Some content simplifies the problems to such a high degree, that this is more a game of "guess what I wanted you to answer" than anything else.
Eg "Your only senior developer knows the entire code. He just asked for a 200% raise or he leaves."
- Pay
- Fire and hire 2 juniors
- Give equity
I chose give equity and it was "wrong" because they turned out to be a "bad founder". How would I even know that? I hired them in the first place right? And 200% of what? Do I have money to pay them? Am I a startup that is able to pay them or is paying going to risk the entire company?
PS: the "right" answer was "hire 2 junior developers" btw
The questions and answers are all LLM-generated. Not even human curated, just dumped on your face straight from LLM. What do you expect? Of course they feel shallow.
This is a case study of why LLM-based NPC dialogue isn't getting huge traction in gamedev world, despite unlimited replayability in theory.
Thank you, the task is actually not easy, because in this scenario there is no truly positive outcome; all the options are bad, and you're choosing from the worst, and that's exactly what happens in real life.
I specifically factored this into some of the scenarios. The goal isn't to guess the right one; the goal is to see what the choice leads to.
I'll take your comment more seriously because it may not be as clear as I'd like.
You seem to be well intentioned, but you are really not doing beginners a favour by feeding them AI slop. I would not expect introductory material to be useful to me, but my point is that given there is plenty of educational content written by experts providing a low quality alternative is harmful. I feel sorry for people who waste time trying to learn from this site.
Slightly off topic, but I am continually perplexed by so many adhering to this archaic idea that memorizing and regurgitating information is "learning."
The issue in this context is that there are very few "right" or "wrong" answers in business (there are some) but the vast majority of the decisions you will make in business are pros/cons and weighing the best option at the time. And what works for one business will not work for another.
I've always found quizzes and tests to be a giant waste of time, largely because they have you spend time trying to guess what the "teacher" or material wants you to say rather than what's actually beneficial or useful to what you're trying to accomplish.
A better alternative is to give "projects." Not busywork, but something specific you can do that can actually help you take steps toward launching or growing a business. (Not worksheets, something you can actually use).
Beyond all of this, the information isn't really valuable anyway unless it's coming from someone who has build numerous successful businesses and can provide insight into which pieces they found valuable and which they didn't.
Insight is always way more valuable than conventional wisdom, especially in the realm of business.
I agree that memorising and regurgitating is not useful here, but I do not think the information should come from someone who has built businesses. This is an attempt to teach business school knowledge. Its called "Core MBA"! The best people to provide this information are the people who teach business.
I am very suspicious on insights from people who have been successful at business. Trying to infer from their success is subject to survivorship bias, they may have advantages they are not entirely honest about (especially after the first success), and their experience is usually quite specific.
I agree that memorising things isn’t learning, but I think it’s generally understood that it is a critically important step in learning.
In technical subjects you need immediate recall of a lot of different things to be able to move onto more advanced topics.
In the humanities like history and written analytical topics like this, I would argue that memorisation of past situations etc is supposed to be the groundwork that you begin to grow your own critical thinking from. It’s not expected that you slavishly apply identical copies of what you’ve learned, they are just examples
I would say that this is literally the idea that I wanted to convey in the project: quite often there are no correct answers.
The goal of the project is to show where mistakes are most often made and try to make them in a simulation, be it a quiz or a market simulation, rather than in real life.
I've been on the site for 10m, and I'm loving it. I find the interface quite confusing. I'm getting value from the theory tidbits, and the scenarios. The simulation was confusing and i just noped out. I'd say the UI is a bit too overdone
Thanks for investing 10 minutes! Hearing that the theory and scenarios provide value is huge for me.
I suspected the UI might be too "loud." It’s a delicate balance between style and usability, and I might have pushed the brutalism too far.
Regarding the Simulation "nope out" moment — was it simply unclear what to do (lack of buttons/direction), or was the screen just too overwhelming with numbers?
Funny, I ran into a marketing advice section. Every single piece of advice would cause me to insta close the site and go somewhere else if used to sell me something.
