👋 Friends,
Happy New Year!
I took two full days off in December and it was glorious. It's the first time I’ve done that in a while, and I recommend it. I hope you got some rest too.
We’re starting off the year with a brand new event format: if working out, cold plunges, and saunas are your thing, you’ll dig this. I found a stunning private gym that has great equipment, spectacular amenities, and fantastic vibes to host a workout + wellness experience for this community there. Interested? Sign up here.
One of my goals this year: Get in the best shape of my life. Join me on that journey!
Enjoy today’s piece.
I spent last week doing my 2023 Personal Audit, and today I plan to share the behind-the-scenes of what I did in 2023, including the highlights, lowlights, revelations, and predictions for 2024.
I’ll be as transparent as possible. By the way, I recommend you do this exercise.
👏 Highlights
Quit my corporate job. I finally left after 3 years at Google and Meta. It was about time. Growing up, I competed in track and field, basketball, volleyball, and mixed martial arts. If you were a competitive athlete, you know the feeling associated with competing at 110% (I call it heightened aliveness.) I want to feel that when I work. I want to operate at 110%, and I never had that feeling while working a cushy corporate job, so I took the plunge. More to come here.
Mastered the events game. I hosted 56 events this year in 7 cities for 10,000+ people, while working a full-time job as a Global Product Lead at Google. The first event I ever hosted for 50 people took weeks of planning. Now I can produce an event for 1,000+ people in a new city with just a few hours of planning. The trick? To build efficient systems and delegate effectively. If you’re interested in this framework, let me know and I’ll write about it.
Found something I could be consistent at. I wrote 22 newsletters this year. Around 15,000 words. Over 30 drafts. Countless edits. A lot of work but I love sharing what I learned with you, and I hope you got value out of it. Maybe it’ll inspire you to start writing too. I strongly believe that writing is one of the most productive things you can do for your career.
Jump started my investing habit. During the start of 2023 I invited startups to send me decks to send to my private community of investors. I manually made introductions, free of charge. Word spread and the network grew 100x. Today, 300+ startups apply every month to be featured on my private list of 1,700+ investors, which includes folks from the top funds in the world. In the last 12 months, I’ve made 600+ introductions, helping a half-dozen companies get funded. Still free of charge. I invested in 4 companies last year and plan to invest in 12 in 2024.
Quit drinking alcohol completely. As a result, I’ve significantly improved my mood and energy, improved my relationships, created >30% more time, and saved >$10,000 in 2023. If I were to chart my productivity, impact, restfulness, etc. on a chart, there would be an obvious rapid breakout after just 1 month of quitting drinking. I highly recommend it.
Went on a press and personal branding roadshow. One of the requirements of leaving Google to start my own company and sponsor my own US visa (I’m a 1st gen immigrant) was to get press and be “notable.” I reached out to dozens of reporters and journalists to see if they wanted to hear my story, and to my delight, they did. I was covered by Business Insider, Bloomberg, Fast Company, and Morning Brew, to name a few, and invited to speak at Columbia Business School to a group of students much smarter than me. I initially did it for the visa, but it resulted in impactful new partnerships, opportunities, and relationships.
😓 Lowlights
Being smarter and more efficient with my time. From 9 am to 5 pm I was working my corporate job. 5 pm onward, I was producing events, writing this newsletter, and doing many other things. I was often traveling on the weekends and made the mistake of romanticizing the “hustle.” But I’ve realized that there is more to life than working, building, and hustling. This year, I plan to create more time for play by buying back my time. 2024 will be the year of efficiency.
Supporting hiring and recruiting efforts. Over 1,000 companies conducted layoffs in 2023. 25,000+ people impacted. A ton of excellent talent displaced from their roles—yet I still hear about companies struggling to find good talent. A marketplace inefficiency exists here, and with that an opportunity to play matchmaker at scale between job-seekers and hiring managers.
Leveraging short-form video to build distribution. TikTok and Reels are a massive force multiplier for any business, company, or brand (including your personal one). I made a few videos but wasn’t rigorous enough in experimenting and shipping. More on that this year.
Capital allocation and investing. I want to do a better job of putting $$$ to use. I’ve started to take riskier bets and last year I invested in 4 companies (and plan to invest in 12 this year, a pace of 1 per month).
✍️ Revelations
The best way to get ahead is to help others. I immigrated to America without a network or community. My goal was to help others without asking for anything in return (I believed this would help me make friends.) In the last three years, I brought tens of thousands of people together, helped dozens of founders raise capital, find talent, and market their products, and hundreds of operators find jobs, build their brands, and find their communities. It’s come full circle. Today, I’ve been offered jobs, business opportunities, and rare access I wouldn’t have dreamed of getting. The lesson: Get ahead by helping others.
