Welcome to the first post, here I outline personal goals for these articles. In the end, this is just for me, whoever ends up reading it, reads it.
Outward expression
A call for collaborators
Writing for organization
Rhymes in my desire
Appreciation for little things
Putting my thoughts out to the world is scary and even scarier on the internet. Judgment, disagreement, and self-consciousness all tell me to stop. That’s exactly why I want to write in public, to hurdle these things.
The theme of this newsletter is to think fast and write drafts. To explore many topics, embrace imperfection, and be okay with embarrassment. I don’t want to hesitate on writing about things because I might feel dumb or uninteresting. It’s an iterative process, it should be shitty.
In order to find others who I truly resonate with I hope this Substack will serve as a signal. Putting my thoughts out will create an open space for engagement on a sampling of my passions and thought processes.
I find it hard to casually talk about values and deeper truths people have, and that is even if they have any. I thought the college setting would elicit more conversation about principles but found myself underwhelmed. I hope to continue exploring my truths and putting them out. Returning to this thread of posts will help me refine and revise opinions and maybe connect with others who feel the same.
In my goal to become a founder, it is apparent how important the founding team gets along and understands each other. By writing in public I hope to overcome the initial hurdle of connecting by chance and mitigate missed opportunities.
In my current state, I feel like too many things pull at my attention and I find myself irritated when I discover a tool, topic, or reading but lose track of it. Feeding my information diet is a loose compilation of apple notes, discord pins, and open web pages.
When I write about a topic I find it solidifies it in my head ridding the use of loose tracking methods. I want to do this more often and efficiently.
Recently, I had the opportunity to talk to a successful CEO ($b+) and the one thing that stuck out to me is (and I paraphrase):
“When working on your company, you will always come back to your root desire, no matter how many sub-paths you take. It will just nag at you.”
For him, that meant returning to health tech. A good friend of mine talk about finding this root desire and there’s no other way of finding it besides introspection. I have this looming fear of not clearly defining this desire and wasting time pursuing false satisfaction or getting distracted. By writing, I hope to find the patterns and '“rhymes” in what I hold as important in the world, and how I can positively change that.
While still hazy, I want to build in the community space, it might take shape by leveraging information technology or physical design to break barriers to a fully optimized human lifecycle.
Freedom of (finance, data, life discovery), thoughtful physical spaces, and institutional inefficiencies are themes I find myself returning back to. Learning tools to supplement this like Web3 capabilities (DAOs), working/studying startups, and my writing will hopefully move me one step closer.
A project I was working on (and still interested in) is called Collyder.
The MVP targeted film creatives, leveraging natural need to collaborate and content generation to spread the brand. Cohort-based communities would roll out to build brand partnerships at exclusive living experiences to supercharge content.
This is with the ultimate goal of becoming the main interface for people to grow with others sharing/exploring passions. The product would horizontal out into any type of passion.
https://twitter.com/lexfridman/status/1298360536095174663?s=20
Lex Fridman is my favorite podcaster and in episodes, he touches on his idea of life. He simply is able to love the little things.
Maybe it’s BS but even if it is, the idea of finding beauty in anything is so nice. By writing about big and small ideas and experiences, the natural mental dissection to stretch out a concept forces me to see all sides and details. I hope this lens of rational optimism (a current read) can flow out into other parts of my life.
I don’t think this is going to be easy. Even writing this first post was hard… But like any skill or muscle building up the stamina to write more and consolidate ideas is a skill I desire.
I used to hate writing, and maybe I still do. But the years of writing in a forced educational context have sapped the beauty in connecting text for me. I want to crave the writing flow state.
You made it down here, thanks for reading. 😊
Made with ❤️ by Evan Siu, not intended to be perfect so feel free to send me feedback! Anywhere from typos -> disagreement. Shoot me a message on Twitter or give me follow @evansiu7.