Today Fred wrote a post about how writing is a conversation. There are some incredible gems in it:

What I have learned from writing online regularly for over twenty years is that writing online is a conversation.

What I mean by that is that you are not trying to publish complete ideas. You are engaging in a conversation with the world and you are a participant in that... 

So to everyone out there who is struggling to polish their posts and make them perfect before hitting publish, I say "don't bother". Think about writing online like being at a cocktail party or a dinner. Think of it like a conversation starter or a witty reply that takes the conversation to the next level. Because that's what writing online is. A conversation.

I also didn't know that the term “freemium” emerged from a conversation on his blog. 🤯

I like the description of writing as a conversation. And one of the great things about it is that the more you do it the better conversationalist you become. One of the reasons is because writing is composable, and it has compounding effects. I've been saying this in my head for years, and it's time to get it on the page.

In software development, and especially in crypto, composability refers to the idea that pieces of code and functionality can be picked up, reused, and recombined ad infinitum (here’s a great piece on composability by Linda Xie). Writing is the same. Every idea and post becomes a Lego block that’s part of your toolkit, forever available to be assembled however and whenever you want. In a way, each post you write is a powerful primitive.

Over time I’ve found myself linking to my own ideas more and more. That’s because they’re readily accessible, and the ideas they represent are now part of my vocabulary. As you write more, these posts can be rearranged in different ways. They provide a reconfigurable foundation for new ideas to emerge, and in that sense, they continuously build on top of one another. This makes the next new incremental post or idea easier to flow out of you and the process of assembling thoughts more fluid.

Composability is powerful, and it's also a cheat code for getting thoughts and ideas out into the world.

I believe that creating a successful consumer product can be attributed to somewhere between 70-90% luck and 10-30% executing against that luck. A lot of things have to go right: timing, product, distribution, zeitgeist, etc. So much of it is stumbling your way into capturing lightning in a bottle or indestructible product market fit.

This may seem disheartening, but the good news is that it's possible to optimize for getting lucky. When building consumer products, I think one of the best ways to increase the chance of doing this is by building for yourself. Building products and companies is hard, so if you're building a consumer internet application, you might as well build something you want to use yourself. That way, by the end of the day, you are making yourself happy. And that's a win.

Building for yourself means that you are your target customer. You can prioritize the features that you find most useful or fun. Your roadmap is all the things you want to exist. Nobody knows your product or the problem you're trying to solve better than you. And if the product you're building can't make you happy or satisfy your needs, there's little chance it will do so for others.

I've seen a lot of people think about building or trying to build consumer internet applications by drastically overthinking things. They're midwitting their way into a problem that doesn't exist, a product nobody cares about, or an idea they think the world needs based on some hole they perceive to exist in Facebook Marketplace or Events or fill in the blank. This is not the way. Build something you want to exist and use yourself, not something that appears to be some opportunistic arbitrage.

For the past four years my family has spent most of July and August in the Catskills in a town called Accord, NY. We love it there and ended up buying a place here like a lot of Brooklyn transplants did during Covid. Summers are magical up there

One of the things I always look forward to is using the garage gym I have assembled together over the years. Once we head up, I restart a program called TrainFTW. It's a workout regimen organized by an ex-crossfit athlete named Matt Chan and his wife Cherie. I'd describe it as crossfit-lite. It's a mixture of full-body workouts that span weight training, Zone 2, HIIT, and some cardio-focused work, too. More than anything, the premise is to enjoy the benefits of crossfit without getting injured. By a long shot, it's my favorite type of workout.

I also mix it up and play tennis and mountain bike to get a variety of different cardio. I used to road bike more often, but mountain biking is a lot more fun and there are no cars. I love this summer setup for fitness. It's a highlight of my year.

Things in Brooklyn are definitely different. I feel like exercising is more of something I do to check the box than it is fun. I used to be part of a gym and do TrainFTW, but I found it takes up too much time and need something I can just get done in 45-50 minutes in the early morning. Normally I will switch between using the Tonal machine in our basement and riding the Peloton. On the Tonal I have 7 workouts I cycle through that I programmed myself, and on the Peloton I just do

Today Fred wrote a post about how writing is a conversation. There are some incredible gems in it:

What I have learned from writing online regularly for over twenty years is that writing online is a conversation.

