đ Sam Corcos way, Time tracking, Post PMF, Viral growth, Making ideas happen, Torpedo bat, Stoop coffee
Porches, Glass box skyscrapers, Smoooooothie, Best thing since sliced bread and more.
Hello, this is post #205.
We crossed a big milestone last weekâthis little gang is now 1,000 strong.
I still canât believe there are 1,000 of you whoâve signed up to read this newsletter every week. It all started as a way to share my favourite finds with a small circle of friends and colleagues. Now, itâs grown into a curious, thoughtful community that stretches far beyond the people I know personally.
Along the way, Iâve had the chance to chat with some of youâand every conversation leaves me feeling grateful and inspired.
So hereâs a heartfelt thank you. Thanks for giving me the space to share what excites me. Youâre awesome. Stay curious. Always.
Letâs have a quick look at whatâre covering in this post:
Before we dive in; a quick favourâŚ
If this piece sparks even a tiny âhmmâ or âaha!â along the way, do me a kindness: tap the â¤ď¸ or drop a thought in the comments. Curiosity thrives when we trade reflections, not just clicks.
And with that out of the way, letâs get to our main features.
𤚠Sam Corcos on Time Tracking
Sam Corcos, co-founder and CEO of Levels, has some of the most radical ideas out there when it comes to management and product building. His earlier postsâlike the âBreakdown of how he spent his first two years building Levels,â and âHow to make delegation your superpowerââare among my all-time favourites on First Round Review.
Heâs just published a follow-up to his original âtime breakdownâ post, reflecting on the last three years. Itâs packed with fresh insights and shows how intentional effort can guide you through any phase of life or company-building.
Here are a couple of my favorite snippets from the post:
On burnout:
On 1:1s and meetings in general
Samâs take on 1:1s is pretty radicalâand heâs not alone. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who manages 60+ direct reports, famously doesnât do 1:1s either.
â˛ď¸ Rahul Vohra on Time Tracking & PMF
Another great perspective on this came from Superhumanâs Rahul Vohra on Lennyâs podcast. He talked about his approach to time tracking and how it led to a key insight that helped him significantly boost his contribution to Superhumanâs success.
Tracking his time revealed that Rahul was spending only 6% to 7% on product, design, and marketingâareas where he excels. By hiring a president to handle operations and restructuring his role, he increased this to 60% to 70%, dramatically accelerating Superhumanâs product velocity.
Rahulâs approach to PMF is one of the most well-known narratives in startup lore. In this episode, he dives deeperânot just into finding PMF, but also into what comes after. He shares a few insights from the post-PMF stage, including one thatâs pretty counterintuitiveâand definitely worth thinking about.
Ignore feedback from users who donât love your productâs core valueâfocus on the âsomewhat disappointedâ users for whom your main benefit resonates.
Rahul shared some great lessons on building viral products. His key message? True virality doesnât come from a product featureâit comes from word of mouth. Superhuman has nailed this, so his take is definitely worth a read.
đ Rex Woodbury on Viral Growth
If youâre curious about viral growth, Rex Woodbury has a fantastic essay called âViral Growth: how to keep lightning in the bottleâ. He breaks down two main types of virality:
Built-in Virality: This is virality embedded in a companyâs business model or product.
Viral Boosts: These are one-off âboostsâ that drive growth, but that arenât intrinsic to the business / product.
He backs it up with examples from Airbnb to Duolingo, making it a fun and insightful read. The following snippets caputres useful actionable for Tiktok. You can notice that it has much wider applicability.
đŹ 40 Principles for Making Ideas Happen
Action Digest is one of my favourite newslettersâperfect for creative folks, operators, and org builders. Scott Belsky and his team do an amazing job curating stories of design and operational excellence, turning them into clear, actionable advice.
Last month, they ran a three-part series with 40 principles for taking action & making ideas happen. It breaks down what it really takes to succeed creatively and helps you build a structured, sustainable creative lifeâone where you consistently do your best work.
Each idea is worth your time. The full collection is a goldmine for builders.
Hereâs a sampleâcheck out the full post and bookmark it as a go-to reference.
đ Torpedo âBatâ of Innovation
The âTorpedoâ bat is making waves in Major League Baseball, and YouTube is packed with videos breaking down why itâs a total game changer.
For those unfamiliar, itâs a newly designed bat being used by the New York Yankeesâcreated by Aaron Leanhardt, a former MIT physicist. He combined data, material science, and a whole lot of ingenuity to reinvent an object that had stayed the same for decades.
Itâs a fascinating story of innovation. Om Malik shared a short but sharp take on it, with a few standout observations that are especially relevant when thinking about innovation and problem-solving (emphasis mine):
The Torpedo bat, with its distinctive bowling pin-like design, proves that even products with 100 years of history can be revolutionized through a precise combination of data, design, and scientific analysis. It also illustrates that established order is often transformed by outsiders who arenât bound by traditional thinking. Just as Apple revolutionized mobile phones in 2007 by abandoning physical keyboards, Leanhardtâs physics-based approach challenged baseballâs century-old assumptions about bat design.
