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).
Aug 4, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
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.
- 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:
Apr 26, 2022 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
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.
Sep 21, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
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Instead, compare your unpublished words to your peers’ unpublished words.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.
Sep 4, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
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.
Here's one that worked:
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%.)
Jul 12, 2020 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
The primary method of learning is trial and error.
To learn faster you can increase the rate at which you try things, or the rate at which you find errors in your work.
Mar 11, 2020 • 16 tweets • 3 min read
In 2015, while we were struggling to raise a Series B, we went from burning $350K a month to making $10K in profit. Here’s how we did that, if it’s useful to you in these uncertain times:
- First, we raised a bridge round of financing from our existing VCs (at less than ideal terms, $2m with a 4x liquidation preference). We wouldn’t have done it, except we needed the money. This bought us six extra months on top of the runway we already had.
Mar 5, 2020 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
New WFHers! I’ve been working remotely for five years. Some things I learned along the way:
- Shower and leave the house, even if you plan to come back soon after. Sets the tone for the rest of the day and avoids cabin fever.
- Stop working. It’s easy to overwork. I set limits and stick to them, as if I were working a traditional 9-5 job.
- Get a really boring co-working space. If I need to do work I really don’t want to do, I go there. Fewer distractions and excuses not to do the work.
Feb 5, 2020 • 6 tweets • 4 min read
We put a lot of thought and care into our "brand" at Gumroad.
As a product-first person, it took me a while to wrap my head around what that even meant. But we do a great job now, and I'm excited to open source our internal brand book in an effort to help others!
A thread 👇🏽
There are three major parts I'd like to share here, and the rest is linked to at the end (so this thread doesn't get super long):
1. Why we exist 2. How we talk 3. How we act
Jan 29, 2020 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
Going fully remote was nice, but the real benefit was in going fully asynchronous. Here are a list of the benefits we've seen at @Gumroad:
A thread 👇🏽
@gumroad All communication is thoughtful. Because nothing is urgent (unless the site is down), comments are made after mindful processing and never in real-time. There's no drama.
Dec 18, 2019 • 102 tweets • 9 min read
1 like on this tweet = 1 thing I learned about animation/filmmaking/entertainment while living in LA.
1. voice acting first. animation second. animators can animate to dialog and sound. the other way around... brutal.
Dec 11, 2019 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
“Why do they teach physics in high school? It’s useless in real life!”
Here are some concepts from physics I use on a regular basis in business and life:
Inertia: getting started is the hardest part.
Coefficient of rolling friction: much less energy to keep going.
Potential energy versus kinetic energy: how many people sign up versus how many people finish?
When you start a company, you raise money on potential. When you are three years in, you’re raising based on how well you were able to convert it into kinetic.
Aug 28, 2019 • 15 tweets • 2 min read
Skin in the Game by @nntaleb is the non-fiction book I've read recently that has stuck with me the most.
This is a thread of my highlights, with no additional commentary. If they're interesting, I recommend reading the book.
"Bureaucracy is a construction by which a person is conveniently separated from the consequences of his or her actions."
Aug 27, 2019 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
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.
Aug 11, 2019 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Didn't think I made many friends in Silicon Valley, but it turns out I made several.
Just had to hang out with people as a human being instead of as CEO, recruiter, or salesperson, to see that.
Easier said than done...
In SF it was easy to meet new people. "You're both founders of startups, meet!"
But second meetings rarely happened. And when they did, it often had a business reason.
Breaking that loop, "let's hang for no reason," was surprisingly difficult.
May 23, 2019 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
There is a new focus on remote work, but I think it's just a stepping stone towards something much more interesting: flexible work.
Step one: Work wherever you want
Step two: Work as little or as much as you want
For example, an engineer could work at Facebook 60 hours a week and make $250K a year.
Or, work at Gumroad 20 hours a week and make $150K a year.
How many would prefer to make $100K less a year for an extra 40 hours per week to spend elsewhere?
Apr 11, 2019 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Me: "Learn to sell!"
Twitter: 😃😊😌
Me: "Learn to write!"
Twitter: 😀🙂😄🙂🙂
Me: "Learn to code!"
Twitter: 😡😡🤬😡😄😡😕🤬😡
You don't have to learn how to code, but…
I learned iPhone development in three weeks from Stanford's free CS193P course on iTunes University with no prior coding experience.
A year and a half later I joined Pinterest as employee #2 and got to make Pinterest for iPhone.
Mar 28, 2019 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
I love my VCs. Here are some of the most memorable things I have learned from them:
(Quotes theirs, commentary mine.)
"There's nothing like numbers to f*** up a good story." – @joshk
If you're raising a seed round or maybe even a Series A, you can do it on a great story alone. But once you have numbers, good or bad, they will provide evidence that maybe that story isn't as true as you think.
Mar 21, 2019 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Most profound thing I've learned in the past eight years is the difference between behavior and intention.
Behavior is what someone is doing, intention is why they're doing it.
You judge yourself based on your intention, and everyone else based on their behavior.
Intention is often inferred from behavior.
Almost all disagreements within an otherwise aligned team come from a misunderstanding about intention.
To minimize: when doing anything as part of a team, you should always specific *why* you're doing something instead of just what.
Mar 19, 2019 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
The music, publishing, film, and startup industries are almost identical. The models are similar, it's mostly the nouns that are different.
🎵 Music has artists, managers, labels.
📚 Publishing has authors, agents, publishers.
👩🏻💻 Tech has founders, incubators, and VCs.
Managers help musicians refine their music and help find a label.
Agents help authors refine their book and help sell it to a publisher.
Incubators help founders refine their pitch and help sell equity to a later-stage VC.
