• Make the Great Wolf Lodge wand a smart wand using an Arduino
• Sticky advice videos
• Get better at roasting coffee
• Shared book project
• Write more
• Use the robots to code more
• Frame art more
• Hit post more
• Ring around the neighborhood
• Every day reader

The number of websites that I linked to back then that are no longer around is crazy. Over 75% I’d say. Back then, I thought these sites would never die and they would be the new institutions. I was wrong. Things change and links rarely get redirected.

Side note, I hated Apple with a real passion back then. That passion waned over the years. Melissa won a HomePod Mini at work last week. This stupid speaker doesn’t work with Android or Spotify or Bluetooth. The hatred is back!

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The most famous has to be GitHub Pages powered by Jekyll. I spun up a couple of those sites over last couple years. It’s easy and hosting is free.

Recently, I wanted to see what else was out there and gave Hugo a shot. Hugo runs on a different tech stack than Jekyll, but you can also host it on GitHub pages.

It’s fast and fairly easy to pick up. If you’re so inclined, give it a go.

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I always slap my head when reading, say, an executive summary that’s being submitted to a competition and reads like every other executive summary.

Why not stand out? Find inspiration NOT from other executive summaries, but from a short-story or a great recipe or a movie.

You can still copy, err be inspired, by others work. Just not your competitors.

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Giving growth and marketing advice to the earliest stage startups is tough. So many things need to be done that it’s almost impossible to focus. Lack of team, time, and money overwhelms the mind quickly.

I’ve noodled on what a good, simple, and achievable heuristic could be. The best I’ve got is to write 1,000 words a day.

That’s not internal emails or Slack message words. That’s 1,000 public-facing words. Blog posts, LinkedIn comments, introductory emails, scripts for videos you produce, etc. If you can get to five digits of words a day I think you’re doing something.

Is this a good idea? Is it achievable?

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The creativity and ingenuity of those two culture changing companies is inspiring.

Since a time machine that goes backwards is almost certainly impossible the best I can do is listen to a five hour podcast with John Carmack and watch a six hour documentary about ILM.

I can recommend both. Comment over at LinkedIn

How can we speed up his potty training? Let me look it up.

We all trust top search results more than we should. But I talk to founders every week who have no SEO strategy.

If I trust the top search result to raise my kid, then I’m pretty sure I’m buying from a top search result too.

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It was a response I got some genius thing I said yesterday.

I nodded and we went along with our conversation. Upon further reflection I think this what I wish I would have said.

“Then get a job at ‘big company x in your industry’ or, heaven forbid, Wall Street. If there isn’t a passion beyond money I don’t know why you’d work for an early stage startup. It’s too hard and the chances for a big win are too low. Working to solve a hard problem and provide real and new value to people is a motivating factor that will keep you going.”

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I get more views to video posts that are YouTube links than I do to videos that are natively uploaded to LinkedIn.

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The useless directions I provided to Melissa this weekend.

There were seven turns before this turn. I counted. In my mind, I already moved through those obvious turns and was already at the only turn in question.

I find myself giving similar directions when talking about strategy. After thinking about something deeply, I find myself providing answers only to the problems in question. This doesn’t help people who aren’t in the room. Taking people on the complete journey might take a little extra time upfront, but it saves hours or years of confusion down the road.

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I figured I share it here.

I had a Jeep with a fried electrical system. It needed real work. Someone was interested in buying it and I asked Dave if $750 was a good price.

His answer, “well, you can’t negotiate up.”

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I’m not 100% sure starting a brewery was their goal back then. It wasn’t as obvious a path as it is now. But their passion was beer and bringing friends together. We were invited to countless brew days at their house. They were home brewing. We were BBQing or just sampling past home brews.

Over the years, they kept hammering on their passion while finding ways to make money. Brian cleaned kegs at Thomas Creek for a while. They both learned to sell the Sandler way. Something worth trying, but only if it makes sense for you.

Over the July 4th week, I spent real-time at Fireforge Crafted Beer. The physical result of over a decade of passion shared with the world. The beer is untamed. The experience is big gnomed. The hospitality is Brian and Nicole.

I love to see passion pursued. Congrats guys!

I know both startups and big corporates run on slide decks. I don’t understand. The Declaration of Independence is 1,320 words. In 1,320 words the inspiration and the case for starting a new country was made.

Folks can’t spend the time to write or read 1,320 words to make the case for a startup or a new project inside of a company? You’re that busy?

You’ll read 1,320 words in one scroll through LinkedIn. I say give it a shot. For fun, see if you can write a Declaration of your business in 1,320 words.

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