Herro, Perro! w.2

Dear Friend,

This is my second weekly update! That thing about habits and routines and making sure you do them every week. It will pay off. I'm sure.

Arts & Culture

+RetroSuperFuture - I love this sunglass brand. I stopped in their showroom on my way back from jury duty and I'm really thinking about purchasing this pair of sunglasses. Do I need them? Absolutely not. But they'd look so rad!

+TinyPricks Project: On my way back from a meeting I stopped in Lingua Franca on Bleecker street which has this amazing art exhibit called TinyPricks. The concept is embroidered Trump quotes. It's both hilarious and sad. Mostly hilarious. Le sigh.

+Pizza Loves Emily: Best pizza I've had in a long time in NYC. Check it out, they have multiple locations. Jeff Bezos recently took his gf there for a date. What an amazing world where the worlds richest person eats the same food as you and me. Don't ever take that for granted.

Investing & Economics

+What the hell is going on? : Indeed.

+Howard Marks doesn't know either. But it's always good to read his thoughts. I find the prospect of hyper inflation scary and my intuition says...likely. Someone tell me I'm wrong.

+How to evaluate start up ideas: It's the first video of the YC Start Up School class...and it's really really good.

Entrepreneurial Pursuits

+Board Operating/System: The first week sprint was great. Below are my key learnings. Biggest challenge: we got to start building.

+Board governance is key pain point for both CEOs and investors who sit on many boards. Very little has been done to date to build software for this problem.

+Competition is real - we sit between board management portals and productivity software. We need to make sure we build a product that has a true competitive edge and a 10x hook

+Potential users react to the vision and product idea in a myriad of ways which means keeping the product simple, tight, and clear will be important.

+We may need to do some thought leadership as lead-gen for sales. Need to think carefully about how and where to use our time.

+Low-Abv drinking: We need to find a co-packaging company for all the products. It's not easy. No one wants to deal with your shit. For good reason. But I'm sure we will get there. May require a trip to the catskills. That's not the worst since I can visit Wilson and binge on bread.

+Market testing: I did not buy a bottle of Haus this week but that's pretty close to the idea. I did buy tickets to Listen Bar but I had to do some networking/pitching/real work and missed it. Bummer.

Reflections & Self-awareness

+I'm sad that I'm not in Turin with the BluHaus crew at Tinkering with Type. Can't do everything but I do miss doing that.

+I launched a paper on education reform strategies that promote public private partnerships in emerging market economies. It's called Beyond the Mirage. It's been on my to do list for 7 years. 7 years. I'm so glad it's out there and shipped. It reminded me of how far I am from the old life of single focus on emerging market schools and educations systems and how easily it could come back. Also, that I need to ship more writing. Proof read and ship. Don't be so fearful of criticism.

Thanks for reading, friend. Please always be in touch.