But now I know where those idiots that want you to sign up for a waiting list come from...
As an engineer/user, I also hate popups, waiting lists, and "urgency."
They feel manipulative.
But as a business owner looking at the dashboard, I see that removing them drops conversion by 40%.
The simulation is designed to test "Market Reality" vs "Personal Taste."
The goal is to see if you can swallow that pill to optimize the P&L, or if you stick to your principles and risk lower margins.
As someone who made websites in the geocities days, it's amusing to me that one of the tell-tale signs of a Gemini-built website is a MARQUEE! I genuinely love that the marquee tag is making a come-back due to what I can only imagine was someone on the Google team who loves it too and decided to put that into the system prompt when websites are requested.
I miss the era when the web was raw, weird, and unpolished. Modern UI feels too sanitized and corporate.
The "Neo-Brutalist" label is just a convenient modern excuse to bring back the fun chaos of the Geocities days without looking outdated. Glad it hit the nostalgia nerve!
Then why make a product whose purpose it is to convey written technical information to users of that language, if it's also a language that you need assistance in to communicate properly with?
I couldn't tell they replied to me with AI (it didn't read like it did to me, but I could be wrong).
But even if they did, one thing I'm sympathetic to is that English is not everyone's first language. Again, I don't know if that applies here, but it's a good reason that some might want to run their comments through an LLM. I don't think there should be a blanket rule on this.
I like the design, it's fresh and have good visual hierarchy (cool be improved in place but overall very nice). The content is fine for a first iteration I suppose. The tone is a bit aggressive sometime, I get you want to give a NO-BS focused mindset but maybe a tad over doing it. Also visually I think you could make more use the monetization impact of the game decisions - maybe that would help with "focused" branding without having to resort a condescending tone in some places.
You probably will want a bit more nuance - businesses have multiple growth path and there isn't just once recipe for things but tradeoff are real and choices have impact - it is more important to understand the impacts of the tradeoff that to be locked in on some mantras.
But again, all these are improvements that you will probably navigate yourself :)
The whole UI is a mess IMO. Words put on new line while 40% is still available on a macbook 16'.
One letter of the second title is put on a new line as well in "Transformation".
Looked through 3-4 articles. The content is rather shallow and written in a way that wants to be 'different' and edgy but does not convey any confidence to me.
I don't see the link between the website and your description above. The website is some startup advice + multichoice quizzes... what are we supposed to be clicking on to get the 'business simulator' etc.?
As an aside, I think the font sizes and spacing would be better if much smaller/more dense.
I spent 1 minute and couldn't configure out how to use it. I clicked the first CTA. Then on the next page I clicked the first CTA. It has some progress bar that says 'decrypting' but then nothing else.
For a text-based business simulator, i'd make the text far easier to read. I'm finding it to be a little to fast, with a lot of eye strain. There's a couple of techniques, including making sure that your text isn't completely black.
I'd look a little more into some of the design strategies, including smoother scrolling for text, better typography design, colors that are easier to read and more focus on the content itself.
Especially if you expect someone to read 20 minutes for an article. Just take a bit of a refresher on techniques for web readability!
I like the concept, but density of the text and awkward UX are keeping me from engaging deeper.
There should be one (and only one) obvious button to advance the flow at all times. For instance:
* I took the “test” before realizing the topics were clickable.
* after getting a test question right at the end of a section, my “reward” was another wall of text explaining the question I’d just gotten right. Confusing and off-putting.
BUG: Simulation passed card persists to next mission if you don't press dismiss, essentially blocking access to the additional simulations until dismiss button is pressed even if moved to next mission.
Have been having fun on here for some 10 minutes now. Not interested in the gamification, but I like the flash-card-esque, short lessons and the interactive tests.
> The Conflict: If your content doesn't build an asset, it's just an expense. You are a hamster on a wheel.
> The Truth: Content is a "Digital Real Estate." Every piece of content should either lower your CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) or increase your LTV (Lifetime Value).
Usual AI over-confident bollocks. There are multiple reasons to post consistently beyond just these simplified reasons.
