im gonna take this large $11 avocado smoothie and make guacamole
Let’s try and write this email in 20 min. Probably going to be a short one.
Main
—
Sup homies. It’s been a full year now since I started writing these emails. I mainly started writing them because I wanted to get better at, well, writing. And I gotta say, I am definitely 4-6X better at writing than I was back in January 2019. It feels like words flow effortlessly from my brain to my keyboard now. I struggle less putting together complex ideas. And it feels as if I’ve gotten decent at communicating complex ideas in an easy to digest, humorous way.
How do you get better at writing?
No. Not by reading books about writing and listening to famous writers.
You get better by writing.
I’m a massive believer in “learning by doing”. I think if you spend time on activities to “prepare you” for something you want to learn, you’re being stupid (imo).
If I wanna learn to make chicken pizza I’m going to make chicken pizzas until it doesn’t taste like crap. I’m not gonna start watching YouTube videos for 5 hours about basic cooking tips. That’s dumb.
Chances are, I’m going to start watching those videos and 1 week later I’m not even going to feel like making chicken pizza anymore.
Inspiration to learn is rare in most individuals. If you’re inspired to learn something you need to capture that inspiration and just start working on the thing you want to work on immediately. Otherwise, you probably won’t end up doing anything at all and you’ll only depress yourself.
Whether it’s learning to make chicken pizzas or learning machine learning, capture that precious sliver of inspiration that your mind produced and act upon it.
This has been a hard lesson for me to learn so I hope others understand it.
—
I won’t be talking about Zip and it’s progress in this email every week anymore. I’ll still be sending out the newsletter once a week, but I’ll only be talking about Zip once a month.
Why?
Simply put - it doesn’t feel helpful for me to write about Zip to my entire email list every week. I think once a month is a better pace. That way I can write more holistically about the month + my learnings and ask for more targetted feedback from the crowd, aka you :).
I’ll only answer one question about Zip every week: Did revenue go up?
✅ This week, yes!
I still write about my weekly struggles + weekly progress but in my own personal journal. I also talk every week with my homies I’m close to about Zips’s progress + problems.
I’m may be a solo-founder but I’m not building Zip in an echo chamber.
—
I write a lot of “internal essays” to myself. This week I wrote four. These are short essays I write when I really want to write about something or explore an idea/vision.
I think most of my friends are tired of listening to my delusions, so I need some way to vent. Internal essays are how I do it.
One of the essays I wrote this week was titled, “Why Zip can be the most important company in the history of the world”.
And yes. I truly believe that.
You're likely thinking something along the lines of, "Probably a bit early for titles like this, don't yah think Farza? Isn’t Zip only a month old?". Don't be concerned, troubled reader. 99% of my time is still spent on the actual product + talking to customers. Illusions of grandeur and progress are simply how I keep myself fired up.
I keep my “internal essays” closed off, but if you want to read them. Reply to this email with the name of a song you really like :).
—
Other
—
The new Eminem album came out and, no cap, this shit is flamez.
—
I AM GOING TO GENESIS 7 THIS WEEK IN OAKLAND AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I’M SO EXCITED AHHHHH I’M GONNA MEET ALL MY FAV SMASH MELEE PLAYERS OMG OMG OMG.
I’ll also be competing :).
TIME TO SLICE SOME PEOPLE UP WITH MY MARTH IN TOURNAMENT.
Two things hype me up in this world more than anything else: building stuff and Super Smash Bros Melee.
Check out this 3-minute trailer for Genesis 7 if you’re curious.