Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and sharing what I learned from them

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

Cumulative metrics (since 4/1/24):

• Total books read: 66
• Total blog posts published: 427

This week’s metrics:

• Books read: 1
• Blog posts published: 7

What I completed this week (link to last week’s commitments):

• Read Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends & Influence People, which lays out Carnegie’s framework for improving interpersonal skills, building relationships, and making others receptive to your way of thinking; it’s a great book about learning to “deal with people,” as Carnegie puts it
• Added two more books that I read in 2023 to the library on this site—see more here
• Created a digest of A Technique for Producing Ideas that distills the book’s main concepts into a short document

What I’ll do next week:

• Read a biography, autobiography, or framework book
• Add two more books I read in 2023 to the library on this site—see more here
• Create a digest of one biography, autobiography, or framework book

Asks:

• If you know any senior full-stack developers interested in working on the software for my current project, please introduce us!

Week two hundred seventy-one was another week of learning. Looking forward to next week!

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and sharing what I learned from them

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

What I struggled with:

• No material struggles last week

What I learned:

• Byrne Hobart founded The Diff, a newsletter about “inflections in finance and tech” that’s popular among investors and entrepreneurs. Hobart made the point that a few successful people started their companies because they first shared their thoughts via their newsletter. Doing so helped them become known for their thinking (i.e., develop a brand) and build a list of potential customers (i.e., newsletter subscribers). Hobart mentioned Shelby Davis, Ray Dalio and Bridgewater Capital, Bill Gurley, Warren Buffett, Charles Schwab, and others. A newsletter, he said, can be thought of as a brand and list of potential customers in search of a business. This is an interesting way to think about newsletters. To listen to Hobart talk about it, watch it here.

That’s what I learned and struggled with last week.

One thing I learned when my buddy helped me set up Google Tag Manager (GTM) on this blog was that to make the data actionable, I need to increase the number of readers. If we were to make big changes based on current GTM data, they could end up being mistakes. He tasked me with getting more people to the site. So far, people just organically find the site with no effort from me.

I’ve been thinking about doing this in two ways. One strategy is to create more content that people have already indicated they like. That’s already in progress. The other strategy is to increase awareness of the existing content. I don’t have a big social media following, but I’ve been testing a social strategy.

I’m a habitual lurker on social. I consume but rarely post. For some reason, the idea of posting my thoughts makes me uncomfortable, even though I blog every day. LOL. I decided to change this and began joining conversations. If there’s something I’m knowledgeable or curious about or that I found helpful, I’ll say so in an existing conversation. If I have knowledge or a perspective that others might find helpful, I’ll share my thoughts, and if it makes sense, I’ll provide a link to a post where they can read more of my thoughts on the topic or to the Library on this site, where they can read my notes on a particular book they might find helpful.

It’s early, but I’m seeing positive signs. And it’s surprisingly fun to be part of conversations about things I’m interested in. I’m still not starting new conversations; I’m just joining other people’s. But this feels like a baby step in that direction.

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and sharing what I learned from them

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

Cumulative metrics (since 4/1/24):

• Total books read: 65
• Total blog posts published: 420

This week’s metrics:

• Books read: 1
• Blog posts published: 7

What I completed this week (link to last week’s commitments):

• Read Influence, by Robert B. Cialdini, which explains the psychology behind people saying yes and doing what others ask of them as well as how psychology can be used to influence and persuade people
• Added five books I read in 2023 to the library on this site—see more here

What I’ll do next week:

• Read a biography, autobiography, or framework book
• Add two more books I read in 2023 to the library on this site—see more here
• Create a digest of one biography, autobiography, or framework book

Asks:

• If you know any senior full-stack developers interested in working on the software for my current project, please introduce us!

Week two hundred seventy was another week of learning. Looking forward to next week!

