POSTS ON 

Personal

(0)
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.
This is some text inside of a div block.

Back to One Book a Week

Last week, I shared that I wanted to finish Master of the Game: Steve Ross and the Creation of Time Warner by Connie Bruck and another book. Well, I fell short. I finished reading the Ross biography and started—but didn’t finish—another book.

The goal was aggressive and I wanted to check the box, but I didn’t. No excuses. I just came up short. I put a good effort toward the goal but ran out of time.

This week, I’m going to focus on finishing a single book. Every time I try to do more than that, I regret it.

+ COMMENT

Weekly Update: Week Two Hundred Forty

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: 35
  • Total book digests created: 14
  • Total blog posts published: 210
  • Total audio recordings published: 103

This week’s metrics:

  • Books read: 1
  • Book digests created: 2 (using technology)
  • Blog posts published: 7
  • Audio recordings published: 0

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

  • Read a biography about Steve Ross, founder of Time Warner and Warner Communications
  • Added two books to my “book library” MVP
  • Tested prompts, system instructions, and LLMs to improve the quality of responses from the “book library” MVP
  • Created two book digests via my “book digest” MVP
  • Tested prompts, system instructions, and system settings to improve the quality of AI-generated book digests

What I’ll do next week:

  • Read a biography or autobiography
  • Read my highlights from David Allen’s Getting Things Done
  • Read my highlights from Tiago Forte’s Building a Second Brain
  • Read two resources on prompt engineering
  • Test different prompting for the “book digest” MVP
  • Test adding a book’s contents to the “book library” MVP in different ways to improve response quality
  • Identify the path to launching the MVPs publicly so others can test them

Asks:

  • None

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

+ COMMENT

Last Week’s Struggles and Lessons (Week Ending 11/3/24)

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 major struggles this week, just frustration. I couldn’t allocate as much time to this project as I wanted to. I had commitments to other projects that I had to make my priority this week.

What I learned:

  • Google’s Gemini large-language models (LLMs) don’t provide in-depth responses when you feed them multiple books via retrieval augmented generation (RAG). When they’re fed a single book, the responses are much better. Feeding too much “raw” information at once is counterproductive.
  • I described the problem I’m solving in a way that “feels” more accurate to me and that resonated well with investors when I pitched using it: “Entrepreneurs with photographic memories who read a ton have a superpower. I didn’t win the genetic lottery for photographic memory. I’m trying to solve that problem.” See this post for more details. I wonder how many other entrepreneurs have the same problem and are aware of it?
  • My excitement about this project has jumped since my developer friend began helping me. Having someone with contrasting skills to talk with and work through hurdles with has made a noticeable difference.
  • I haven’t addressed what to do with the highlights I make in a book. I want to figure out how to feed them into an LLM.
  • I need to retain what I’ve highlighted. Maybe create something that helps me review highlights. Or maybe pump my highlights into an app built for that purpose.
  • Prompting is a big deal, and I have a lot to learn about creating better prompts.  

Those are my struggles and learnings from the week!

+ COMMENT

Update on MVP for My Latest Project

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

With the help of a developer friend, I’ve created an MVP—two, really—for my current project. I’m starting by trying to solve two personal pain points:

  • Create a digest, for each book I read, that I can review and use as a reference. This was taking me 10 to 15 hours manually. The output was valuable, but the manual process wasn’t sustainable.
  • Create a library of all the books I’ve read. I want to be able to query all these books to help me solve problems or figure out the next action to take. Entrepreneurs with photographic memories who read a lot have a superpower. Their minds query everything they’ve read when they’re solving problems and make connections that uncover new insights. Those new insights help them develop unique solutions to problems or identify the unconventional next action to take given their goals. This is a huge advantage for these entrepreneurs. I don’t have a photographic memory, but I’m an avid reader. I want to use AI to help me remember and make connections between everything I’ve read. In other words, I want AI to help me develop this superpower.

I’m using an AI setup to create a digest of each book, and I’m impressed with the results. The quality isn’t as good as what I can manually create, but I see a path to getting it there. It’ll take work, but I think it can be done. One cool thing the AI has been good at is adding the frameworks an entrepreneur used to achieve success to the end of each digest. I didn’t include this in the digests I created manually, but having them in one place is helpful.

I’m using a separate AI setup to get answers to questions based on the contents of multiple books I provide. I’ve found a way to do this using retrieval augmented generation (RAG), which I’m happy about because I’m not technical. RAG allows you to provide a knowledge base to AI to complement its large-language model (LLM). In theory, this should result in more accurate and detailed responses. I’m finding that the answers are accurate, but they’re too high level to add value. They’re not detailed enough. When I ask AI to provide more in-depth responses, it doesn’t meet my expectations. I’m not sure if it’s the setup I’m using, my prompting, my system instructions, or something else. I’m using the same LLMs for both setups. I’m hoping the problem is with the instructions I’m providing, not the setup. But I’ll keep testing to see.

+ COMMENT

Marketing and I Are About to Become Better Friends

One of the things that prevented my company from reaching nine figures in revenue was our marketing. We didn’t have a marketing strategy, and execution wasn’t great either. We still managed to reach over $10 million in revenue—but despite our efforts, not because of them.

