Building The Machine #16: Disconnecting and Reconnecting

Part of my theme of focus I have removed most social media from my phone, and taking a bit of a Twitter break. This doesn’t mean I won’t be back - happy reading.

What I am Writing✍️

Longtime readers and friends know that I focus my time on 3 things; Coaching, Operating, and Investing. My operating is made up of Fractional consulting where I help others who are becoming fractional consultants, and my own Fractional COO work. Throughout this time I have presented and run many consulting “jobs” in the same way and am very proud to have put out a post about how I run my fractional consulting practice, included a free comprehensive template you can use for Fractional consulting.

Fun fact; I put out this template on gumroad as a “pay what you want” encouraging people to buy me a “coffee” if its helpful and people actually did! I want this to be totally free but its still wild to put something out into the world and have people pay for it.

What I am Reading📖

1️⃣ The Gen Z Shake - Similar to the millennial pause (see article), this is a hilarious observation that is spot on.

2️⃣ $2m a year to achieve the body of a 20 year old - the semi viral article from a ways back that went around about how you can eat, train, and “advance” your body younger.

3️⃣ Storing value in objects - yes this is a crypto post. No you won’t regret reading it.

4️⃣ What to do with old office space? Give it back to the bank.

5️⃣ Pocket sized open source AR monocle - this device is cool in a lot of ways. This is the kind of thing that when you see it you scratch your head. However, the same is true of seeing a Raspberri Pi which is a micro computer you can do amazing things with.

6️⃣ Grass for 57 superbowls - this NYTimes story about the groundskeeper for the past half century was pretty great. They went from spending almost nothing to millions on grass for these games.

7️⃣ Clone yourself - a Wharton professors journey into using AI to clone his likeness and voice, and create himself virtually. This is going to become common place and the tools to do so are coming from every angle. This is an interesting one as I went to find out who was building in this space - specifically who was creating AI based chatbots of people I wanted to talk too - which led me to an old friend and now startup that is doing exactly this.

8️⃣ Internships getting coffee are over - welcome to the TikTok Intern generation

9️⃣ Venture funding hits 9 year low in Feb. says the WSJ - my spicy take? This is a lack of conviction on the part of investors. I think 2023 will be one of the best vintages in venture and those brave enough to allocate during this time will be rewarded. If you have capital, and are looking for venture scale builders, now should be the time you find and invest in them. It is upsetting that this happening and I am a strong believe that we should have MORE not LESS VC dollars in the ecosystem. Yes, I know how many new GPs there are. Yes, I know how hard it is to fundraise.

Tools I use 🛠️ 

Notion is the 9 tool I have recommended here and can’t believe I didn’t mention it earlier. It is the theme of my post for this newsletter, having just released my free consulting template in Notion. I use it for Notebooks that govern client projects, Kanban boards to manage my freelancer projects, and generally other project management tasks. I love it and recommend it often.

Celebrate your wins🏆

Play the long game. I heard from someone who has been following and reading my materials for years and turned into a client. I hear these stories often and they are worth celebrating.

Have a win worth celebrating? Reply and let me know.