Pete's October update
Pun and Punctuation
Last night the power went out in Waitati but our solar battery was fully charged and everything worked as it was supposed to. (Except the stove — we can’t cook anything when we’re off grid.)
Highlights and Insights
Startups supported: 17 deep dives, plus 1 small investment via equity crowdfunding, and one corporate “startup” project (Zip).
Got this lovely unsolicited feedback from a founder: “Pitching was really daunting for me... You made the experience approachable, and I reconsidered what I thought were barriers.” 🥰
I’m feeling a lot more confident in my coaching/advising/EIRing after the past few months. My approach defaults to ‘listen, diagnose, ask questions’ rather than doling out advice. I do feel like an imposter, especially when I’m in the room with people with scars and a startup-rich bio, but I’ve been getting good feedback and the startups are progressing well.Operations: My systems are coming in very handy! I’ve had to do some quick reporting in the past month and I’ve been able to provide comprehensive answers without much trawling.
I ditched my Asana task tracking Kanban in favour of a simpler checklist (in Notion, because why not experiment with new systems while I’m at it 😆). I found that the friction of creating a new task in Asana meant I just wasn’t doing it, and things were getting lost. Task-creation is now a single click and it’s working. My next step is to make sure I default to the list rather an an inbox.Book progress is abysmal. Embarrassing. I haven’t had the headspace or free chunks of time to get into it. I suspect part of that is that I lost momentum, and the other part is having other projects crowding my mind. Today marks the start of Nanowrimo and once upon a time I wrote more than 50,000 words in a month. At some point I’ll set myself a goal like that, but it won’t be this November.
Lots of gardening. Pretty much all weekend is ‘maintenance time’, which is great because I get sunshine, physical exercise, music/audiobook time, and time away from screens. Then snacks, beer and whiskey as a reward.
Startup Comedy Night was amazing. It ate a lot of my bandwidth because I wanted it to be great. (OMG remember the alot?) And it was great. The live audience made it enjoyable, and the performers made it wonderful. I had such a good time. On Zoom! I got to do comedy startup news, which I’ve been thinking about for years, and squeezed in puns like AirTee’n’Hee. (I now know what it’s like to be tagged in a tweet that 🔥.)
We’ll be sharing the recordings over the next few weeks on BlueChilli’s social media channels.
Coming up
Online Trivia Night this Friday, put on by BlueChilli colleagues. Free registration here
Monash Accelerator Showcase on Wednesday 24 November. Online. Watch the 10 startups I’ve been working with the past few months. Add it to your diary
Fingers and pickaxes crossed that renovations start tomorrow ⚒️. It’s gonna get loud in here. (I will be running away.)
Read / watch / listen
[Look] My September update — the “just the punctuation” version:
A blog post about analysing written work just from the punctuation, and a little site you can paste text to create the same visualisation of just the punctuation.
[Read: 7 minutes] How to write a great startup survey (and what to do instead). On request, I took this section from my Startupbook.xyz newsletter and published it on Medium.
[Watch/listen: 5 minutes] Hania Rani — 'F Major'. This video clip combines incredible scenery, captivating dancers, and stirring piano.
[Listen: Album] Ardent Spring by GRETA (Spotify or Bandcamp). A new music discovery thanks to ADJØ Dunedin’s cafe soundtrack.
[Watch: 24 minute episodes] Midnight Diner is a quirky, campy Japanese show set in a tiny diner that is only open after midnight. (On Netflix)
[Read: 6 minutes] This article about retired Yakuza members gave me an insight into the possible backstory of Midnight Diner’s cook.
On a recent weekday, a steady flow of customers ate lunch at Nakamoto’s 13-seat restaurant, tucked in an alley between a hair salon and a laundromat. He still volunteers for festivals and sweeps the street without being asked.
His black long-sleeve shirt covers up his tattoos while he works. But he doesn’t hide his past: A newspaper article featuring his story is framed on the wall, and in the restaurant bathroom are Japanese comic books about an ex-yakuza boss turned devoted house husband.
“Grab her by the pussy” didn’t end a career—it marked the beginning of one. — Emmie Mears. One of many great lines in a post about small choices and her new novel.