A legacy taxi firm faces extinction from ride-share apps. Instead of lobbying for regulations or cutting fares, they pivot to 'Executive Mobile Offices,' equipping luxury vans with high-speed Wi-Fi and desks for traveling executives. They stop fighting for general transport to create a new category.
[A] Lower fares to undercut ride-share apps
[B] Lobby the government for stricter industry laws
[C] Launch 'Executive Mobile Offices' for productivity
[D] Upgrade current fleet for better fuel efficiency
You might notice that there is no question. We have a case study, and then four multiple-choice "answers". Answers to what, we're not sure.
When there is a question, this format is the same thing you'd find in a textbook, except that the questions in a textbook have been chosen to be instructive and these questions haven't. Why is this beneficial? Content generation means you can generate a large number of questions of varying quality levels. But you only ask one, which removes your only theoretical advantage over a textbook, while imposing severe downsides.
For material that starts with "features don't matter", dynamic question generation sure feels like it was intended to help the marketing team rather than the user.
3. The market simulator reports "missed sales due to low stock" and "staff could not process orders". I find this annoying; if my staff are saturated, I can't be missing any sales due to low stock. It is admittedly useful to have perfect information about how many sales I could make with more staff.
After the "stock" bar is full, I can continue to produce more stock.
The only way to produce stock is to click a button that produces one stock. This should be fixed.
The event 'market downturn: demand collapsed' lasted for one day. This seems unreasonable. Maybe the unit of time should be months.
Does the math feel balanced?
The simulation feels extremely simplistic. If you have unmet demand, hire more workers. If you have idle workers, produce more stock. If you have excess stock, boost ads.
Can a scenario arise where it's not obvious what you should do?
-----------------
There is a typo, "encaging", in one of the early lessons.
Some content simplifies the problems to such a high degree, that this is more a game of "guess what I wanted you to answer" than anything else.
Eg "Your only senior developer knows the entire code. He just asked for a 200% raise or he leaves."
- Pay
- Fire and hire 2 juniors
- Give equity
I chose give equity and it was "wrong" because they turned out to be a "bad founder". How would I even know that? I hired them in the first place right? And 200% of what? Do I have money to pay them? Am I a startup that is able to pay them or is paying going to risk the entire company?
PS: the "right" answer was "hire 2 junior developers" btw
The questions and answers are all LLM-generated. Not even human curated, just dumped on your face straight from LLM. What do you expect? Of course they feel shallow.
This is a case study of why LLM-based NPC dialogue isn't getting huge traction in gamedev world, despite unlimited replayability in theory.
Fair point.
Thank you, the task is actually not easy, because in this scenario there is no truly positive outcome; all the options are bad, and you're choosing from the worst, and that's exactly what happens in real life.
I specifically factored this into some of the scenarios. The goal isn't to guess the right one; the goal is to see what the choice leads to.
I'll take your comment more seriously because it may not be as clear as I'd like.
The "right" answer is the worst one!
I tried the "initial drill" and part of the "finance and capital one" and the content is rubbish.
The content is simplistic and makes sweeping assertions, the correct answer to most questions is "insufficient data".
Its very easy to guess the answer they want (I got it every single time) but in many cases I do not agree it is necessarily the right answer.
A text book would be better, and this convinces me of the value of studying business the conventional way.
OP, get someone who has a clue to write the content and the tests and then you might have something worthwhile
I'm sorry you didn't find it valuable. It happens. I was hoping it would help beginners.
If your experience suggests otherwise, it's not the best option for you.
Thank you again for your time.
You seem to be well intentioned, but you are really not doing beginners a favour by feeding them AI slop. I would not expect introductory material to be useful to me, but my point is that given there is plenty of educational content written by experts providing a low quality alternative is harmful. I feel sorry for people who waste time trying to learn from this site.
Okay, you can see this however you want.
I'm completely transparent and showing you all the project's work in detail, and I'm not asking for money.
I'm not trying to convince you of anything or prove anything. I heard your comment.
