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Hey 👋

Happy Friday! This is going to be a podcast-heavy issue today. I've found myself listening to podcasts more than reading articles lately. Also... I'm resurrecting my podcast Small Efforts with Sean Sun! We've been on a two-year hiatus since I sold Krit, but now that I'm working on something new we wanted to bring it back for a new season.

For those on the list who didn't listen to Season 1, we use the podcast to catch up and talk transparently about our businesses. This is our version of building in public. We're going to attempt to record weekly this time around, and episodes will go live right after we record them with almost no editing.

In other news, I'm getting really close to soft launching the ChartJuice MVP. I have a working end-to-end prototype, I'm just wrapping up some loose ends (things like billing and terms of service and whatnot) and then I'm going to start running marketing experiments. I talk a lot about the experiments I want to run with Sean on the first episode of season 2 of the pod. I may also do a write up if that's something people are interested in.

How are you? What projects are you working on? Hit reply and let me know!

Cheers,

Andrew

From the bootstrapped world

​A $1M e-commerce pest control brand - buzz or bust?​

A friend recently recommended I check out Acquisitions Anonymous, a podcast where 4 people in the small business M&A world break down public business listings and discuss whether or not they're good buys. I've been binging episodes ever since. It's a fascinating look into how potential buyers and lenders evaluate businesses, plus a fun peak at a bunch of different types of small businesses. This is one is a great lesson in evaluating e-commerce businesses from an e-commerce expert.

​Secrets from the Algorithm: Google Search’s Internal Engineering Documentation Has Leaked​

The SEO geeks in my feeds have been freaking out about this over the past week, it's the largest leak of internal documentation on how Google Search works ever. And it vindicates a lot of the things that people like Rand Fishkin and Mike King have been saying for years, that Google denied.

​Buying a plant nursery in Greenville, SC​

I've been really enjoying following Rory Tyer's tweets lately about the plant nursery he bought and now runs in Greenville, SC. Rory is a business coach, and after what sounds like years of searching bought a local nursery business. It's a refreshing look at entrepreneurship that isn't about maximizing MRR or cashing in on the latest AI hype. Rory found a good business that he enjoys working on and is important to the community and is sharing his experiences as running it day to day. I linked to the first tweet about the acquisition, but click through to his profile for more.

From me

​Small Efforts Season 2: Recap, how to test ChartJuice, and finding founder friends​

We're bringing back the Small Efforts podcast for Season 2! We're going to record an episode a week in which we talk super transparently about the businesses we're building. For Sean, that's Miscreants and Stackwise. For me, that's ChartJuice. This is our version of building in public. In the first episode we recap what's happened in the two years since we stopped recording. Plus we talk about the projects we're working on now, how to market and validate my new product, and Sean's search for founder friends.

We are editing way less than we used to for this season, so please let me know what you think. I'm sure it will take us a little while to get in the swing of recording for quasi-live podcasts.

From the internet

​The Universe​

I'm obsessed with this podcast right now. John Green and Dr. Katie Mack dive deep into the history of the universe and what we know about it. Did you know we have good data on what happened going back to within picoseconds of the start of the universe?? And at the very beginning physics were completely different?! This podcast is absolutely fascinating, and also super approachable despite the complexity of the topics they're talking about. I've learned so much already and enjoyed every second of it.

​Interview with Fitz Cahall - Founder of the Dirtbag Diaries​

The Dirtbag Diaries is one of my favorite podcasts, and one of the longest running podcasts (since 2007) about outdoor adventure sports. Recently an interview with the founder Fitz Cahall popped up on another one of my favorite climbing podcasts. Fitz talks in depth about the early days of podcasting, how things have changed, the emotional journey of building a bootstrapped media company, and so much more. Really great interview. This could have almost gone in the bootstrapped section, but I decided to include it here instead.

​There will NEVER be anayone like Nikola Jokic ever again...​

I've been getting into the NBA for the first time ever while the playoffs are happening. It's a fascinating time to become a fan, a lot of the big name stars who have dominated the sport for years are fading and young, new stars are on the way up. And there is no one of the new generation more interesting to me than Nikola Jokic. He has absolutely dominated the NBA the past 3 seasons despite looking awkward as hell, and appearing to barely tolerate basketball (look up highlights of his press conferences, they're hysterical). This video is a good primer on why he's so impressive.

​Bonus: this amazing Craigslist ad from Amanda Natividad...