Gratitude is truly the key to happiness. There is a reason why this phrase is cliché and overdone. It’s true. Last year I went to Summit at Sea, a floating, burning man-esque conference for CEOs, entrepreneurs, and executives. It was well-curated but expensive (tickets were $4,000+ for 3 days). I learned about how these business leaders at the top organizations managed performance and stayed sane. Their secret? To practice gratitude.
Organize and declutter your spaces to improve your efficiency, clarity of thought, and speed of execution. Clean up your apartment. Coordinate your notes. Streamline your project trackers. Just by doing that I’ve removed > 50% of my stress and anxiety by having an operating system that is organized, clear, and actionable. And it enables me to move faster. Operations is the foundation for everything.
🪄 Predictions
There will be a breakout social app in 2024. A new player emerges roughly every 4 years (h/t to Marty). Starting with AOL (‘95 - ‘99), Yahoo! (‘99 - ‘03), MySpace (‘03 - ‘07), Facebook (‘07 - ‘11), Instagram (‘11 - ‘15), SnapChat (‘15 - ‘19), TikTok (‘19 - ‘23). It’s time for a new one.
IRL events re-emerge as a key marketing strategy. The market is flooded with junior sales reps using AI-driven Linkedin automation and email delivery tools. Cold emails and outreach have lost their touch. You have no idea whether there is a human or an AI on the other end of the line. At the end of the day, sales is about connecting with other humans. Companies will realize this and to IRL.
The creator tool space is going to explode. You can use AI to create videos in minutes that would’ve taken hours a year ago. In just days, you can write an article, proofread it, buy a domain, set up a landing page, and create a fully functioning email newsletter. An hour of speaking into a microphone can be repurposed into 50+ pieces of content across every major media platform. It’s never been easier to be a digital creator.
Peer networks and private membership communities are in. 3 things I believe to be true. 1) People are lonelier than ever. 2) People are craving intimate communities. 3) People are seeking more fulfillment in their relationships. Curated, purposeful communities will crush in 2024.
📈 Platform Update
50+ events hosted for 15,000+ people
22 articles and 17,600 words published
Twitter: 12,000 → 36,000 followers (+200%)
Instagram: 400 → 12,000 followers (+290%)
Linkedin: 9,000 → 29,000 followers (+222%)
Newsletter: 8,000 → 31,000 readers (+295%)
Event attendees: 14,000 → 29,000 attendees (+107%)
Investor deal-flow network: 0 → 1,700 investors (+1,700%)
Inbound founder deal-flow: 0 → 1,300 founders (+1,300%)
📌 Andrew’s Picks
Fascinating internet things I’ve come across.
Frugal vs Independent – Frugal means you’re depriving yourself of something you want and could afford. Not wanting something to begin with is independent. A brilliant piece by Morgan Housel.
100 Couples Share Their Secrets to a Successful Relationship – I reread this recently. Firmly believe it is a must-read for those in newer relationships. A great compilation by Polina!
My 5 Favorite AI Prompts for Writing – Bookmark this as it’ll come in handy at some point. How to use AI to learn about any topic, draft an outline, write in your voice, edit, and critique your writing.
Bonus: I got promoted quickly at companies like Meta and Google by following this career tip: 'Eat the frog' – My first piece in Business Insider! Check it out.
🖼️ Behind the Scenes
Meet Jasper, my girlfriend’s new puppy who’s brought me a lot of joy.
We’ve spent a ton of time together recently. Playing. Chasing stuff. Doing puppy things.
One day, my girlfriend sarcastically brought up the idea of tech mixers for dogs. It was a joke, but it got my event brain going…
Humans are awkward. Dogs aren’t. They boldly go up to each other and immediately start sniffing and licking. No shame. What if I actually hosted a tech mixer for pups (and tech folks?).
The ultimate tech paw-ty. Let the dogs break the ice.
Here’s how it’d work:
Show up with your puppy
Let your puppy guide your next conversation
Whichever puppy yours ends up sniffing is the puppy of the owner you have to meet
🤣🤣🤣
BONUS: it’s incredibly therapeutic to be around puppies. Founders and builders need that.
Ok, I’m convinced this is an excellent idea. Sign up for Tech Paw-ties here.
Thank you for your thoughts Andrew!
On organizing, I too am looking for an operating system that is "organized, clear, and actionable."
I'm curious what task/calendar management tool you use? In an earlier newsletter "Create More Time", you had written about using the Eisenhower method and I'm also curious if you still use that and how it is incorporated in the management tool you use?