last week i listened to a podcast with peter thiel and tyler cowen (link). in the q&a section at the end, peter says something that struck me about the hidden meaning we have in language: “I’m skeptical of people who excessively invoke science as an incantation of sorts. When you use the word science it’s often a tell, like in poker, that you’re bluffing and…
why you should find things you hate doing
one of the bigger things i’ve learned while running kettle & fire is that there are a LOT of things i hate doing. bookkeeping, accounting, reading contracts, any sort of admin stuff that feels boring. dealing with sending in amazon inventory. calls with agencies. working on legal stuff. bleh. this aversion to doing stuff like the above has had really, really, painfully negative consequences for kettle &…
how to mock up a website in keynote
for a long time i’ve wanted to figure out how to do mockups in tools i know how to use (aka not photoshop, omnigraffle, hotgloo or something like that). i also wanted to use tools that i could quickly pull together and hack together on my own. well, last week i figured out how to mock up a webpage in keynote. i pulled together something very…
why i’m writing without capitalization
take a look at my blog posts from 2016. it shouldn’t take long: i wrote 3 of them. during the same period, i wrote 18 different drafts that i never published. why? i like writing, it’s something i want to get better at, etc. etc. but the reality is, for each of the 18 posts i drafted last year, i got 90% of the way…
startups i’d invest in today
at some point in the next 10 years, i plan to start an angellist syndicate. until then, i’ll be writing occasional (timestamped) posts detailing the companies i would invest in today, and why i’d invest in them. the goal is to build a track record of predictions around startup success before it’s happened. most companies i’ll look at will be in the tech and food…
Meta Problems and the Problem Stack
After leaving Rackspace (post Exceptional acquisition), I was stuck with what felt (to me) like the ultimate first world problem. I didn’t know what company to start next. In the end, I started Kettle & Fire bone broth. I also ended up buying another company, Fomo, in the marketing tools space — another space I knew well. Both are going well and I’m quite happy with where…
zero sum
someone yesterday asked me what i thought about the food industry (i run kettle & fire, a bone broth company) after coming from tech. truthfully, it’s amazing – the parts i’m involved with, at least. i love being in the same world as companies like purewod, perfect keto, misfit and kind, all working to improve the food system and create delicious-yet-healthy products. products that can…
Complete Work, Don’t Create It
One of the things I’ve done as part of running a bone broth company in a city full of tech people is pull together a weekly non-tech mastermind group. In the group, we all take turns sharing things going well in our respective businesses, share 1 thing we’re struggling with, and mention a tip or trick we learned since the last meeting. It’s pretty awesome….
Habits vs goals
Solving big problems often comes down to behavior change. How do I get someone to eat better, stop stressing, get more sleep, get in better shape? “Goal setting!” is a common refrain. I disagree. The times in my life that have lead to lasting change are the times I built habits that then became a part of my identity. That’s it. In my humble opinion,…
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 and running Kettle & Fire has taken up more than…