Marcel FernandesCEO and Founder at Cel Education

Are you ready to stop lying to yourself about why you’re stuck? #shorts

21 Mar 2026 · 1 min

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0:36

Use first-principles thinking to find what's really holding you back. Ask why five times on any problem: one founder traced high battery costs to African mining reliance, outdated procurement, and missing vertical integration.

Chapters

And so I always use first principles thinking when I have a really hairy problem, any problem to be honest. Yeah, so you always go to the root of the problem. What is this problem? Just ask why 5 times. So why does this problem exist? Oh, because— so why are batteries so expensive? Because we need to mine them from Africa and then we need to get this company to bring it over. Why? Why do we need to mine it from Africa and get this company for Kumaguro? Oh, because that's how it's always been done. Why has it always been done like that? I don't know, people did think to vertically integrate and own the whole supply chain. Why didn't it? Is it too complex? Oh, maybe. So you ask why 5 times and you get to the root of any issue.