What I mean by that is that you are not trying to publish complete ideas. You are engaging in a conversation with the world and you are a participant in that... 

So to everyone out there who is struggling to polish their posts and make them perfect before hitting publish, I say "don't bother". Think about writing online like being at a cocktail party or a dinner. Think of it like a conversation starter or a witty reply that takes the conversation to the next level. Because that's what writing online is. A conversation.

I also didn't know that the term “freemium” emerged from a conversation on his blog. 🤯

I like the description of writing as a conversation. And one of the great things about it is that the more you do it the better conversationalist you become. One of the reasons is because writing is composable, and it has compounding effects. I've been saying this in my head for years, and it's time to get it on the page.

In software development, and especially in crypto, composability refers to the idea that pieces of code and functionality can be picked up, reused, and recombined ad infinitum (here’s a great piece on composability by Linda Xie). Writing is the same. Every idea and post becomes a Lego block that’s part of your toolkit, forever available to be assembled however and whenever you want. In a way, each post you write is a powerful primitive.

Over time I’ve found myself linking to my own ideas more and more. That’s because they’re readily accessible, and the ideas they represent are now part of my vocabulary. As you write more, these posts can be rearranged in different ways. They provide a reconfigurable foundation for new ideas to emerge, and in that sense, they continuously build on top of one another. This makes the next new incremental post or idea easier to flow out of you and the process of assembling thoughts more fluid.

Composability is powerful, and it's also a cheat code for getting thoughts and ideas out into the world.

I believe that creating a successful consumer product can be attributed to somewhere between 70-90% luck and 10-30% executing against that luck. A lot of things have to go right: timing, product, distribution, zeitgeist, etc. So much of it is stumbling your way into capturing lightning in a bottle or indestructible product market fit.

This may seem disheartening, but the good news is that it's possible to optimize for getting lucky. When building consumer products, I think one of the best ways to increase the chance of doing this is by building for yourself. Building products and companies is hard, so if you're building a consumer internet application, you might as well build something you want to use yourself. That way, by the end of the day, you are making yourself happy. And that's a win.

Building for yourself means that you are your target customer. You can prioritize the features that you find most useful or fun. Your roadmap is all the things you want to exist. Nobody knows your product or the problem you're trying to solve better than you. And if the product you're building can't make you happy or satisfy your needs, there's little chance it will do so for others.

I've seen a lot of people think about building or trying to build consumer internet applications by drastically overthinking things. They're midwitting their way into a problem that doesn't exist, a product nobody cares about, or an idea they think the world needs based on some hole they perceive to exist in Facebook Marketplace or Events or fill in the blank. This is not the way. Build something you want to exist and use yourself, not something that appears to be some opportunistic arbitrage.

For the past four years my family has spent most of July and August in the Catskills in a town called Accord, NY. We love it there and ended up buying a place here like a lot of Brooklyn transplants did during Covid. Summers are magical up there

One of the things I always look forward to is using the garage gym I have assembled together over the years. Once we head up, I restart a program called TrainFTW. It's a workout regimen organized by an ex-crossfit athlete named Matt Chan and his wife Cherie. I'd describe it as crossfit-lite. It's a mixture of full-body workouts that span weight training, Zone 2, HIIT, and some cardio-focused work, too. More than anything, the premise is to enjoy the benefits of crossfit without getting injured. By a long shot, it's my favorite type of workout.

I also mix it up and play tennis and mountain bike to get a variety of different cardio. I used to road bike more often, but mountain biking is a lot more fun and there are no cars. I love this summer setup for fitness. It's a highlight of my year.

Things in Brooklyn are definitely different. I feel like exercising is more of something I do to check the box than it is fun. I used to be part of a gym and do TrainFTW, but I found it takes up too much time and need something I can just get done in 45-50 minutes in the early morning. Normally I will switch between using the Tonal machine in our basement and riding the Peloton. On the Tonal I have 7 workouts I cycle through that I programmed myself, and on the Peloton I just do