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Most Founders Build Brands Backwards. Start Here Instead.

Stop starting with your logo. Learn the 5 essential brand components that drive recognition, loyalty, and revenue. Most startups miss 3 of them.

Drillers are Killers: The Five Universal Habits of Top Performers

The top 1% share the same five daily habits across every field. Early rising, sleep prioritization, daily exercise, mental rehearsal, and continuous learning. The universal patterns that transcend disciplines.

$Net Negative Resource to Lifelong Asset: The Real Math on Intern Programs$

Net Negative Resource to Lifelong Asset: The Real Math on Intern Programs

I calculate interns as net negative resources. Ten years later, I stood up for one as his groomsman. Here's the real ROI math on intern programs that work.

We're Losing the Meme War

30 years online taught me how memes became weapons. Here's how to fight back, one conversation at a time.

Build Your Writing Style Guide: The XML Framework That Keeps AI On-Brand

Stop fighting AI voice drift. Document your writing patterns in machine-readable XML so every AI draft sounds like you, not a generic chatbot.

Why I Write With Cursor

How an AI-native editor helps me plan, draft, and ship faster. From outlines to diffs, here's the writing workflow that keeps me publishing weekly.

58,000 Years Wasted: The Hidden Cost of USB Type-A's Design Flaw

I calculated how much time humanity has wasted flipping USB-A connectors. The answer is staggering and it reveals a product design lesson every builder needs to understand.

Product Discovery Through Hand-Cranking: Why Manual Workflows Beat Perfect Planning

Hand-cranking Exquisite Corpse with my kids and an AI model taught me more about product discovery than any roadmap. Here’s why messy beginnings matter.

I Found a Prompt Injection Exploit in Google Photos' Remix Feature

How I discovered a multimodal prompt injection vulnerability in Google Photos' new AI remix feature and what it means for product leaders shipping generative AI.

Masters Worlds: What I Learned Competing at the World's Scariest Jiu-Jitsu Tournament

What I learned competing at the world's most intimidating jiu-jitsu tournament while sick, grieving, and facing opponents who were stronger and faster than me.

What the Amish Can Teach Product Teams About Emerging Tech

The Amish have mastered controlled innovation, testing new tools without breaking their values. Here's how product teams can apply their method to emerging tech adoption.

Investor Update emails – How to write them efficiently and effectively

Investor updates: Angel Investors’ most expensive substack subscriptions! An Investor update email is an essential part of keeping your stakeholders informed about the progress of your…

➡✉FORWARD: Are we one nation under a groove?

🚫🙈 TL;DR: America is struggling through an identity crisis. Good thing we have new ethnographers exposing us to other viewpoints. Good thing we have incredible musicians to unite us as “One N…

Global Game Jam 2021 Hackathon Retrospective – Ash the Pirate

A retrospective look at the creation process of Ash the Pirate during the Global Game Jame 2021 hackathon.

➡✉FORWARD: Do you know about the perfect grind?

🚫🙈 TL;DR: Grind your beans too little, their coarseness will leave your coffee under extracted (sour, acidic). Grind too much, over extracted (bitter, hollow). The same thing happens in life. If we…

➡✉FORWARD: Have you broken your New Year’s resolution?

2021 appears to be off to a rough start. How will you make it the best year of your life? Consistent incremental improvements and by simply beginning again.

➡✉FORWARD: Will you reconcile with 2020?

🚫🙈 TL;DR: I expose you to art, writing, and music from Northern Europe. You try a new tool to reconcile your year. And — Oh yeah — biological robots built through machine learning and b…

➡✉FORWARD: Who will tell your story?

At his wake, hundreds attended. The wealthy and powerful, the poor and the meek, the innocent and the guilty.

➡✉FORWARD: why didn’t ancient Greeks see the color blue?

🚫🙈 TL;DR I share historical ephemera. Who invented Christmas Cards? Why didn’t ancient Greeks see the color blue? How come in 1984 a 100 year old ballad from the United Kingdom was being sung…

➡✉FORWARD: Do you want a B.S. in Business from one e-mail?

🚫🙈 TL;DR This week I introduce you to my biggest mentors, Grove, Dalio, and Ferriss. We’ll also explore the works of J. Cole and Alex Grey. Last but not least, we meet the man who survived Th…

➡✉FORWARD: want a great investment tip?

