Dejan Murko – Cars, books, business.

Track Day: Grobnik 2022/10

This was the second Grobnik track day this year, after the first one in June. Back then, it was 30c so the tires and brakes were always very hot, and I could only manage half a second better lap time than last year.

Last year I also bought Garmin Glo 2, which easily connects through Bluetooth to iPhone and makes time tracking 100% reliable (compared to iPhone’s GPS, which regularly misses the finish line).

For this last track day, the weather was perfect – sunny and around 20c. My goal for the day was 1:45. On the first session, I hit 1:45.99 and then had issues getting below that.

Driving: Katarina Hillclimb 2022/6

Katarina Hillclimb is an open event that anyone can join and I only noticed it this year. It was not a cheap drive – €160 for a total of four rides of about 2 minutes each. But it was also such a unique experience that I see it repeating sometime in the future.

Driving: Grossglockner opening 2022/5

GP Ice Race which is known for the ice race in Zell am See organized the Grossglockner pass “opening” for the first time this year. Even though it’s one of the better-known passes, I haven’t visited or driven it yet. So when I was invited by Jure, it was a big yes.

Track Day: Silverstone 2022/4

As part of my birthday celebration in London, we visited Silverstone and booked their Head-to-Head Experience where the plan was to drive the latest Vantage V8 and F430. The price was very good but it was a bit of a pain to get to Silverstone, a lot of it due to a bank holiday.

Book: Never Split the Difference, Chris Voss

Review

One of the must-reads for negotiations but I’ve come to it very late. It does have some really interesting and unique insights which will be helpful in the future.

Strongly recommended.

tl;dr

Listen to your counterpart. Use positive, easy-going voice. You should (almost) never be assertive in negotiations. Use mirroring (repeating words) and labelling (validating emotions). Get the counterpart to say “no” early. Use calibrated questions that start with “what,” “how,” and “why”. Three negotiation types (analyst, accommodator, assertive) – each one needs to be handled differently.

Track Day: Grobnik 2021/9

After more than a year, I was back to a track day on Grobnik, this time with a new-to-me 987.2 Boxster S. It was a learning experience all over again. The car is clearly on a different level than the GT86, and it’ll take some time to get used to it to take full advantage of it on the track.

The track day was a success as there were around 40 cars. Most notably, there were two brand new 992 GT3s, a 991.2 GT3RS, two 991 GT3s, a ton of other Porsches, and also two Yaris GRs. Even so, I had more than enough driving and multiple empty laps. Awesome fun.

Book: The Mom Test, Rob Fitzpatrick

Review

Talking to potential customers about your idea is not enough. You need to ask the right questions, the right way to get relevant answers. Great book, re-read it once already. Should’ve taken the advice in the book to heart for at least one of our projects.

Start from Zero which I reviewed a few weeks ago has very similar concepts. The main difference being The Mom Test is focused on the customer interviews and it’s written much better.

tl;dr

Ask about the customer’s life (problems, cares, constraints, goals), not about the idea. With requests, you need to find the root cause. Get commitments to the next step. Keep having conversations until you stop hearing new stuff. If you aren’t finding consistent problems, you don’t have a specific enough segment. Avoid receiving compliments. Talk less.

Book: Start from Zero, Dane Maxwell

Review

I’ve first learned about Dane a few years back when he launched his TheFoundation software course. I didn’t join but learned a lot from the free material he provided with the launch. I loved the concept of idea extraction and wanted to test it out but was working on a project that was going really well. Fast forward a few years and a painful lesson learned and he jumps back into my feed at just the right time. I found that he renamed the course to Start from Zero and you can start the learning with a book.

Driven: Mazda MX-5 (ND)

In January we took a trip to Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands. I was told there are amazing roads and the preliminary research confirmed that, so I decided that a Miata is a perfect choice to rent. I haven’t driven any version of it before, and it’s another one of the sports car benchmarks that I feel I need to experience to broaden my horizons.

Driven: Porsche 718 Boxster GTS

Besides getting better at drifting this year, the other thing I wanted to do was to rent a sports car to broaden my driving horizons.

This last weekend was perfect for this. My GT86’s clutch died after a dynamic session and I was stuck at home. So on Thursday, I opened a local rental car app and booked a 2019 Porsche Boxster GTS. To my pleasant surprise, the car was free and I had it booked from Friday noon to Sunday.