It's been a while (a month) (Ricky Weekly #45)
This is where I share 3 things every week with my friends and anyone else interested.
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A picture from my life:
I moved this past Monday to NoPa. Took me all of Monday to unpack and assemble the furniture, but I’m loving my new setup. If you’re ever in the area and want to go for a walk, holla!
Thing on my mind:
It’s been four weeks since my last “weekly.” I feel bad for breaking my routine. I see writing this newsletter like exercise and meditation. Reflecting with a small dose of self-disclosure is good for the soul.
I’m spoiled because the reason why I haven’t kept up with my newsletter is because I’ve been busy with my startup, which is also something I love and good for my soul despite how difficult it is. Our latest product Palcast is resonating, but with that comes the pressure of wanting to realize its potential. Before this we were just throwing things against the wall to see what’d stick, and the pressure we felt was mostly about overcoming oblivion. Now it feels different.
People compare doing startups to a roller coaster ride. They should add that it’s the most violent and erratic kind. Sometimes I’d feel sad in the morning, only to feel really excited by lunch, and then get sad again in the afternoon and maybe swing back around by dinner. Mood swings used to take a lot out of me but now I’m a vet so I manage it way better these days. Sometimes I’d send out a bat signal via text to a friend or two letting them know that I’m sad because of some existential problem that’s too complicated to explain, and by the time they text me back I’ve already moved on because I saw a way out of it. Nothing has fundamentally changed in the meantime. Just a one-man theater in my head. The default for startups is death, and it takes tremendous willpower to supply enough vision, hope and optimism to drive the action that’d breathe life into it. It’s hard, but it’s fun.
Anyway, right now Palcast is the good kind of stress because David and I have found people who love it despite all of its flaws. Most of the time it seems like it’s nothing but flaws. Personally I’m enjoying it as a user because I love talking to people and listening to them talk. I’m even choosing to listen to Palcast over some of my favorite podcasts now because they’re more personal and I get to participate, even if the conversation topic doesn’t appeal to me initially. I’m taking longer walks to make more time to listen and stopping in the middle of the street to jump into a conversation. I love that some users sound very comfortable when they talk on Palcast. I also love the users who sound uneasy but still choose to take a risk to put themselves out there on this insignificant beta app because they see something in it. Overall, things are good.
Piece of content I recommend:
Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook Messenger Strategy Memo
From the recent anti-trust probe into Facebook we got an actual memo from Zuckerberg laying out his Messenger strategy. I was impressed by the fact that in just 13 pages, he charted out a decade-long vision of how Messenger can become one of the biggest growth drivers for Facebook with extreme clarity on the sequence of events that need to happen to achieve the winning condition.
Bonus: Billie Eilish: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert. Her latest song “my future” is mesmerizing.
It’s hot these days, even in SF. Stay cool 😎 friends.
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As always, you can find out what I’m thinking in more real-time on Twitter and my essays are on my website. My latest essay is called “From Socialcam to TikTok: How we figured out video social in a decade”