🚫🙈 TL;DR “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes.” Smart Investors study history, read books, understand strategy, and follow principles. *Click linked names to ask for an i…

➡✉FORWARD: Do you cherish the pale blue dot?

📏😚 TL;DR Let’s reframe the discussion, zoom out from the stress inducing myopia of the last week. My favorite accomplishments of Humanity involve our struggle to understand the Universe. Lets…

➡✉FORWARD: Trick or Treat?!

📏👀 TL;DR We learn about creating wealth, saving time, and making great art. 🗽😄 Must Read: (7 min) Naval Ravikant’s life is the American Dream. An immigrant youth who struggled in NYC, he over…

➡✉FORWARD: Rest, Recover, Bake Cookies, and Oxford Comma.

📏👀 TL;DR I didn’t “ship it” last week. People noticed! 😣 I didn’t beat myself up about it. 🥰 This week we’re going to talk about taking time for yourself, being presen…

➡✉FORWARD: In case of 2020, exercise militant optimism!

📏👀 TL;DR This week we ignore the drama and wear a smile. Why shouldn’t you? Things are looking up! The poor have comforts that the titans of industry couldn’t get with all their we…

The Dandelion Effect

Imagine that everyone you spend time with are Dandelion seeds and your impact will be spread forth into the world. What’s is the Dandelion Effect? As Leaders travel through life, we build tea…

How do you run an Early Stage Pitch event?

Pitch-In is an event designed to help founders of early stage companies. Early Stage Founders present their business idea and receive kind-but-critical feedback. What’s the Format of a Pitch …

Why is the Western New York Startup Community growing?

I spent today compiling a retrospective report that summarizes the past six months. I’m left in awe of all that you have done as a startup community. We have grown and supported each through …

How do you go from idea stage to having a startup?

The Idea Stage Startup Trap I spend a lot of time talking to Idea Stage Founders about their fictional startups. Often they’re stuck thinking about their business instead of building it. The …

Scaling Operations: Simple but not Easy

Scaling Operations for your SaaS startup by Kat Carter from Squire. Focused on the foundational elements of scaling and highlighted Kat’s knowledge. The Q&A at the end goes deeper and sha…

What’s the difference between a hack, a project, or a business?

During my PTO, I was playing around with a side-project. About 8-12 hour in, I realized I had made a classic mistake. I was focusing on building a thing, but I hadn’t spend enough time …

Equity: Three Mistakes Founders Make

The Equity Mistake They Make With Each Other: If you’re founding a company with other people. All founders should vest in their stock over time. Typically, you should use a one-year cliff and…

Employee Heatmap – The Simplest and Most Effective Tool in the Management Arsenal

One of the hardest things for senior managers to maintain Situational Awareness across their entire organization. Ego and averaging often obscure the reporting up through your hierarchy. Mid-level …

Premature Optimization is the Root of All Evil

H/T: @lpolovets Donald Knuth was specifically talking about algorithms in computer software, but the lesson applies broadly to product development, startups, and self-improvement. Perfection is the…

Discipline is Freedom

Jocko Willink is my spirit animal. Falling Victim to Entropy Since 2009, I had made a series of choices to focus on my career and entrepreneurial ambitions instead of my health. I put on about 50 l…

Why you should build wireframes in Powerpoint.

Wireframe for ClarkDever.com in Powerpoint There are dozens of tools for building user interfaces, some of them are web-based, some require specialized skills and software (looking at you Adobe). T…

How to Solve Ambiguous Problems with Simple Data Visualization

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Good Neighbor – A Hackathon Retrospective

Every year, I try and participate in at least one Hackathon. As a Product Manager, I find building and shipping a product as fast as possible is a great way to work on your ability to scope and p…

Micro-contracts: Increase your compliance with good habits

Micro-contracts build Habits Micro-contracts are one-line agreement with yourself. They are used to short-circuit decision making process for recurring events. The goal is to increase complia…

Violence of Action for Startups

Violence of action means the unrestricted use of speed, strength, surprise, and aggression to achieve total dominance against your enemy. – Cade Courtley A Strategy for Startups Fo…