This one lesson has been critical to my success in life and business.
It allowed me to graduate high school at 15, drop out of college to start my first company at 17, and build a multi-million dollar company.
I was homeschooled growing up. When I was 12 years old I remember it snowing fast on a winter day. I couldn't wait to go sledding!
But instead of a pile of snow to play in, I had a pile of schoolwork to do.
There’s no such thing as a “snow day” when you’re homeschooled.
Mom noticed my despair at missing out on near perfect sledding conditions.
“You know, school doesn’t have to take a set amount of time. The sooner you complete your work, the sooner you can go sledding.”
You've never seen a more focused kid. 2 hours later I was in the snow.
That snowy day I learned one of the most valuable lessons of my life: you can set your own pace for learning and getting ahead in life.
My friends were all older than me, so not wanting to be left behind when they all went to college, I asked my parents one question:
"Is high school a fixed number of years or a fixed amount of work?"
Since I had older siblings the curriculum was already established. My parents let me work at my own pace. I used summer road trips to finish a month of math in a day.
The result: I graduated high school at 15.
At 16 I had my first paid web design gig.
At 17 I had finished 2 years of college, but decided to drop out after landing my first $10k job.
At 21 I was building iOS apps.
At 22 I published my first book earning $12k in the first day.
I went as fast as possible.
It was @sivers that gave me the phrase "There is no speed limit" to describe the life I had already lived.
He had learned a semester of music theory in a single morning then tested out of the class. Ultimately finishing his degree from Berklee years early.
In business & life—especially as a creator—there's no set amount of time that something should take. If you're willing to put in more work than anyone else and find real leverage you can get the results much faster.
So don't let anyone tell you there's a speed limit.
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Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) is the greatest marketer alive today.
Here are 6 things I learned from studying his work:
1. Insert yourself into the narrative
In the "2020: A Match made in Hell" ad he used Taylor Swift's not yet released re-recording of Love Story. When all the press was talking about Taylor re-recording her masters just the fact that Ryan used the song become noteworthy.
This is the same thing that @dhh and @jasonfried did by publishing a story about Bezos invested in Basecamp on the day that Bezos became the richest man in the world.
The conversation was already happening, they found a way to insert themselves into the narrative.
That's great, but there's a broader trend you should be aware of:
We looked at data across over 4 billion emails sent to see how iOS 15 is affecting open rates: the average has increased from 30% in August to 34% in November.
Apple released Mail Privacy Protection in iOS 15 which automatically loads the pixels in an email to prevent senders from collecting any info about the receiver.
Open rates are calculated by embedding a tiny pixel into the email logging an open when the pixel is loaded.
Since Apple is automatically loading pixels regardless of subscriber behavior, emails are appearing to be opened whether they are actually opened by the subscriber or not.
With about 63% of iOS users running iOS 15 we expect those open rates to continue to climb with installs.
Did you know that 50% of motels in the United States are owned and operated by people of Indian origin?
This is the story about a Patel Motel Cartel and it's my favorite example of hard work, community, and investing profits to build wealth.
In the 1950s families from India started to immigrate to the US. Because it was so expensive they often relied on money from family to help with travel expenses and getting settled.
Once in the US they got jobs, earned more, helped another family member make the same move.
Up until now it's a normal story of family helping family.
Until these two twists:
1) the money was never repaid, but always paid forward. 2) they pooled more money for a down payment on a small motel.
We've all heard it. But what if your current project actually is a failure and you should move on?
How do you know when to shut down or double down?
Here's the mental model I used to answer that question for ConvertKit (now $29M ARR):
In 2014 I was at a crossroads. I'd been working on @ConvertKit for 18 mo and we were at just $1.4k MRR.
@hnshah called me out on it: “Admit that ConvertKit is a failure and shut it down. Move on to something else. You’ll be successful at whatever you do, so start something new.”
It hurt, but he was right. Our revenue peaked a year earlier and was on a steady decline.
This isn't the shape you want on your revenue graph.
When you're looking for a new role make sure to join a company that is Remote First.
🌐💻
Before checking the "Remote" filter on a job board would cut the list down by half. Today most roles are remote friendly.
But remote doesn't mean the same thing at every company. Understand the difference between companies that are Remote First & those that are Remote Forced.
Remote first companies:
1. Focus on async communication: They understand that communication doesn't have to happen in realtime.
Often the best communication is async: someone can create a post or video when it's right for them & everyone else can consume it on their schedule.