2024 Resolutions

i frequently set/smash goals, so “new year” doesn’t really move the needle for me. but i also observe bold ideas are less offensive if announced in January. here goes.

build in stealth

quitting X was step 1. i’ll post when i want to sell something, otherwise i’m over it. to be clear X.com is the greatest website of all time. it’s also a platform on which i added more value than i extracted.

not to mention it was pretty ghey to let people mischaracterize my intentions for several years. i have too much self respect for that to continue. i live in the woods, drive a tractor, and collect guns. X is not my people.

going forward I’ll share finished work, here and in my newsletter.

no more meetings

as a marketer i endured 100s of meetings to “get in sync” and “update clients.” thankfully between the lines i learned to pitch. sometimes i ran around Manhattan to 7 sales meetings a day. 7 coffees a day. so it wasn’t all bad.

then i got involved with a deeper style of work referred to as thinking. so for awhile i had no problem weaseling out of meetings. when subtle attempts failed i simply ignored email requests. in fact i started and shut down multiple inboxes to manage (run away from) the problem.

when i later became a digital nomad, followed by a move to Korea, it was even easier to avoid synchronous calls thanks to time differences and not having a stable environment. but all my good excuses disappeared when i became a homeowner. suddenly i had a quiet, private office in the ET time zone. meetings crept back into my life and this was perhaps my biggest professional mistake of 2023.

so i’m taking a stand. no more meetings. emails in English or Korean are enough for me to get started. my body is not for sale.

100 day experiments

i’m building a new hardware startup. you’ll learn more about it when it’s ready for purchase. for this project and all others in 2024, i’m establishing success metrics. if performance slips, the project goes bye-bye.

as a longtime entrepreneur i’ve embraced the necessity to “eat sh*t.” but in 2023 i let that sentiment lean back in my favorite chair and put his muddy feet on my coffee table. for example at one Fork Equity portfolio company i worked 4 days a week, for free, for 16 months.

i’m not proud of this. it was another ghey moment. thus i’m now dropping stuff that doesn’t benefit me within 100 days of kickoff. i have nothing to prove to anyone.

no more co-founders

at the beginning of a new venture it feels good to find a partner to share not only the work load, but the stress and uncertainty. this only makes sense in the beginning though. eventually you (i) realize that i’ll always work harder than a co-founder, while they get half the spoils. very bad deal for killers.

on the same note i’ve never been a greedy person. with money or equity or luck. so if you’d like to partner up with skin in the game or sweat equity, i welcome this. figure out my email and I’ll share what i’m working on. but i will not be anyone’s co-founder.

write my Swan Song

in summer 2023 i began planning my exit from Fork Equity. then some investors reached out and requested we keep the gravy train rolling. although the deal isn’t fully inked, it looks like i’ll be investing $2m+ in SaaS acquisitions in 2024.

i still contend that my identity is a musician and not a fund operator but alas, i’ve made more millions in the latter role and it makes sense to bang the register a couple more times before quitting this blog like i quit X.

be bold(er)

conservatively speaking i’m more authentic than 98% of my followers. but we can always do better. compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not other people and all that jazz.

for example in private i say “fat people” and “retard” and “trannies are disgusting.” the final leap is doing so online. if it costs me, this resolution was accomplished.

Happy New Year
Ryan