Favourite finds over 3 years
Legendary Little Red Book | Make Something Wonderful | Starting A Startup | Tiny Products | Wealth Ladder + loads more…
🆕 Personal Updates
You voted with your fingers and after a combined 12 hours of sifting through all 51 editions of the Creator Club dating back to July 2020 I bring to you my definitive collection of content to date.
This….. was…. stressful.
I must have gone back and forth about a million times on what to keep, which consisted of multiple edits.
In saying that, my criteria were pretty simple. Don’t select anything from the last 6 months of issues, as for most readers that’s too fresh. For the articles, it had to be evergreen content which I’ve shared numerous times or personally referred back to consistently.
For the hyperlinks, this was tricky. I’ve shared hundreds over the years but this is perhaps the category I found the least stressful to refine.
Products were also a challenge. Some are no longer around, some are totally different products now after multiple pivots and some I questioned why I even shared them in the first place, but fortunately a few jumped out.
I hope you enjoy this special issue. If you did, please let me know and hit reply! I love the feedback. If you didn’t, also let me know.
As for next months issue, it’s already underway and given i’ve got almost two months’ worth of content to share it’s going to be absolutely packed.
Right, let’s get to it - time for this month’s special roundup 👇
🔥 Last editions top link: Learn Great Copywriting in 76 Minutes
🔗 Top Hyperlinks
The little red book
First featured: December 2022
In 2012 a little red book started appearing on the desks of all Facebook employees. The book was never shared outside of Facebook, in fact, the very existence of the book was unknown to most outside of Facebook.
The book was designed by Ben Barry - a designer at Facebook at the time. Ben set up Facebook's print studio – known as the Analog Research Lab.
The book is filled with inspirational, propaganda-style quotes about Facebook's history and values. The book has also inspired various other businesses to create versions of their own for employees to understand their company's values. Check out this version by Hook Agency.
One of my favourite pages is the one titled "Hacking can be playful- as long as it works". This page documents a prank they played on Techcrunch.
🆕 Update: When I first featured this in Dec 2022’s edition it was impossible to find anywhere online. However, a devoted genius who calls himself Dan (Spaccapeli) managed to remaster the entire 145-page artefact from another era. He meticulously scoured every page and rebuilt it. It’s a fantastic book to read full of stunning photography and gives you a glimmer into Facebook’s culture at the time.
Make something wonderful
First featured: May 2023
One of the ways that I believe people express their appreciation to the rest of humanity is to make something wonderful and put it out there - Steve Jobs.
I’ve read many Apple and Steve Jobs books over the years and was sceptical this would provide any further insight, however, this ebook had unique access from both his wife and right-hand man Sir Jony Ive. The content is a compilation of emails, interviews, and lectures that Jobs gave all digitally bound into a stunning ebook format coupled with a treasure trove of fantastic unseen-before photos and scans of his scrapbooks.
Across the pages of this book, Steve shares his perspective on his childhood, on launching and being pushed out of Apple, on his time with Pixar and NeXT, and his ultimate return to the company that started it all.
The physical book, Make Something Wonderful, is The Steve Jobs Archive’s first publication, however, they only printed limited copies which are only available to Apple, Disney, and Pixar employees, making it a limited-edition collectable and you will be hard-pressed to find one for less than $500 online. Lucky for us they also released a free e-book version and it’s not a simple static site or PDF. The book's design team is LoveFrom, the consultancy established by Sir Jony Ive. As you would expect it combines online design and print craft, with a zoomable text ribbon and a discrete right-hand scrollbar for chronological navigation.
Trust me, you can’t help but read this and not have a burning desire to create.
🎁 Bonus content: Steve Jobs’ Legacy for Builders by Evan Armstrong provides some great meta-points that stood out to him after reading ‘Make Something Wonderful’.
I was reminded why I care so much about the technology industry. Building is a privilege. Hacking is a gift. After I finished reading, I sat down for a few hours and meditated on my goals. Am I living my life in the way I want to? Am I building myself into the person who can accomplish what I think is important? Am I building the products that change the world in the way I think best?”
