The web is not dying
AI for non-techs | Extreme time management hacks | Beating incumbents | The finances of high-net worths | The idea that worked after a few that didn't + loads more…
🆕 Personal Updates
Progress with Validation Co is ….. slow. But you know what, I’m totally content with that.
The old me would be up all night working towards a self-imposed, arbitrary deadline and making myself sick in the process. As new priorities have come into my life I’m getting more comfortable with the fact I’m not able to run multiple projects at once and instead of burning out and resenting the project I’m embracing working slowly without any deadlines. I’m enjoying the craft of creation and time isn’t an issue I need to worry about.
Right, let’s get to it - time for this month’s roundup 👇
🔥 Top post last month: Pieter levels Maker Investment Strategy
📓 Articles
Whatever you can’t do, AI can
I was recently chatting with a friend who asked: “What impact will AI have on no-code tools?” Personally, I feel AI will deliver the promise no-code tools have yet to fully deliver - enabling non-technical creators to bring their software ideas to life regardless of their ability. In this post, Nir Zicherman argues that early-stage, non-tech founders should consider becoming technical founders by leveraging the power of AI instead of looking for a technical co-founder.
There are far more people with great ideas who are looking for technical cofounders than there are technical cofounders looking for people with ideas
I’ve met countless non-technical folks with grand software ideas who don’t hesitate to outsource development work to freelancers or agencies without considering building it themselves. The idea of trying hasn’t even crossed their mind. Yet they don’t realise the technology is within reach which could allow them to build at the very least, a proof of concept or MVP. I don’t think you can run a successful tech-enabled product without knowing what it takes to create the product. Additionally, at the very least you would learn how to communicate your needs to an engineer should you attempt to build it yourself with the learnings you have gained and also earn the respect of a future technical co-founder.
Today you can use AI can teach you how to use a particular tool and better still generate code for you. There is some way to go until anyone can type a few prompts and watch their vision come to life but as it currently stands, AI can certainly provide you with the means to build a rudimentary software app.
Time Management Tips of Insanely Busy People
So what do the calendars of entrepreneurs, VIPs, and famous business people look like? They must have it figured out, right?
In this post Noah Kagan (founder of AppSumo) nerds out with Taylor Pearson over scheduling and all things time optimisation. And when I say nerd out, this breakdown neeerdy! It’s super detailed, complete with links to each template used and absolutely packed with tips which I’ve already personally started testing. For example, taking an hour to sit down and plan your ideal week. Working through questions such as - what would your ideal week look like? how would it be structured? what brings you joy and what element of your week would you love to change? Next step, consider the steps towards achieving a calendar that at least gets you closer to that dream schedule and take the steps to continually iterate until you get closer to your north star. Additionally, tracking how you spend each minute of the day for a week plotting it on a spreadsheet and spending time to analyse it. I think our time allocation would give us all a shock.
As the saying goes:
Show Me Your Calendar And I’ll Show You Your Priorities
I’ve tried various calendar optimisation techniques but ended up reverting to a somewhat casual scheduling system. I guess I love the idea of having a super organised calendar, but in reality, I want flexibility.
If you want a glimpse into an extreme schedule, check out Rob Dyrdek’s ruthless scheduling practice.
Got any time management/ scheduling hacks that have worked for you? Let me know in the comments or hit reply - I’m all ears.
🎁 Bonus content: Makers schedule vs Managers Schedule. It’s one of Paul Graham’s classic essays which I highly recommend reading if
The web is not dying
Looking for a bit of techno-optimism this month? In this short but inspiring post by Manuel Moreale, he outlines his optimistic take on the future of the web despite what feels like a dystopian era we are told is coming. With the rise of AI, algorithmic influence engineering and geo-political social media bans to name just a few. It’s looking bleak. Or is it?
The web is not dying. People won’t stop creating because silly AI tools will flood the web with generated crap. Creative people are driven by the passion for creation.
Personally, I’m an optimist. The web will always continue to evolve but I truly believe people have a desire for authentic content. It might be trickier to find but it will be there and creators will continue to create it despite what any individuals, companies or governments try to do. AI reminds me of digital music and Kindle’s. We thought they will kill vinyl and books and for a minute they did until people wanted the authenticity these products provide.
🎁 Bonus content: If you are in the mood for some authentic content check out Manuel’s side project People & Blogs which highlights wonderful and creative human beings and their blogs, helping you discover new content to read.
🔗 Hyperlinks
Blackberry | The Movie
I’m a huge movie buff! but what I love even more is biopic movies about business. The Social Network, The Founder, Air to name a few. So when I heard there was a movie being made about Blackberry (AKA Research In Motion) and actors such as Glenn Howerton and Jay Baruchel were staring in it I had to watch it - and I wasn’t disappointed.
The movie explores the incredible growth and tragic collapse of the world's first smartphone and how it smashed huge enterprises before surrendering to Silicon Valley's fiercely competitive and well-funded companies.
So what was their demise? Well despite BlackBerry’s foothold in the enterprise and SMB markets they failed to anticipate that consumers would ultimately drive the smartphone revolution. They believed like Adobe, Flash was the future of mobile. Furthermore, the paradigm shift from a physical keyboard to a touchscreen which Apple introduced alongside the App Store ecosystem.
