Going all in
Season 3 Finale: Narrowing my headspace
It’s been a while. Feels like at least a couple months. I checked. It’s been six months since the last time I posted here. Sheesh. Time flies.
I shipped this little newsletter nearly every Friday, for about 18 months. And then, in a blink of an eye, six months have gone by without hitting ‘Post’ once. I’ve missed it, honestly. There’s something about consistently: consuming information, digesting it, making sense of it, and then sharing the key takeaways. It helps me fine-tune and clarify my thinking. Actually, it doesn’t help me — it forces me to clarify. I haven’t found anything that does this, like writing does (ideally writing publicly). So, although I haven’t written here in six months, it has still felt like part of me.
And I’m going to start focusing on it again.
For what it’s worth, I have a good excuse(s) for not writing (not that anyone cares other than my mom, but I’ll share anyway). I’ve been busy (those with children are laughing at my definition of “busy,” I know).
I moved from SF to Austin with my wife, Britt. Quit my job at Zoom. Found two incredible co-founders. Started my second company (Groundswell!). Raised a 7-figure round of funding — still blows my mind. Have initial people and companies that are excited to use our product. And most importantly, bought my first illiquid jpeg (NFT). Side note: when I wrote that NFT piece in March, I recorded an 8-minute “mini-podcast” (4 mins on 2x speed) with Britt, asking if we should buy a CryptoPunk for $40K — today, the cheapest CryptoPunk you can buy is $400K. Whoops.
Every new beginning starts with some other beginning’s end
Did I just quote Semisonic’s “Closing Time?” No. It’s a quote from Seneca, thank you very much!
I’ve talked about the concepts of seasons with this newsletter in the past. And so, today, I want to commit to the new season of this newsletter, and the biggest pivot to-date. I’m going to be writing about my startup journey. The nitty gritty details. Which means that 95% of you (if I had to guess) won’t care about these topics. I also still want to share links and small snippets of other things I’m learning outside of work, so there will be a bit of that, but the vast majority of my writing will be about my startup journey. Lessons learned. Mental models I’ve found helpful. And challenges that I’m processing through. The goal is simply to share with radical transparency, with my ego checked at the door.
Every time, over the last few months, where I had to google a question about the startup journey, and I wasn’t satisfied with the answers readily available, I then asked the 5 smartest people I knew on the subject, and made a decision. Those are the things I want to write about.
Here is a taste of some of those topics that I’ve earmarked:
• Should you start a startup?
• How do you come up with a startup idea?
• When should you quit your job?
• How should you split equity with a cofounder?
• How do you get your very first customer?
• How do you raise venture capital today?
I’m not an expert on these subjects, but that’s the point. It’s not always helpful for someone to learn from Jeff Bezos, when he’s so far ahead on his startup journey. And he answered these questions decades ago. Things have changed. Their answers may not be right in the context of what a founder needs today. So I want to openly share what I’m learning along my startup journey. Consider it the tech bro’s version of a public diary.
My story
I met my two co-founders through On Deck’s Founder Fellowship (highly recommend it, by the way). One exercise I did during my time at On Deck, was taking inventory of the way I spend my time and, just as importantly, my headspace. I had never done this before, but it was really helpful in identifying how I’m prioritizing my “working hours.”
The way I was spending my time did not match the way I wanted to be spending my time. This was a big realization for me. I also knew that the season of life I was in at the time was going to look very different than the future season of life I wanted to be in. It goes back to the concept I’ve previously written about: Oscillating Between Focus & Exploration. TLDR:
In other words, I was intentionally spending a ton of time exploring, learning broadly and tinkering. But now, as of the last few months, I’ve pivoted into a season of focus. I’m doubling down on my company, in hopes to build it into something very valuable over the next 15 years (give or take 5). :) It’ll be a long season, so I want to go slow and steady.
Slow is steady. And steady is fast.
So, what does this mean for “us?”
Well, it’s hard to say. I know a few things.
I won’t have the time/headspace to do deep dives on things happening in tech, like I did with Coinbase, NFTs, GameStop, Bitcoin, Airbnb and Doordash, and so many more.
Along the first few months of starting Groundswell, I’ve had questions that I couldn’t find answers to, so I want to write publicly about the conclusions I’ve come to. It’s something I wish I did more of with my first company — and I believe it will help other founders in the future, which sounds really fun.
Most of you signed up to read about the latest trends in tech, by way of my curation and musings around these topics. In this new iteration of What I Learned, it’ll be 90% focused on building a startup, which is probably not relevant to you. So if we part ways now, that’s okay. [Insert a cheesy quote about change being necessary here.]
How do you feel about this change?
(All feedback is 100% anonymous)
Narrowing my headspace
My main focus, with the vast majority of my time and headspace, will be on Groundswell. I’ll share my learnings and use that as a flywheel. This week, I took inventory of how I want to be spending my time, and it was fun to see the shift from the beginning of 2021, to the end of 2021. Check it out below!
It’s a fun exercise. Here’s the simple template I created if anyone wants to do it. Just make a copy, and edit away.
This season means I’m saying “no” to almost every opportunity that comes across my desk. Versus before, I was saying “yes” to many of those opportunities.
In other words, I’m going all in on Groundswell.
Looking forward
I’m going to keep my writing here, for now. But I may change the name at sometime to more accurately reflect what I’m writing about. Something along the lines of “startup journey” would make sense. But that Substack name was taken, and I want to ship 5 pieces before making that switch.
If you want to unsubscribe — no hard feelings! Thank you for reading and learning alongside me for as long as you did. I’m sincerely grateful.
If you want to follow along on my journey and things I’m tinkering with in the remaining 15% of my headspace, I still plan to share a few links every week that are outside of my startup journey learnings. Hmm… “startup journey learnings” is kinda catchy.
Alright, see y’all next week for “Episode 1” of “Season 4: Startup Journey Learnings.” Until then, below are some cool portals around the interwebs that I’ve explored lately.
ICYMI
• Elon Musk moves to Tesla to Austin: a 3-part story in 1 image
• Punk6529 explains a path to an open Metaverse — he’s by far my favorite crypto/Web3/NFT follow on Twitter, as of late, go read some of his threads (check out his NFT gallery here)
• “On NFT Twitter, we have a lot of newcomers to NFT twitter. This is a thread to teach them our ways.” Hilarious, helpful and fascinating, give it a skim
• Packy M nails the story of Solana (listen to him read it on Spotify)
• Acquired FM has been my favorite new podcast — Doordash and Andreessen Horowitz Part II are two of my favorite episodes
• I read Ready Player #1 for the first time recently — why did no one tell me how good it is?!
• You’ve already been recommended the Korean show, Squid Game three times this week, I’ll be the fourth to recommend it
• One of the best episodes of My First Million was with Rob Dyrdek (yes, that Rob Dyrdek) — at least listen from minute 12 to minute 16
Quote I’ve been pondering
Never go to sleep without a request to your subconscious.
- Thomas Edison
Have a great weekend y’all!
👊 ✊ 🏍 💨
Cheers,
Brendan J Short
[Written while listening to golden hour playlist on Spotify.]