Plant The Tree

We all know the cliche “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the next best time is today”, but it’s some of the best advice for life and business.

I was listening to a podcast from a founder who applied this to posting organic content and the whole idea clicked instantly.

He said “You gotta find your voice, it’s going to take a lot of time. Yes, you wish you started 10 years ago, but you didn’t, so you gotta start today”.

I had heard for years the value of having a newsletter before I finally started.

To this day I still feel like I “haven’t found my voice”, but I’ve accepted that will take time.

For me, simply sharing what I’m working on and learning is what I commit to each week.

Content, especially a newsletter, is something you don’t see the payoff from for years.

The same could be applied to learning a new skill - you won’t “master” programming or design until you’ve done it every day for decades.

A decision making framework I pull from this is to ask yourself “will I wish a year from now I started today”?

New Side Project - ConvertFiles.app

I’ve used a Youtube to MP3 Conversion tool several times in the last few weeks and decided I’d build my own. You can try it here.

For those interested in the tech stack:

• Next.js for the frontend hosted on Vercel
• TailwindCSS for styling
• Go with Chi for the backend API hosted on Railway
• Postgres for the database hosted on Railway
• Cloudflare to prevent bots and attacks

Things I’ve found interesting

links to valuable stuff I thought was worth sharing

411: Lessons on Bootstrapping Three SaaS Startups to $1M+ ARR - with Adam Robinson - The podcast I got the idea for this newsletter from. I’m only about half way through but it’s an interesting listen so far.

416: Flodesk: Bootstrapping a $27M ARR Email Marketing SaaS - with Martha Bitar - An interesting conversation with the co-founder of Flodesk, an email marketing platform. I don’t user them personally but I enjoyed hearing the story of how they grew so fast. Them choosing a fixed subscription with no free tier was a smart move given the competition then and even now.

If I Wanted To Become a Millionaire in 2025, This Is What I'd Do [FULL BLUEPRINT] - Another goldmine from Alex Hormozi.

The Precinct - Incredible New Police Crime Game.. - The list of upcoming games I’m excited for is piling up and this is another to throw on. This video has 30 minutes of gameplay from one of my favorite gaming YouTubers from years back (Hollow / HollowPoiint).

Have a great week.

Cole

P.S. If you found this letter helpful, please consider sharing it with a friend :)