💡 Fun fact: Douglas Fregin, co-founder sold the majority of his shares shortly after Apple launched the first iPhone and as of 2007 his net worth was $1.7 billion making him one of the wealthiest people in Canada.
Turns out Blackberry is still operating, however, it seems they are no longer in the smartphone market but pivoted to cybersecurity.
MoneyWise | Finances of high-net worths
Sam Parr is back at it again and recently launched his new Podcast - MoneyWise. As a big personal finance nerd myself I’ve really enjoyed the first few episodes. In the pod, he interviews high-net-worth guests to explore insights into their personal finances and lifestyles. It’s pretty refreshing to hear these guests get radically transparent about the numbers, revealing things like their burn rates, portfolios, and spending habits despite some of them being anonymise.
However, although the content is fascinating to listen to it’s certainly tough at times to listen to millionaires and billionaires complain so feel free to experience those normal feelings of loathing, just leave the self-loathing behind.
Check out one of my favourite episodes below where a guy with $150 million lives on just $5k per month.
An idea that worked, after a couple that didn’t
This is the short story of how 9 months of building without success, 2 difficult pivots, and dozens of rejections resulted in the $1.5b acquisition of Loom 8 years later.
In this thread, Shahed Khan (co-founder of Loom) discusses why you'll likely start with an imperfect idea before landing on your winning product.
If there is one takeaway from this post let it be this:
It’s impossible to predict how things will go once you start—and it’s better to start and adapt than never launch because you’re worried something won’t work.
I’ve met so many people who spend way too much time worrying about factors outside of their control which cripples them. Additionally, spending too much time working towards a “perfect” product which hasn’t seen the light of day. As Shahed points out, it wasn’t until they observed someone using their product in a different way than they expected, did they come up with their final pivot to the Loom we know today.
Get your product in the hands of users as fast as possible and observe!
📱 Products
Cubby | The Collaborative Research Tool
I’m a self-confessed digital hoarder. I save everything I find interesting on the web, however, as I continue to amass this huge repository of media the tricker it gets to find something. Furthermore, this digital goldmine of mine requires little old me to make sense of it all and I personally don’t have the cognitive horsepower. So when I stumbled on Cubby this week I got excited. Cubby lets you store files (mp3, mp4) and links (YouTube, Tweets, Podcasts etc.), RRS feeds and let their AI ingest the lot and spit out a synthesised newsletter, blog post, research paper or tweet.
It also covers all bases, including a desktop app, mobile app and browser extension.
Unfortunately for me they don’t yet support Airtable as a data source which would have been ideal as I’ve got a database containing thousands of links I’ve curated over the past 3 years for this newsletter which I would love it to digest.
MFM AI | Chat With Every MFM Podcast Episode
I’m a big My First Million podcast listener in case you didn’t already know. I’ve listened to all 600+ episodes since they launched in late 2019. However, if I wanted to refer back to an episode I would need to find it, listen to the entire episode again to eventually locate the particular section I was interested in, until now. Andrew Pierno spent the weekend ingesting every episode into GPT 4.o and created an app so you can chat with it for free. I’ve already used it a few times and for most basic queries it provides detailed results in seconds. If you are interested in how he built this, he’s provided a detailed breakdown here.
Figma 101 | Free Figma Design Course
You might be thinking, why are you sharing a Figma design course? There are a billion of these available and you would be right. However, they aren’t all created by Matt Smith - this guy is a black belt in Figma and knows his shit when it comes to all things design and Figma. This video course is entirely free and the production value is on par with a cinematic movie - I have no idea why he’s giving this away for free but he is. Having had a good dig about the course it’s certainly aimed at beginners so you don’t need a design background or familiarity with Figma to get value from this course. I’ve already directed 2 consultancy clients to his content to get familiar with Figma to create a prototype of their product and the results have been great.
P.S. Having read back over this it sounds like this is a sponsorship. I can assure it’s not.
Beta Directory | Discover the latest tech products
This month’s latest early access beta products brought to you by Beta Directory are:
Canopi: The home screen for your life.
Quillo: Build a micro-site for everything you are.
Sequence: The future of video production software.
🐽 Other links to consume
What if software products did hardware? tech design concepts by Lucas Crespo
I need to make this my screen saver: The infinitely zooming image
Dispatch’s new brand and website is 🔥 The Design Scientist
🔮 Flashback
This month we’re going back to 2009 - a time when Twitter was just 3 years old but growing at breakneck speed with 58m users. This growth inspired a young company of first-time founders to launch a standalone device called TwitterPeek. The device only allowed the sending and receiving of Tweets - nothing else. It had an interface somewhat similar to a Blackberry in an email esk layout and would ping when a follower sent a new tweet which was infuriating to some. However, as you can imagine the device didn't bode well and was met with broad scepticism in the press. CNN.com 2009 Year in Review listed it as one of the top 10 biggest technology failures of 2009. Gizmodo went as far as to name TwitterPeek as one of the "50 Worst Gadgets of the Decade."
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Until next the next issue,
Sam | @thisdickie 👨💻