My company’s marketing efforts were a reflection of me, the founder. I suck at marketing. I don’t understand it, and I didn’t try to hire to fill my gap. Even today, I haven’t tried to understand marketing. Of course, I could—many people deeply understand marketing and have shared their wisdom in books and other content. I just haven’t put the energy into trying to learn it.

I doubt I’ll ever be a great marketer, but I think there is value in learning some of the timeless concepts and frameworks of marketing. This week I’ve decided that I’m going to try to learn them. I’m not exactly sure how it will happen. I imagine it will be a mix of reading and talking to marketing-minded entrepreneurs, but we’ll see.

Marketing has been my Achilles’ heel as an entrepreneur, but I’m excited to put effort into understanding it better. I think it will be fun.

+ COMMENT

My Reading Failure

I have a goal to read a biography or autobiography every week. I set the goal in April and have been pretty good about it, especially the last two months. But this past week, I didn’t finish the biography I was reading, Master of the Game: Steve Ross and the Creation of Time Warner by Connie Bruck.

I got annoyed with myself when I realized I wasn’t going to finish in time. Looking back, I probably could have if I’d been more strategic with my time earlier in the week. To compensate, I spent extra time reading this past weekend and accepted the failure. It is what it is—but I definitely don’t want this to become my norm. I enjoy reading and have benefited tremendously from this habit since I set my goal in April.

This week is pretty busy, but I want to finish the book I’m reading plus a new one. It’s aggressive, but I think it can be done.

Wish me luck!

+ COMMENT

Weekly Update: Week Two Hundred Thirty-Nine

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: 34
  • Total book digests created: 12
  • Total blog posts published: 203
  • Total audio recordings published: 103

This week’s metrics:

  • Books read: 0
  • Book digests created: 0
  • Blog posts published: 7
  • Audio recordings published: 0

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

What I’ll do next week:

  • Finish reading the biography about Steve Ross, founder of Time Warner and Warner Communications
  • Start reading a biography or autobiography
  • Test adding more books to the MVP
  • Fine-tune the MVP
  • Identify the path to launching MVP publicly so others can test it

Asks:

  • None

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

+ COMMENT

Last Week’s Struggles and Lessons (Week Ending 10/27/24)

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:

  • I’m not technical, so learning and applying the various technologies required to build an MVP for this book project has been frustrating. Some of the technologies built for nontechnical people don’t work as advertised. Luckily, I connected with a gifted engineer who helped me overcome hurdles and get a working prototype I can start testing on.

What I learned:

  • Google AI Studio is a good option for non-technical people who want to improve AI responses by adding supplemental data via retrieval augmented generation (RAG). But it’s more restrictive than using RAG by writing code. I was surprised how much AI Studio limits what you can do, decreasing the quality of the AI responses.  
  • I learned how to use Visual Studio Code to build an MVP. It’s hosted locally on my computer, and the outputs are significantly better than Google AI Studio’s.
  • I learned the limitations of Vertex AI Agent Builder.
  • I learned a ton about AI image-generation limitations and the opportunities they create, but that wasn’t related to this project.

Those are my struggles and learnings from the week!

+ COMMENT

Weekly Update: Week Two Hundred Thirty-Eight

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: 34
  • Total book digests created: 12
  • Total blog posts published: 196
  • Total audio recordings published: 103

This week’s metrics:

  • Books read: 1
  • Book digests created: 0
  • Blog posts published: 7
  • Audio recordings published: 0

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

What I’ll do next week:

  • Read a biography or autobiography
  • Create book digests for two books using Google AI Studio
  • Explore Google Vertex AI Studio
  • Test ways to improve the quality of AI-generated book digests by fine-tuning Google’s Gemini LLM

Asks:

  • None

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

+ COMMENT

Last Week’s Struggles and Lessons (Week Ending 10/20/24)

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:

  • I was frustrated this week with myself and others. I didn’t get some things done that I’d planned, and that got to me. They were my responsibility, so I was disappointed in myself. But I was also annoyed about the things I didn’t have the power to push through to completion.

What I learned:

  • I finished reading another biography about Samuel Irving Newhouse Sr. this week and recognized a pattern among entrepreneurs who achieve outsize success. Many have a photographic memory and make decisions quickly. Their minds make connections between the information they’ve consumed over the years and the problems in front of them, which allows them to make better decisions faster to solve their problems. In other words, their photographic memory prepares their mind to act decisively when a solution is needed.
  • Google AI Studio is a “browser-based integrated development environment (IDE) for prototyping with generative models.” This looks like a good way for a nontechnical person like me to fine-tune the output of Google’s models.
  • Some public sources provide scans of books, even older, hard-to-locate books.
  • I’ve lived with the problem I’m solving with this book project. I understand it deeply. If I build an MVP that solves my problems, it will likely resonate with other entrepreneurs.

Those are my struggles and learnings from the week!

+ COMMENT

Subscribe to receive new posts via email.

Submitted successfully!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form. Try again?