Sahil Lavingia Profile picture
Aug 27, 2019 5 tweets 1 min read Read on X
Everyone's standing in line.

To meet with investors.
To get an agent.
To sell a screenplay.

Most people never get to the front. The people who do got pulled out – by nepotism, chance, a returned favor, timing.

Find a way to skip whatever line you're in, or risk dying in it.
I wish success was about being a great artist, writer, painter, engineer.

But it's just as much about who you know, and who knows you.

Too many creatives focus on honing their craft, and not enough on how they can meet the people who will change their trajectory with one intro.
Starving artists care about product.

Well-fed artists care about distribution.

Taylor Swift was a phenomenal artist. But her dad was also a shareholder in the music label that signed her.

You need both.
To me, privilege isn't about "you don't deserve that."

It's about: "everyone else does too."

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More from @shl

Jan 11, 2023
If you’re living in San Francisco and feeling unusually depressed, you may have SAD: Seasonal Affective Disorder.

Research suggests it affects brown people more than others, FWIW.

I lived in SF for years, but only learned about it after moving to Portland, OR. Hope this helps! twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
My best guess so far is that SAD is an evolutionary adaptation to reduce caloric spend during the winter / monsoon season, when it was hard to come by food for months on end.

The best antidote I’ve found so far is going for a really long walk, 15,000 steps or so (2-3 hrs).
I’m glad I experience this “bone level sadness” for a few months a year.

It makes me much more empathetic to those who suffer from all the other kinds of depressions, which may not have as simple or free (or socially acceptable) antidotes.

I do need to leave Portland though.
Read 4 tweets
Aug 4, 2022
Last year, I wrote an article about we work at Gumroad–with no meetings, no deadlines, and no-full-time employees.

Since then, we raised $5M via crowdfunding, grew the team, stopped growing, and entered a recession.

In response:

sahillavingia.com/work
In summary, at Gumroad:

- Everyone now works 20-35 hours a week
- A quarterly cadence
- No more anti-overtime rate
- Equity by the hour

More on each change and why:
Previously: anyone worked as flexibly as they wished.

Problem: in practice working a few hours a week meant one could never work on anything considered valuable to our users.

Now: we ask everyone to work 15–35 hours a week.
Read 7 tweets
Apr 26, 2022
I think Twitter Polls could generate more revenue than Twitter Ads currently does.

A thread 🧵
In 2020, Twitter did $3.72B in revenue. (And lost $-277M in net income.)

In 2020, the public opinion and polling industry did $6.93B in revenue.
The polling industry’s business model is simple: Clients pay firms to survey people for demographic insights.

For example, Mitt Romney pays a firm to see what his odds of winning the Utah Governor race may be.
Read 10 tweets
Sep 21, 2020
How to learn to write:

First, stop comparing your first draft to anyone’s published masterwork.

That stuff’s been written, rewritten, reviewed, copy edited, line edited, and more. Let them inspire you, but not demotivate you.
Instead, compare your unpublished words to your peers’ unpublished words. You'll start to notice mistakes in their work that you missed (and can now fix) in your own.

The best way to do this is to start a writing group and meet regularly.
To collect feedback, I prefer the ABCD framework:

- What’s Amazing?
- What’s Boring?
- What’s Confusing?
- What Didn’t you believe?

Beyond the feedback, a writing group can also keep you going when you would have otherwise given up.
Read 4 tweets
Sep 4, 2020
How to get a dream job at your dream company:

Research the company.
Use the product.
Find the CEO's email online.
Write a personable and specific email relaying your experience. Suggest some ideas, report a bug, or include a small UX improvement.
Read 4 tweets
Aug 5, 2020
This is the plan! Starting now: I have wired two checks for $100K each, with one more pending.
One more thing: I am redeploying the vast majority of my management fee as LP capital, so 96% of the fund is going towards new startups. (Versus the traditional 80%.)
One more $100K check wired! Thanks to @AngelList for making it so easy. All I have to do (after deciding to invest) is fill out a 5-question Typeform, check some legal boxes, and CC their team on the thread.

I'll record a video if anyone's curious to see how easy it really is!
Read 4 tweets

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