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: 70
• Total blog posts published: 455

This week’s metrics:

• Books read: 1
• Blog posts published: 7

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

• Read The Bernie Cornfeld Story, a biography about entrepreneur Bernie Cornfeld, who built Investors Overseas Services into a multibillion-dollar offshore fund-of-funds empire in the 1960s
• Added two more books that I read in 2023, these from Thomas Phelps and Chris Mayer, to the library on this site—see more here

What I’ll do next week:

• Read a biography, autobiography, or framework book
• Add four more books that I read before 2024 to the library on this site—see more here

Asks:

• Seeking technical lead or cofounder – I’m looking for a senior full-stack developer skilled in AI retrieval. If you know one who’d have an interest in working on the software project related to books, please introduce us!

Week two hundred seventy-five 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:

• I conducted demos to show the proof of concept (POC) that my engineer friend helped me build for potential engineering candidates. These meetings helped take the evaluation process to another level because the candidates could ask deep technical questions that showcased their thinking. Having my engineer friend on these calls was key so he could answer those questions and evaluate their thinking.
• Taking the POC to MVP will likely be a multistep process: (1) retrieval; i.e., reliably getting the information and chunks into the LLM; (2) model selection and parameter tuning; and (3) prompt engineering to achieve the desired minimum output quality threshold.

That’s what I learned and struggled with last 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

Cumulative metrics (since 4/1/24):

• Total books read: 69
• Total blog posts published: 448

This week’s metrics:

• Books read: 1
• Blog posts published: 7

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

• Read The Lifetime Learner’s Guide to Reading and Learning, a framework by entrepreneur Gary Hoover, who founded Hoovers, Bookstop, and American Business History Center.
• Added two more books that I read in 2023, these from Terry Smith and Adam Seessel, 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 that I read before 2024 to the library on this site—see more here
• Create a digest of one biography, autobiography, or framework book

Asks:

• Seeking technical lead or cofounder – I’m looking for a senior full-stack developer skilled in AI retrieval. If you know one who’d have an interest in working on the software project related to books, please introduce us!

Week two hundred seventy-four 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:

• Figuring out what my technical team needs to look like has been a challenge. Evaluating technical talent as a nontechnical person in a landscape that’s rapidly changing because of AI hasn’t been easy. I’ve leaned into a balance of leveraging technical people in my network to evaluate technical skill sets and trusting my gut based on past team-building experiences. Making progress, but slower than I want.

What I learned:

• Finding the right engineer has been a process, but I’ve learned there are a couple of paths I could take: a two-engineer team with a full-stack engineer leading an ML/AI engineer, or a single engineer who’s a full-stack engineer experienced in AI retrieval.
• I’m learning a ton about building a community of people around a particular topic. These tend to be niche, and the members need to add value so churn is minimized. Filtering people on the front end is a mechanism that paid communities use with strict criteria.
• Podcasts and sharing results from member surveys are great marketing strategies to generate leads for communities.

That’s what I learned and struggled with last 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

Cumulative metrics (since 4/1/24):

• Total books read: 68
• Total blog posts published: 441

This week’s metrics:

• Books read: 1
• Blog posts published: 7

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

• Read The Match King, a biography of entrepreneur and banker to governments Ivar Kreuger, whose international empire crumbled and was considered by many a fraud  
• Added two more books that I read in 2023, these from Phil Fisher and Edward Chancellor, 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 that I read before 2024 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 seventy-three 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:

• No material learnings this week

That’s what I learned and struggled with last 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

Cumulative metrics (since 4/1/24):

• Total books read: 67
• Total blog posts published: 434

This week’s metrics:

• Books read: 1
• Blog posts published: 7

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

• Read Printer’s Devil to Publisher, a biography of entrepreneur and publisher Adolph Ochs, who bought and rehabilitated The New York Times and turned it into an international newspaper
• Added two more books that 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 before 2024 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-two 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:

• Awareness is a challenge for entrepreneurs. It’s not easy for them to know what books about entrepreneurs exist and whether any particular book contains experiences relevant to them. People default to reading the most popular book that other entrepreneurs suggest, even though it might not be the one they need to solve the problem they’re dealing with at the time. Making it easy for entrepreneurs to know what experiences of other entrepreneurs have been written about—and where—adds tremendous value.

That’s what I learned and struggled with last 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

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 before 2024 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.