Notes from the work
An archive of product, engineering, startups, and the decisions behind building software. Older posts stay dated; they are here as a record, not a publishing schedule.
I’ve had a craftsman awakening over the last few weeks. After reading So Good They Can’t Ignore You, Quitter, Deep Work, and Extreme Ownership, I realized the only way I’m going to accomplish my goals is by focusing on my craft and that getting better is my responsibility and no one else’s. Here’s my current […]
It was 104 degrees fahrenheit and I was sprawled in the back of a minivan. I was sweating profusely as the windows made it even hotter in this colossal vehicle. I pulled out a french fry from under the seat. It must have been there for over a year. I felt gross, and hot, and […]
Tonight, I will play my first basketball game in two years. Basketball was a large part of my childhood. I’ve been thinking back to the origins of playing basketball in my youth. Here’s what I remember. My first basketball hoop was a bright orange milk crate with the bottom cut out. It was hammered to […]
I write down about a dozen notes or ideas every day in a moleskin notebook. It’s about the size of a passport and I keep it in my back pocket. Today, I lost that notebook. Days, weeks, and months worth of notes and ideas – gone. If you write something on paper, it only lives […]
This is the first question Hiten Shah will ask you if you ever ask him for advice. It’s a good question. Your goals should be what you work towards. Every decision you make should be attempting to meet one of your goals. I’ve been pondering what my goals should be for my entire life. I’m still not […]
I never realized how difficult content marketing really is. I have seen people like Nathan Barry, Hiten Shah, and others build followings and assumed it was a piece of cake. I kept that assumption until I decided to start blogging again and I realized how difficult it really is to build traffic and create a following. […]
I have had a love/hate relationship with Twitter since joining the platform in 2008. On one hand, I find it really amazing how it can bring people together to talk about cool projects and new opportunities. My good buddy, Jay Neely (who runs the Boston Startups Guide), absolutely loves Twitter. He loves everything about it. He […]
If you don’t know who Nathan Barry is, you should. He’s a great designer, and he wrote Authority, Designing Web Applications, and The App Design Handbook. He’s also the founder of a startup called Convertkit. I highly encourage you to follow Nathan on Twitter and sign up for his newsletter. If you have plans […]
A coworker suggested I check out Fiverr.com. I didn’t take him too seriously. I remembered Fiverr.com as a collection of random people doing outrageous things for 5 dollars. Someone would wear your shirt for five dollars, or create a custom video singing happy birthday. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Fiverr.com pivoted and are […]
I met Blaine Stillerman almost a year again at a networking event and I consider him a good friend. I recently met his friends and business partners Mike and Leo. Together, they are working on a mobile language acquisition gaming startup called subVerses. After talking to the team, I decided I wanted to help. Besides being […]