I'm a designer who turned into a writer who turned into a startup CEO. My mission is to help creators earn a living. Subscribe for essays on building an audience and earning a living as a creator.
Taking intentional breaks to reignite creativity
Hey Reader,
I got back from Europe last week and the trip was awesome. It was so good to see some of our team members in person for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic. I also loved finally being able to travel internationally—I missed that so much. I think we are going to encourage more of these social meetups for the team because it was so valuable.
Another really special thing was spending time with Brad, Marc, and Ashley. The four of us have been working on ConvertKit for 6 years now!
Going to sleep the first night in Barcelona I just felt so grateful for everyone who has poured years into building ConvertKit into what it is today, but especially for these three who joined when it was a tiny company (one of the first things Ashley did was form the LLC) and stuck with it all the way through to today.
❤️
FROM THE PODCAST
Kimberly Brooks - Finding creative space
Kimberly Brooks is a contemporary American artist and author. She integrates landscape, figuration and abstraction to address subjects of history, memory and identity. Her work has been exhibited and featured internationality. I talked with Kimberly about her work as an artist, author, and editor.
WHAT I'M READING
Twitter thread on inflation
There has been a lot of talk about inflation in the last few months, and smart people are weighing in with differing opinions. I thought this thread from Cathie Wood was really interesting and a different take than I'd heard before. There are so many factors that affect something like inflation and trying to see how they all work together is a wildly difficult task.
WHAT I'M READING
The longest ever flight was 64 days
This is just a great story. Imagine keeping a plane in the air non-stop for 2 months. I'd give more of a teaser, but you should just go read it for yourself.
Thanks for reading this week,
Nathan Barry
I'm a designer who turned into a writer who turned into a startup CEO. My mission is to help creators earn a living. Subscribe for essays on building an audience and earning a living as a creator.
Hey Reader, What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail? You’ve probably seen some version of this question before. It’s a good one, though sometimes the answer isn’t immediately obvious. That’s why I like Graham Weaver’s 8 questions for what to do with your life. Graham founded the private equity firm Alpine Investors, and he teaches at Stanford. In Chapter 2 of my upcoming book, The Ladders of Wealth, I credit him with a principle he shared with his MBA students called "worse first",...
Hey Reader, If I could solve only one thing in my business, that would have the biggest impact, what would that be? This is the question every great entrepreneur obsesses over. Rather than trying to do everything at once, you look for the bottleneck and focus on solving that. There’s a book called The Goal by an Israeli physicist named Eliyahu Goldratt. It’s a 1984 business novel that business systems nerds love. However if you’re not a business systems nerd you probably… won’t love it. It’s...
Hey Reader, Have you ever spent money on something and immediately felt guilty afterward? Will Guidara spends his money foolishly on purpose. And he thinks you should too. He once bought an entire barrel of whiskey and put it in his basement. He also put a skee-ball machine in the office. Is he going to get a monetary return on either of these things? No. But that’s kind of the point. He calls it the 95/5 rule: Manage your money and time like a maniac 95% of the time (no expense is too...