Another Excuse Newsletter

Welcome back to the Another Excuse Newsletter. It isn’t just another excuse, but a reason to start that thing you’ve been putting off.

What to expect this week:
👓Perspective - 20 Hours
🔨 Tool - Loom
🍿Consume - 2,851 Miles
📖Concept - Profit First

Latest Podcast Episode

Today’s guest is Ry Hornby.

Ry is the founder of Sonder, a personal branding consultancy, and my boss. We have an interesting discussion about why he chose personal branding and what differentiates Sonder.

In the episode, we discuss:
• The value of university
• What Sonder does
• Why personal branding is particularly important today
• The value of transparency
• His previous ventures
• Investment
And so much more...

You can check out the episode here.

Perspective

20 Hours

All it takes is 20 hours to become competent at something.

That’s all, and we still put off starting something new.

Why do you think that is?

I think it’s because we rarely frame it like this and so starting is full of unknowns. We don’t know how long it will take or what will come of it.

Reframing starting something new by committing 20 hours to it, completely changes things.

You now have an easy-to-reach goal that can be measured, and by the time you reach it, you’re now competent.

And when you’re competent at something and got the hang of it, you’re more motivated to keep going.

I always remind myself of this whenever I want to start something new.

Give it a go and just commit to 20 hours of it.

You’ll either enjoy it and keep going, or be sure that it’s not for you.

But at least you got started.

Tool

Loom

If you haven’t heard of Loom, you need to check it out.

I know most people know what it is, but for those who don't, it’s an app that allows you to record your screen with a video of you included in the recording.

Think of all the possible different use cases.

It can be used for onboarding, explainer videos, meeting recaps, and communication with remote hires, to name a few off the top of my head.

Sam Corcos, the founder of Levels, swears by the app and he actually goes into detail about how he uses Loom in his company on a Tim Ferriss episode.

It’s such a useful way to communicate with your team asynchronously, saving so much time and making everything a lot clearer.

I know some companies have completely changed their sales strategies and include a Loom in the outreach email, introducing themselves and their product.

We connect better with humans and it’s a lot harder to ignore and reject an email when you see and hear a human.

If you haven’t used it yet, check it out. I’m sure you can find a use case for it.

Consume (Read / Watch / Listen)

2,851 Miles

This is a talk by Bill Gurley at the All-In Summit a few weeks ago.

It’s a fascinating talk where he breaks down regulatory capture throughout history and why it’s a net loss for society.

He gives examples of regulation in big industries, like the Telecom industry, which eliminated all investment and competition.

This results in large companies winning and coasting because they have no competition. They can then even take advantage of the consumer like in the covid testing kit example he gives.

He also points our attention to new possible regulations in AI and the big companies wrongly calling for regulation of open source projects.

Which could cause history to repeat itself.

The talk is called 2,851 Miles because that’s the distance of Silicon Valley from Washington. Far enough not to fall into the regulation trap.

Concept

Profit First

The Profit First Theory is a financial management strategy that prioritises allocating profits before any other business expenses.

This is to ensure that a business retains a consistent profit margin, even as it grows and scales.

By reserving profits before spending on other expenses, the business can maintain financial stability and make informed decisions about the allocation of resources.

This theory can go a little deeper.

In a nutshell, it’s about paying yourself first. Something we don’t normally do.

If you completely flip the script and “pay yourself” first with your salary, it completely changes the way you think.

What do I mean by this?

Instead of paying your rent, and all other expenses before putting your investment money away, put your investment money away first.

Then you’re prioritising yourself and if you don’t have enough to pay everyone else, you’ll be more motivated to make sure you pay them.

Which could lead to a more proactive increase in income.

So change it up, pay yourself first instead of making everyone else a priority.

Thanks for Reading

Now start something!

P.S. Feedback is welcome and needed! If you’d prefer to send me an email and not respond, you can do so here: [email protected]

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