platitude. I asked them to donate their products to imbue the coins with value. Telecom companies could donate airtime, restaurants could donate meal vouchers, salons could offer haircuts, etc.
Via some fairly complex maths I was proud of, each coin was assigned a dollar value, ensuring that the givers could “purchase” the companies’ products once they accrued the requisite number of coins.
But I didn’t stop here.
I dreamed bigger. If we could develop a legitimate circular economy around philanthropy, then I could expand the portfolio of companies to include banks, which could donate actual cash to match the coins. That cash would unlock so much opportunity. For example, givers in a specific area could pool their coins, now convertible to cash, to fund small community projects like public libraries or playgrounds.
People could be generous on their own terms.
But seeing as you’re reading this here instead of in Fortune Magazine, my good idea, for many reasons, didn’t work out.
Some say it was a bad idea. Some say I didn’t give it a real shot. Some say it was a great idea at the wrong time and place. And some, myself included, say it was too complex from the onset.
Sometimes you have a dream, and it’s so big (which is good), but hype takes that dream from “so big” to “too big.” “Too big” is often too complex to execute.
The human body is illustrative here: you began as a single multipotent cell post-conception, which became several cells, which formed tissues, which formed organs, which formed systems, which now enable you to, seemingly simply, read this line.
And that’s the thing about well-ordered complexity: it is simplicity-passing. But when you learn biochemistry, for example, you realize life is a miracle—every waking minute a triumph of your body avoiding several physiological tripwires.
So when you approach your next big idea—your next business, your next book, your next goal—remember the single multipotent cell that became you. Find it, and put everything else away to start.
THINGS.
A tweet.
Shout out to real lovers, man.
A picture.
I love a rollercoaster, man. I’ve been dreaming of going to Six Flags for a while, and my friends and I finally made it there a couple of weeks ago. 10/10 experience.
It’s important to note that this particular park closed the day after we visited, so we literally shut it down.
WORK.
What is in a [file] name?
I’m setting up operations for a new business venture, and I thought about file naming conventions. It’s important to develop a strict way to name ALL the company files and ensure everyone in the organization adheres to the standard. A common file naming convention I use that I find works is YYYY-MM-DD_DocumentName_vX.Y.
While on the topic, it might be worth it to set aside two days in your year:
1) A day to clean up your organization’s workspace, fix the file naming conventions, and circulate a user guide to keep everyone in line, and
2) A day to delete old photos you don’t need (e.g., 7 different versions of the same terrible shot of fireworks), especially if you’d rather not keep paying Google rent.
FUN.
The Friday Fix playlist
Your picks
> How and why to self-forgive
> Compare clothing sizes across brands
> Relaxing sounds from around the world
Have a great weekend,
— Shem
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