Pete's February 2021 update
"You could make this place beautiful." Chrome tab zero, glow worms and gifs.
This is my experimental monthly update on me as a “product” in development. Subscribe here or send it to someone who might be interested.
I’ve been on sort-of-leave for the past 2.5 weeks and it’s been a nice change of pace. Found ways to keep busy, of course…
Highlights and Insights
Glow worms! Inspired by Matthew Werner’s visit, we went hunting for local glow worm sites and found the 5 waterfall walk in Lawson. Got some OK photos — need a better tripod and some practice to get the little glowies in focus. We escaped just before a massive thunderstorm hit.
Startup mentoring. In just one day I met with founders of a B2B fintech, B2C productivity app, D2C skincare brand, and a goal-setting and accountability product. And boy are my arms tired! The following week it was founders of a location-based commerce app and a journalism authenticity platform, whose founder told me “I just got a Fakebook reminder that 9 years ago I was in an Egyptian prison.” You have my attention!
Insight: raising money from investors is the default mindset when you’re in the startup space. More attention needs to be paid to bootstrapping and remaining “just right” baby bear businesses.
Also, I think there’s a gap in the market for a “brand and marketing” accelerator to get new products to launch, especially for those that rely on a strong brand, community and supporters.
Forget “Inbox Zero”, I have achieved CHROME TAB ZERO! You may applaud. On my phone I had 43 open tabs of ‘to-read’ articles that I was just never in the right mood for, but I smashed through them. On desktop I absolutely recommend the magic of Session Buddy which lets you save tabs for another time. At the end of the work week I can “save and close” my work window, then just re-open them all with a double-click on Monday. It feels so good to not see that stuff when I’m off the clock.
A lot of gifs were made in the writing of this article: What I learned about business from Will Ferrell’s SNL audition applies comedy lessons to the startup world.
Taught a one-day Entrepreneurship course for University of Sydney which was very well received (even better than I expected!). I used one of our Future Minds edtech startups to run a live trading game, Breakeven, which was a big hit with the students. Screenshot below of what students thought of the game activity — using the “Annotate” tool in Zoom to keep engagement high.
Requests
I’m doing some freelance consulting with Arcturious. If you know any organisations looking for awesome help with strategy, technology or innovation — at a mid-tier price — please put us in touch.
Check out our creative side hustle, the Intentional Pun User Network (“IPUN”) at i-pun.com, our merch shop at RedBubble, and our Insta. All credit to Lucy for the designs and legwork! I’m just the weirdo who started to call oven mitts “Bernie Handers” after inauguration day.
Coming up
How to start your own business / startup / side hustle online workshop, with Filipa Araújo — Wednesday 24 March, “Pay what you can” ticket price
Read / watch / listen
A playful way to deliver bad news [watch]: Dodie, “a bit of news”
The Pirate Problem [read]: The solution to this puzzle did not go the way I thought it would!
How the Twin Peaks Theme was written [watch & listen]. Angelo Badalamenti plays the Laura Palmer theme and narrates the writing process with David Lynch. “Oh that’s so beautiful! Angelo! Oh, that’s tearin’ my heart out.”
This poem really got to me one Thursday morning. [read or listen or watch]: Good Bones, by Maggie Smith
“I can tell something bad is happening in the world when my poem is surging. I’m happy for the poem by not the circumstances of its popularity. I wish I had written a poem that people share when babies are born or people get married.” — Maggie Smith, author of Good Bones.