I Launched A Thing

For the last year, I’ve written pretty much nothing. With the exception of a piece I wrote on using psychology to improve conversion rate, and another about Kettle & Fire on SumoMe (link), I’ve pretty much let my writing skills atrophy in 2016. Though not ideal, it’s largely because I’ve been super busy! Founding, growing […]

How We Captured 3000+ Emails in 24 Hours (without advertising)

Just last week, in preparation for our re-launch of Traction, we launchedTraction Course, a free 14-day email course that shows you how to double your Facebook ad ROI, get more Twitter followers, and improve your email open rates by 30%+. And, in just a week, we’ve grown our email list by nearly 50%, adding 3,000+ […]

6 Ideas to Solve the California Drought

This post is a thought experiment. Clearly, I’m missing some of the nuance around this issue. However, thinking about how to solve this was fun, and I think some of the below ideas could be useful. Lately, there has been a loooot of fighting, politicizing and hand-wringing about the drought in California (see CA website). […]

Why Virtual Reality Will Change Your Life

There’s a lot of hype in the Valley around virtual reality. Microsoft, Phillips, Samsung and Google are all entering the game currently dominated by Facebook and their $2 billion purchase of Oculus Rift — the VR system with the most hype, despite the fact that it hasn’t shipped yet. I’ve tried the Oculus, and can testify that […]

The New Unemployment

I live in a bubble. Most people I know are gainfully employed, or running a company they started. Statistically, most people my age (25) aren’t doing as well. Youth unemployment is about 13%. Further, most of the unemployed aren’t employable — nearly a million lack even a high school diploma, and another 1.8 million are out of […]

8 Questions to Create an Interesting Conversation

I love questions that make conversations, life more interesting. After reading this article last week, I’ve been thinking a lot about questions I like that make for fascinating conversation. Here’s a short list: What do you believe is true that almost nobody agrees with? (The Peter Thiel question) What’s the last thing that made you […]

How I (almost) Made $400k in College

When I was 20, I learned a hard lesson about believing in yourself and doubling down. It was 2011 and I had just moved to SF to integrate myself into the tech world. As such, when I saw an opportunity to win a lunch with Robert Scoble for answering a question on Quora about technology […]

How to Build Confidence in 5 Minutes a Day

This summer I developed a morning routine. I’ve read several books about how great men and women worked, and a common thread in almost each individual’s story was a routine they followed each and every morning. Maya Angelou rented a hotel room where she’d start writing every morning at 6:30. Ben Franklin used to sit […]

We are all (almost) millionaires

Never before have expectations been so high about what human beings can achieve with their lifespan. We’re told, from many sources, that anyone can achieve anything. We’ve done away with the caste system. We are now in a system where anyone can rise to any position they please. And it’s a beautiful idea. Along with […]

Value Compounds. Mediocrity Doesn’t.

Over the last 2 months, I’ve released two Udemy courses: one on how marketers can use SQL, and the other on maximizing your productivity on your Mac. The first course on SQL I spent 40+ hours creating. It’s a topic I know well, and a skill set I had to teach myself over weeks of […]

Justin Mares

Thoughts on startups, marketing and life