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Hello friend,
Why you’re getting this: this is my Friends Newsletter, a monthly brain dump of interesting things that I send to interesting people I've met and friends I want to stay in touch with. Zero pressure to stick around—just click unsubscribe if you don’t want to get it (don’t worry, I won’t be notified).
Here’s what I’m thinking about…
- Every year, I sit down on New Year’s Day and ask where I’m acting insane.
I set aside a few hours and fill out a Year Compass, and also review what I wrote the year before.
It's a free PDF that helps you reflect on the last year and plan the next one. My annual life audit.
I've found it really impactful, and it has helped me make some major changes over the years.
After all, as that apocryphal Albert Einstein quote goes:
“The definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”
For me it often prompts questions like:
Why do I keep getting coffee with that guy I don't enjoy?
Why haven't I been finding time to write even though it makes me happy?
When am I going to put that failing project to bed?
When am I going to finally make time for consistent exercise?
It’s been a really useful exercise and I look forward to it every year.
That said, I've always found filling out the PDF in Adobe Acrobat borderline nightmarish. It often garbles the formatting and a couple times I've lost it all and had to start from scratch.
Thankfully, Michelle Lu just launched a digital version of it just in time for New Years.
Check it out here, your future self will thank you: https://yearcompass.vercel.app
- I was speaking at the Business School at the University of Victoria last month and this young guy walked up to me after my talk.
He told me he’d started a landscaping business back home in Calgary, but now he was in business school and feeling a bit lost.
I told him he should start another business. That getting an MBA is fine, but nothing beats experience.
After some brainstorming, we decided to launch a pressure washing business together. We quickly threw together a website and brand and started buying equipment.
It’s called PressurePros and we’re now live in Victoria. We’ve done our first few jobs and the feedback has been great.
If you’re based here and need your property (residential or commercial) pressure washed, email Andan and tell him I sent you. 💪
- This weekend, I found myself gritting my teeth. It was like there was an itch I couldn't quite scratch in my brain. Work felt unsatisfying. My family's usual quirks grated on my nerves. Everything just felt off.
Then I glanced at my Apple Watch, and the answer became clear. Two complications, little dials on either side of my screen, told the whole story: my training load had plunged to the bottom, and my sleep quality was in the red. I'd been traveling and—of course—both were off kilter.
There's a simple checklist to run first.
Have I eaten well?
Have I slept enough?
Have I moved my body?
I've worn an Apple Watch for years and mostly been underwhelmed. Despite collecting nearly a decade of health data, I'd gained few meaningful insights. It had become little more than an expensive calendar and weather widget strapped to my wrist.
But the latest WatchOS update has finally made my data useful with its Vitals features. It's elegantly simple: track your sleep patterns and workout intensity, then display clear visual gauges when you're falling below your baselines.
Now when I see them dipping, it's a nudge: time to grab my tennis racket or get to bed earlier. A simple, but insanely useful little feature that I love.
(And one that also may put devices like the Whoop and Oura Ring out of business.)
- I hate banking in Canada. Canadian banks are ten years behind the US and effectively hold a government-backed monopoly.
Zero competition = zero innovation.
Each bank is a bloated hedge maze of bureaucracy. And don’t even get me started on their apps and websites or their approach to tech companies…
I remember, a few years ago, a major Canadian bank wanted us to put down a $25,000 deposit in order to get a corporate credit card simply because we were a tech company. (At a time when we did over $50 million dollars in revenue and were highly profitable!)
It's gotten better since then. The Canadian banks have woken up and now lend to tech companies, but I’m always jealous of all the incredible tools my American friends get. Ramp. Mercury. Rippling.
These tools are finally rolling out in Canada, and my current favorite is a Toronto-based startup called Vault. I’ve moved all of my companies over to it.
A few cool details:
- You can create corporate cards for anyone in an instant. Both physical and virtual. This is perfect for spinning up virtual cards to put all your software on.
Software spend getting out of hand? Just cancel your team’s credit cards quarterly and spin up new ones—people will not sign back up for the stuff they aren’t using (this strategy has already saved us tens of thousands of dollars).
- You can set spend and transaction type limits (for example, you could make a card for your assistant with a $500 limit that only works at gas stations)
- No FX fees (this is huge for Canadians)
- And even manage all your outgoing wires and accounts payable/receivables right from Vault
I’m a huge fan. It’s so nice to see fintech innovation like this finally coming to Canada.
Check it out here
- I think I’ve found the perfect shoe.
As they always seem to, Lululemon has taken something we’re all used to and subtly improved upon. In my mind, they are the Dyson of clothing (perfecting simple, everyday things, with engineering and design).
For example: I’ve always hated men’s bathing suits. The liner rides up. They’re always slightly too short. They puff up whenever you get into a hot tub then release a massive air bubble, which looks like you’ve just released a fart. A few years ago, Lululemon released the perfect men’s bathing suit. It looks great, and has none of these issues.
Well, now they’ve done the same thing for men’s shoes. I recently got a pair of the Men’s Cityverse Sneakers and within weeks they became my default shoe. They look sharp, feel like walking on a pillow, and are rugged and well built. I’m a fan.
- Dr. Andrew Huberman has instilled the fear of god in me. Every evening, I dim every light in our house, scuttling around like a poor man’s Dracula, avoiding blue light.
After all, as Huberman has so loudly proclaimed, blue light after sunset destroys your sleep. It makes it harder to go to bed, affects your sleep quality, and alters your circadian rhythm.
I think we all know this intuitively. I’ve always found that on camping trips or when the power goes out, I often fall asleep earlier and feel more relaxed. But I’ve really embraced dimming all the lights in our house in the evening over the last few years and found it helps my sleep a ton.
The one type of light that doesn’t affect your sleep, however, is red light, and I recently found these great little Helight red light pucks.
As for those moments where I need to watch a movie with my girlfriend, I don these insanely fashionable blue light blocking glasses.
So, if you want to embrace your inner Dracula and sleep like the dead, go grab a few red light pucks, slap on a pair of blue light blocking glasses, and let yourself drift off.
I think you’ll be surprised by how much of a difference it makes. (And just how embarrassed your partner will be, even though nobody else is around.)
- I’m a terrible dresser. For years, I dressed like a dope, but last year I started using ChatGPT as my personal stylist. Suddenly, I started getting compliments.
It was simple stuff.
“Add a silver watch”
“Change the gray shirt to white for better contrast”
“Layer a sweater under the jacket”
But it made a big difference.
Over the past few months, a friend and I have been working on turning this into an app. It’s still powered by OpenAI/ChatGPT, but it’s much simpler to use.
TLDR:
1. Take photos of your wardrobe
2. It creates outfits for you and renders beautiful images of what they look like
We’re looking for beta testers. Email tina@tiny.com with the subject “Fashion Beta Test” and we’ll add you to the Testflight :-)
- JOB POST: Seeking a Web Whiz Nephew
I need to hire someone based in Victoria to help me with random IT/tech problems (configuring smart devices, wireless networking — all the little tasks I don’t have time for). Previously a UVIC student helped me with this stuff, but he’s off to grad school and I’ve lost him.
Any leads? This would be the perfect job for me 20 years ago. A student or someone early in their career that loves computers. Not super highly paid (around $20 per hour), but it’s pretty fun work and a million times better than most jobs at that age. Email me if you know someone who would be a fit.
That’s all for now…
-Andrew
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