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and sharing what I learned from them

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

What I struggled with:

·      No material struggles last week

What I learned:

• Ben Thompson founded Stratechery, a “subscription-based blog, newsletter and podcast that provides analysis of the strategy and business side of technology and media.” Stratechery’s subscription model is what inspired the creation of Substack (according to Ben, Substack said in its seed deck that it’s Stratechery in a box). His platform is wildly successful, with tens of thousands of paying subscribers. Many tech CEOs subscribe to his blog, and he has interviewed CEOs such as Mark Zuckerberg (see here). The core of his business is written blog posts. These posts, or their content, are distributed in various ways (email, RSS, SMS, etc.) so subscribers can consume in the way that’s easiest for them. Ben teamed up with Automattic to create custom software that powers all this. The software is called Passport. It’s not available for purchase just yet, but they’re registering interest via their waitlist.
• According to Dan Martell, a personal brand can be thought of as a combination of reach and reputation. If lots of people know who you are and think positively of you, everything you want to do becomes easier. It can be a force multiplier of growth, especially with the distribution of entrepreneurs’ products and services. See here for Dan’s explanation of this concept in a segment of an interview he recently gave.

That’s what I learned and struggled with last week.

Last weekend was a holiday weekend, and I challenged myself to add five of my old reads to the library on this site (see here). It took longer than I’d planned (see here), but it forced me to review the notes and highlights in books I read in 2023, which was helpful and much needed. I want to regularly add more old reads to the library and review their highlights.

I know myself. If it’s not a regular habit, the chances of it happening are much lower. So, I’m going to experiment with a new challenge this weekend. If it works, I’ll keep doing it every weekend, hopefully. The challenge: add two old reads to my library by Monday.

It’s a simple goal, but it involves a lot of work behind the scenes. I’m hoping I can knock it all out this weekend, learn from it, and repeat it next weekend.

Wish me luck!

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and sharing what I learned from them

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

Cumulative metrics (since 4/1/24):

• Total books read: 64
• Total blog posts published: 413

This week’s metrics:

• Books read: 1
• Blog posts published: 7

What I completed this week (link to last week’s commitments):

• Read A Short History of Financial Euphoria, a recounting of history’s most famous financial bubbles—from 1600s’ Tulip Mania to the 1980s.  

What I’ll do next week:

• Read a biography, autobiography, or framework book
• Add five more books to the library on this site—see more here

Asks:

• If you know any senior full-stack developers interested in working on the software for my current project, please introduce us!

Week two hundred sixty-nine was another week of learning. Looking forward to next week!

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and sharing what I learned from them

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

What I struggled with:

• No material struggles last week

What I learned:

• A first-generation entrepreneur who has had some success but is trying to scale further: This is a profile of an entrepreneur with unique problems. More thoughts on this here.
• X (formerly Twitter) bios matter. They help establish credibility. People are more likely to respond to cold DMs if your bio shows you’re credible.
• Google Tag Manager (GTM) is up and running on the blog. GTM allows for much more granular tracking of actions and events on a website than Google Analytics. But before I can make any changes based on GTM data, I need to increase the traffic to this blog.

That’s what I learned and struggled with last week.

I like to use my holidays to unwind, but I also enjoy challenging myself. When I do, sometimes I succeed, and sometimes I fail (I chronically overestimate what I can accomplish). Regardless of the outcome, it’s fun to have a challenge to work toward. I always learn something during the process.

I haven’t done a Memorial Day challenge before, but I want to experiment this year. I’m proud of the library section I added to this site. It includes all the books I read in 2024 and 2025. Now I want to expand it to include all books I’ve read over the last decade or so. I think it’d be cool to have all the books I’ve consumed and found helpful listed in one place. It’s a longer-term project and I haven’t gotten started on it yet. I want to change that.

My goal for this holiday weekend is to add five books to my digital library by Tuesday. These will be books I read before 2024.

That’s it. Super simple. Wish me luck.

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and sharing what I learned from them

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

Cumulative metrics (since 4/1/24):

• Total books read: 63
• Total blog posts published: 406

This week’s metrics:

• Books read: 1
• Blog posts published: 7

What I completed this week (link to last week’s commitments):

• Read Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way, a biography about Ted Turner, the cable and media entrepreneur who created CNN, TBS, and several other cable channels, covering his early journey through 1980
• Tagged specific actions on my blog (with the help of my buddy) to start collecting data via Google Tag Manager
• Created the brand journey for this project (learn more about this framework here)

What I’ll do next week:

• Read a biography, autobiography, or framework book

Asks:

• If you know any senior full-stack developers interested in working on the software for my current project, please introduce us!

Week two hundred sixty-eight was another week of learning. Looking forward to next week!