Starting a startup
First featured: March 2023
I’m always on the lookout for in-depth guides on a particular subject that interests me. They typically go beyond the general surface-level understanding and go much deeper. They are ideally created by a subject matter expert and are written well. One such person who fits that exact criteria is Julian Shapiro - having spent years crafting such guides. Julian previously, founded Demand Curve, a Y Combinator startup that grows other companies and is now an active investor. His personal website is a treasure trove of content. Every few years he goes hard on a specific subject and writes an in-depth guide. One such guide which I’ve referred back to time again is titled ‘Starting a startup’. This handbook distils the findings from thousands of startups to try to identify what the successful ones have in common.
This handbook provides tech startup founders with tools to improve their products, including in-depth advice on growth, recruiting, and fundraising. It also provides lessons on market pull, finding ideas, acquiring and retaining customers, hiring, and fundraising. And if that isn’t enough it also includes additional resources on landing pages, growth channels, and growth teams which is Julian’s bread and butter.
🎁 Bonus content: If this particular guide isn’t your thang, check out some of his others, such as, Writing Better, How to Build Muscle or Hi-Fi Audio.
📓 Articles
Tiny Products
First featured: Dec 2020
Creating world-changing unicorn companies isn’t for everyone - in fact, it’s not for most.
What happens when we scope ambition down? Just shipping something tiny that has value? Tiny incremental progress requires less willpower, but if you add it up over time = aggregate > working on hugely ambitious projects.
Instead, a philosophy centred around creating a series of tiny (AKA micro) projects opened my eyes and provided a fantastic onramp into upskilling, learning and making money online.
This specific post, by creator Ben Issen, inspired me to think smaller. It introduced me to the concept of passive income, digital products and shrinking the scope whilst applying strict deadlines. Introducing, Tiny Products - a simple framework for creating money online, with the following criteria:
take two weeks to build
generate income
require zero ongoing maintenance.
The fascinating lesson here is, that you don’t need to create the next hit social media app. You don’t need to be an overnight success. You don’t need to raise VC money and you don’t need to work 80-hour weeks or live in Silicon Valley. You can create a small product or business at home with a basic laptop and internet access and eventually level up your learning and skillset.
The ladders of wealth creation
For all those old-school personal finance nerds, this is a modern version of ‘Rich Dad Poor Dad’. For those of you with no idea what I’m on about keep on reading. Nathan Barry - Founder of Convertkit (now Kit) wrote this post back in 2019 and it’s a fantastic piece of personal finance content which provides a great mental model to learn the phases of wealth creation.
From a guy who went from working at Wendy’s to running a software company doing now over ~$3M+ in revenue every month (updated figure) amongst other profitable business endeavours across each ladder, he shares 8 principles to grow your wealth and income over time.
In this model the potential earnings increase the higher up each ladder you climb. They also increase as you move left to right to more advanced ladders. But the difficulty increases with each move as well.
One of the most important lessons I gained from this post was to avoid lifestyle inflation (AKA lifestyle creep). It goes something like this - you get a bonus or promotion and instead of investing it, you level up your lifestyle, going on that holiday you dreamed of, purchasing that car, getting that home cinema system - you get the idea. Instead, be self-aware of this dangerous temptation and consider saving it, or better still, investing it.
🎁 Bonus content: The Algebra of Wealth by Professor Scott Galloway - formula for achieving financial freedom based on focus, Stoicism, time, and diversification. I’ve listened to this audio book twice now and all I can think about is I wish this existed in my 20’s.
How to start a startup
It wouldn’t be a best-of newsletter edition without featuring the oracle of Silicon Valley himself, Mr Paul Graham. Love him or hate him, but he’s published some bangers over the years. His writing is like code which has been whittled down from thousands of lines into just a few, yet functions even better. Despite him publishing almost 1000 essays on his blog since 93, some range from 1000 words to 500k like this one, they just keep getting better.
He’s not a consistent writer and certainly doesn’t write for the sake of SEO, instead, he will work on a single essay for years before publishing - so when he drops one there are thousands of nerds like me eagerly waiting.
You need three things to create a successful startup: to start with good people, to make something customers actually want, and to spend as little money as possible. Most startups that fail do it because they fail at one of these. A startup that does all three will probably succeed.
In this post (or essay as he calls them), Paul meticulously outlines his thoughts on ideas, people, what customers want, raising money, conserving capital and perhaps the most important aspect, should you start a startup?