Slightly off topic, but I am continually perplexed by so many adhering to this archaic idea that memorizing and regurgitating information is "learning."
The issue in this context is that there are very few "right" or "wrong" answers in business (there are some) but the vast majority of the decisions you will make in business are pros/cons and weighing the best option at the time. And what works for one business will not work for another.
I've always found quizzes and tests to be a giant waste of time, largely because they have you spend time trying to guess what the "teacher" or material wants you to say rather than what's actually beneficial or useful to what you're trying to accomplish.
A better alternative is to give "projects." Not busywork, but something specific you can do that can actually help you take steps toward launching or growing a business. (Not worksheets, something you can actually use).
Beyond all of this, the information isn't really valuable anyway unless it's coming from someone who has build numerous successful businesses and can provide insight into which pieces they found valuable and which they didn't.
Insight is always way more valuable than conventional wisdom, especially in the realm of business.
I agree that memorising and regurgitating is not useful here, but I do not think the information should come from someone who has built businesses. This is an attempt to teach business school knowledge. Its called "Core MBA"! The best people to provide this information are the people who teach business.
I am very suspicious on insights from people who have been successful at business. Trying to infer from their success is subject to survivorship bias, they may have advantages they are not entirely honest about (especially after the first success), and their experience is usually quite specific.
I agree that memorising things isn’t learning, but I think it’s generally understood that it is a critically important step in learning.
In technical subjects you need immediate recall of a lot of different things to be able to move onto more advanced topics.
In the humanities like history and written analytical topics like this, I would argue that memorisation of past situations etc is supposed to be the groundwork that you begin to grow your own critical thinking from. It’s not expected that you slavishly apply identical copies of what you’ve learned, they are just examples
I would say that this is literally the idea that I wanted to convey in the project: quite often there are no correct answers.
The goal of the project is to show where mistakes are most often made and try to make them in a simulation, be it a quiz or a market simulation, rather than in real life.
I've been on the site for 10m, and I'm loving it. I find the interface quite confusing. I'm getting value from the theory tidbits, and the scenarios. The simulation was confusing and i just noped out. I'd say the UI is a bit too overdone
Thanks for investing 10 minutes! Hearing that the theory and scenarios provide value is huge for me.
I suspected the UI might be too "loud." It’s a delicate balance between style and usability, and I might have pushed the brutalism too far.
Regarding the Simulation "nope out" moment — was it simply unclear what to do (lack of buttons/direction), or was the screen just too overwhelming with numbers?
Unclear what to do. I obviously could have invested another 30s and figured it out.
I really like the scenarios - i think there's a lot of value there. I wonder if you can double down on that somehow.
Ah, got it.
Thanks again, I still need to work on the user interface to make things clearer and more understandable.
Funny, I ran into a marketing advice section. Every single piece of advice would cause me to insta close the site and go somewhere else if used to sell me something.
But now I know where those idiots that want you to sign up for a waiting list come from...
It creates a fascinating paradox, doesn't it?
As an engineer/user, I also hate popups, waiting lists, and "urgency." They feel manipulative. But as a business owner looking at the dashboard, I see that removing them drops conversion by 40%.
The simulation is designed to test "Market Reality" vs "Personal Taste."
The goal is to see if you can swallow that pill to optimize the P&L, or if you stick to your principles and risk lower margins.
Both are valid choices in the game.
... if your target market is people who believe "50% off for a limited time", that is.
This is the market and this is how it works.
There are a lot of tips, if one doesn't suit you, you can leave it alone or give me yours and I'll add it to the simulation.
:) The simulation seems to be for people selling $999 “ courses”.
It’s good that you can make money from that. Or sad? I’m not sure.
It doesn’t work on you, but apparently it works. I also don’t get it, and would nope out rather quickly.
Executive Suite is a surprisingly fun and replayable game:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Suite_(video_game)
You can play it here: https://www.pcjs.org/software/pcx86/game/other/1982/esuite/
As someone who made websites in the geocities days, it's amusing to me that one of the tell-tale signs of a Gemini-built website is a MARQUEE! I genuinely love that the marquee tag is making a come-back due to what I can only imagine was someone on the Google team who loves it too and decided to put that into the system prompt when websites are requested.