Another thing I have learned from watching innovators closely is that innovation walks a fine line between regulation and revolution. This bat is yet another example of what I have seen in Silicon Valley. The Torpedo bats are within Major League Baseballâs requirements yet transform the game. YouTube pioneered video sharing while navigating copyright laws, Uber reimagined transportation despite taxi regulations, and OpenAI is developing artificial intelligence within a very gray regulatory framework.
đĄ Stoop Coffee: Community in Making
Tyler and I were already having leisurely weekend morning coffees in our house, so it was an easy pivot to sit outside with our coffees and enjoy the sunshine. And thus our tradition began. Every weekend, we would bring our folding chairs out onto the street â we had to make do since our house doesnât have a stoop â and enjoy our caffeine. As we saw people entering or exiting their homes, we'd enthusiastically wave them down, introduce ourselves, and write down their names in our shared spreadsheet. I wore a goofy tie-dyed Six Flags hat so people would remember us as âthose peopleâ and we started calling this our brand awareness campaign (but of course, we live in SF).
Thatâs all it took to get the movement started. And they kept showing upâagain and again. It took a couple of months before the first person joined them for coffee. Then another. And before long, it grew into a block party with over 100 guests.
Patty Smithâs idea of Stoop Coffee is a great example of how community building is a natural processâyou just need to plant the seed.
I loved this story and am surely going to give it a try soon.
đ Porches - Everyday Third Places
One of my favourite childhood memories is sleeping on the roof during hot summer nights. There was a special charm in getting the porch or rooftop ready each evening, then hanging out under the stars before drifting off to sleep. We werenât aloneâthis was a shared ritual across the whole neighborhood.
David Ovenâs Inside Out (Archive here) reminded me of that memory. Heâs talking about a different part of the homeâthe porchâbut touches on similar benefits: a space for informal gatherings, health perks, and even better sleep on hot summer nights.
Porches are semi-magical spaces, intermediate between inside and outside ⌠porches embody âthe benefits of public life, the thrills of nature, the atmosphere of weather, the exhilaration of coming and going, the calm of simply sitting down, the warmth of family and friends, and the restfulness of solitude.â For years, they also played a prominent role in American efforts to prevent, manage, or cure several devastating diseases, among them tuberculosis, influenza, and pneumonia.
When I think of such informal meeting spaces, Goaâs porches come to mind. Mario Miranda captured their charm beautifully in his illustrationsâhere are a couple I found.
Goaâs porch, Gujaratâs aangan or wadaâthey all served the same purpose: spaces for everyday social gatherings, where the neighbourhood came together. This is where family extended beyond walls and turned into community.
đď¸ Why Skyscrapers Became Glass Boxes
Today, no matter where you are in the world, most tall commercial buildings look the sameâmetal and glass skyscrapers with little character or soul.
Brian Potterâs essay âWhy skyscrapers became glass boxesâ digs into why that is. It offers a great overview of how the construction industry has evolved over the past century, mapping out the key drivers and how they connect with the broader social and political landscape.
One could argue that thereâs a sort of market failure at work here: because architecture is ultimately funded by the people who occupy a building but viewed by people outside of it, there are externalities (in the form of benefits of attractive exteriors) that arenât being appropriately priced in. An âefficientâ market for architecture, which used some sort of mechanism to properly weigh the preferences of everyone who has to look at the building, might be expected to produce more beautiful buildings (for whatever your definition of beautiful is).
I love pieces like thisâdeep dives that open up entire worlds I barely knew existed. They make learning feel effortless and fun.
⨠Everything else
Kevin Kelly gets curious about and finds the origin of the phrase best thing since sliced bread?
Mad Over Marketing does his signature deep-dive into a business that started in 1966, nearly went bankrupt in 1986, got acquired in 2011âand is now the coolest thing in 2025. If you havenât guessed it yet, heâs talking about Erewhon. And yep, the story is absolutely wild.
Werner Bronkhorst creates hyper-realistic paintings that feel almost like sculptures. His work features tiny human figures set against vast, open landscapesâlike golf courses or pristine blue beachesâcapturing a striking contrast between scale and space. (via Dense Discovery)
ICYMIâŚ
The internet moves fast, but great ideas stick around. Hereâs some of my favourites from last weekâs post in case you missed it somehow.
11 Types of Insights
Under the Hood Team-BHP.com
How to build a village
Check them out and more at
That's all for this week, folks!
I hope I've earned the privilege of your time.
If this piece sparked something for you, Iâd love to hear what stood outâleave a comment and letâs keep the conversation alive. And if you know someone whoâs always asking "why?" or "how come?", pass this along to them. The world gets more interesting every time a curious mind shares what theyâve found.
Enjoyed revisiting Goan Balcaos through Mario's sketches