🎁 Bonus content: Colin Wright made a clickable map showing the connections between each of Paul Graham’s essays.
📱 Products
Amie | Todos, email and calendar all in one
First featured: April 2022
About a year ago I wrote a post about Dennis Müller's MVP for an exciting new calendar and to-do list concept. Since then, the product has continued to evolve and has dramatically moved away from any other suite of tools you might have used in the past to manage your day-to-day.
Amie's unique approach as a standalone productivity app seems to be its all-in-one calendar, to-do and contact list. Additionally, the app is full of little delighters such as their Spotify integration to track what you listened to and when on your calendar (do I need that? no, do I want it? yes!) and also keyboard shortcuts which can trigger a handy shortcut modal which makes the process of navigating around the app frictionless. Additionally, Amie is now also an email client, allowing you drag emails into your to-do list within your calendar.
Amie pulled off what Julian refers to as multi-layered calendars. Doesn’t sound that captivating, but when you think about it, they might be the most important tool we have. As Julian points out “These devices help us to plan and optimize how we spend our time.” However, despite there being infinite calendars available and each touting their unique features, there hasn’t been any dramatic innovation in years. Furthermore, calendars are part of our productivity stack, alongside note-taking apps, task managers and email.
P.S. Take the time and check out their website, it’s been through various iterations but they have landed on a winner IMO.
Arc | The Chrome replacement
First featured: April 2022
This will come as no surprise for long-time readers. I’ve been harping on about this new browser since early 2022. For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of discovering Arc - first and foremost it’s a browser. But it doesn’t look like a typical Safari or Chrome browser. It’s a reimagined and dare I say it without sounding like a pretentious designer - it takes a new form factor and UX. It’s as if it’s been built based on all the negative feedback about browsers.
So why am I so bullish on this new browser? Firstly, it just looks so slick and clean compared to other browsers. They've stripped back elements such as bookmarks and extensions and abstracted them away until you need them. Furthermore, it provides a bunch of delightful features including the easel which allows you to sketch out ideas or annotate images and share them and Boosts which allows you to tweak and save the CSS of your favourite websites. Lastly, one of my personal favourites is the mini browser, which is so handy when clicking on links without opening a new tab. There is so much still to discuss but in the meantime check this great in-depth review by Jermey Caplan.
But it’s not just the product I admire. It’s the company (The Browser Company). More specifically, their approach to building software is fascinating. They build in public and share wild concepts online for feedback. Document every facet, from boardroom meetings, conceptual ideas, good and bad feedback, their growth targets, the list goes on. Additionally, they have fantastic content on socials, YouTube and even a podcast from their founder Josh Miller providing a weekly personal journal and offering a glimmer of insight into the life of a founder running a high-growth consumer startup.
Browsers are our portal to the internet and we are chronically online these days. Yet most folks take the default browser they are dealt with and don’t tend to consider alternatives despite it being an application you most likely use the most. So give it a shot and let me know what you think.
🎁 Bonus content: Fancy a peak into the past, present and future of the browser and where Arc might be heading. Check out this fantastic post by Packy McCormick titled “Internet Computers“.
🐽 My past favourite links to consume
🔮 Flashback
Studying history to learn the future
This month I'm going to leave you with one of my favourite flashbacks back from an issue back in 2021. This fascinating illustration was created in 1957, by Disney. Shout out to Charlie for sharing this with me a while back 👏
This business blueprint is built around Disney's business units with context to products, customers, interactions and distribution channels and as you start to follow and understand it, it's a virtuous cycle. Every cycle provides more value and entertainment to its customers while growing products and brands, increasing the revenue of various businesses, creating new markets, and opportunities for the audience to interact and participate further, and creating Disney's Flywheel! perhaps one even Bezo’s would be jealous of back in the day.
If you made it this far, hit reply or jump into the comments and tell me what you thought of this edition. Was this 🔥 or 🗑. I read every response 👀
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Until next the next issue,
Sam | @thisdickie 👨💻
Great picks. Interesting insights. You do create value. Bravo Sam.
🔥 si solo tuviera que leer un boletín esta semana sería el tuyo! Gracias por la selección!