Honestly? That is the real reason.
I miss the era when the web was raw, weird, and unpolished. Modern UI feels too sanitized and corporate.
The "Neo-Brutalist" label is just a convenient modern excuse to bring back the fun chaos of the Geocities days without looking outdated. Glad it hit the nostalgia nerve!
Please don't use AI for posting comments.
Sorry, English is not my native language like billions of people on the planet.
Then why make a product whose purpose it is to convey written technical information to users of that language, if it's also a language that you need assistance in to communicate properly with?
I couldn't tell they replied to me with AI (it didn't read like it did to me, but I could be wrong).
But even if they did, one thing I'm sympathetic to is that English is not everyone's first language. Again, I don't know if that applies here, but it's a good reason that some might want to run their comments through an LLM. I don't think there should be a blanket rule on this.
I like the design, it's fresh and have good visual hierarchy (cool be improved in place but overall very nice). The content is fine for a first iteration I suppose. The tone is a bit aggressive sometime, I get you want to give a NO-BS focused mindset but maybe a tad over doing it. Also visually I think you could make more use the monetization impact of the game decisions - maybe that would help with "focused" branding without having to resort a condescending tone in some places. You probably will want a bit more nuance - businesses have multiple growth path and there isn't just once recipe for things but tradeoff are real and choices have impact - it is more important to understand the impacts of the tradeoff that to be locked in on some mantras. But again, all these are improvements that you will probably navigate yourself :)
The whole UI is a mess IMO. Words put on new line while 40% is still available on a macbook 16'.
One letter of the second title is put on a new line as well in "Transformation".
Looked through 3-4 articles. The content is rather shallow and written in a way that wants to be 'different' and edgy but does not convey any confidence to me.
For those reasons, I'm out.
Thank you. Yes, I noticed this bug after your comment. I have a larger monitor and simply didn't notice it.
I've already fixed it.
As for the way of writing the content, it may not suit you, I intended it this way from the start, and that’s how it should be.
I don't see the link between the website and your description above. The website is some startup advice + multichoice quizzes... what are we supposed to be clicking on to get the 'business simulator' etc.?
As an aside, I think the font sizes and spacing would be better if much smaller/more dense.
In the menu, select "Marketing Simulator" for each element, using the algorithm code I developed in the post.
I'll try to improve the text.
I spent 1 minute and couldn't configure out how to use it. I clicked the first CTA. Then on the next page I clicked the first CTA. It has some progress bar that says 'decrypting' but then nothing else.
For a text-based business simulator, i'd make the text far easier to read. I'm finding it to be a little to fast, with a lot of eye strain. There's a couple of techniques, including making sure that your text isn't completely black.
I'd look a little more into some of the design strategies, including smoother scrolling for text, better typography design, colors that are easier to read and more focus on the content itself.
Especially if you expect someone to read 20 minutes for an article. Just take a bit of a refresher on techniques for web readability!
This is so vibe coded, I can't even look at it.
I'm sorry if I upset your peace of mind.
I promise not to do it again.
I like the concept, but density of the text and awkward UX are keeping me from engaging deeper.
There should be one (and only one) obvious button to advance the flow at all times. For instance:
* I took the “test” before realizing the topics were clickable.
* after getting a test question right at the end of a section, my “reward” was another wall of text explaining the question I’d just gotten right. Confusing and off-putting.
Thank you, your comment is truly valuable to me.
I understand exactly what you mean, and the first thing I'll do is improve the user experience so this doesn't happen.
I saw the user journey differently, and it seemed clearer to me.
Ha, this made me think of Viznut's Micro$oft - Simulaattori [1].
[1] http://viznut.fi/demos/msdos/ (pick mssim.zip) or on Pouet https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=21174
BUG: Simulation passed card persists to next mission if you don't press dismiss, essentially blocking access to the additional simulations until dismiss button is pressed even if moved to next mission.
Thank you so much. Bugs are incredibly hard to find, and you helped me out.
Nice, I also have built another text based learning tool with drills
https://nemorize.com/roadmaps
Have been having fun on here for some 10 minutes now. Not interested in the gamification, but I like the flash-card-esque, short lessons and the interactive tests.
Thank you. This is really cool to read.
> The Conflict: If your content doesn't build an asset, it's just an expense. You are a hamster on a wheel.
> The Truth: Content is a "Digital Real Estate." Every piece of content should either lower your CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) or increase your LTV (Lifetime Value).
Usual AI over-confident bollocks. There are multiple reasons to post consistently beyond just these simplified reasons.
I'm out. Might as well waste my time with crapgpt
This wins the internet today. Amazing work!!!
The UI is hard on the eyes. I tried using it but felt overwhelmed by the design. Feels like I’m working with an IRS form.
Thanks, I adjusted the brightness after your comment.
As for the design, it's a matter of taste; mine might be different from yours.
Agree. The colors need to be pulled back from the 100% saturation, and the body font size is too small.
10/10 shitpost, congratulations.
Don’t care if it’s vibe coded, love the raw and unapologetic aesthetic
Thanks for checking it out. Glad I'm not the only one.
Awesome content reads top notch
Thank you, your comment gives me confidence that I didn't waste a month doing bull*hit.
I'm kind of amused by the presentation aspects.
The writing style is "Watch me jump a motorcycle over fifteen buses! AWESOME!"
The visual style is "DOS app".
-----------------
1. The lessons are written in a flashy, attention-catching way. They could stand to be drier.
2. The "simulation" involves one multiple-choice question. Well, up to one. Here's the combat simulation I was given from https://www.core-mba.pro/course/biz-101/lesson/l3 :
A legacy taxi firm faces extinction from ride-share apps. Instead of lobbying for regulations or cutting fares, they pivot to 'Executive Mobile Offices,' equipping luxury vans with high-speed Wi-Fi and desks for traveling executives. They stop fighting for general transport to create a new category.
[A] Lower fares to undercut ride-share apps
[B] Lobby the government for stricter industry laws
[C] Launch 'Executive Mobile Offices' for productivity
[D] Upgrade current fleet for better fuel efficiency
You might notice that there is no question. We have a case study, and then four multiple-choice "answers". Answers to what, we're not sure.
When there is a question, this format is the same thing you'd find in a textbook, except that the questions in a textbook have been chosen to be instructive and these questions haven't. Why is this beneficial? Content generation means you can generate a large number of questions of varying quality levels. But you only ask one, which removes your only theoretical advantage over a textbook, while imposing severe downsides.
For material that starts with "features don't matter", dynamic question generation sure feels like it was intended to help the marketing team rather than the user.
3. The market simulator reports "missed sales due to low stock" and "staff could not process orders". I find this annoying; if my staff are saturated, I can't be missing any sales due to low stock. It is admittedly useful to have perfect information about how many sales I could make with more staff.
After the "stock" bar is full, I can continue to produce more stock.
The only way to produce stock is to click a button that produces one stock. This should be fixed.
The event 'market downturn: demand collapsed' lasted for one day. This seems unreasonable. Maybe the unit of time should be months.
Does the math feel balanced?
The simulation feels extremely simplistic. If you have unmet demand, hire more workers. If you have idle workers, produce more stock. If you have excess stock, boost ads.
Can a scenario arise where it's not obvious what you should do?
-----------------
There is a typo, "encaging", in one of the early lessons.
Looks fun, I’ll give it a try.
Design is slick. I like the sloganeering ticker tape. Wish it had dark mode.
Great idea, I hope to implement a dark mode. I don’t use it myself, but if there is a request, why not?
This is cool.
But it trivializes a lot of stuff. Maybe go all in on the satire.
VC Bro simulator.
From this you'd think that you can just make up ideas all day and someone will give you money.
What email address should I use to send you an invite?
This is your brain on too much sycophancy. Please kids, touch some grass.
No.