Q1 2024
life news, startup updates, cool links, and pics from the last 6mo
Updates 🗞️
For the first time since this newsletter’s inception in 2022, I’ve broken my habit of appearing in your inbox once every quarter. Consider this a concentrate — this update will have 2x the news and 2x the number of bullet points in an even shorter than usual update. Buckle in 💺 🛫
In December I graduated high school and finished my internship at Corner. After 4 years of working almost non-stop on personal projects, other people’s startups, and school, the sudden whoosh of extra time and space felt pretty weird. Good weird, but still weird.
The month-ish that followed was spent:
Reading a few books (reading log can be found here)
Figuring out the next steps for UltraRice
and of course, spending quality time with my favorite library cats 🐈
I also spent that time planning the future of my two communities:
🔨 Buildergroop
In the short-medium term for Buildergroop, we’re paying the remaining state and federal taxes and shutting down the C-corp entity.
Tejas, Aaryaman, and I are in completely different places now than we were when we started the community and we want to change how things operate accordingly. We’re looking to re-incorporate as a fiscally-sponsored 501(c)3 which will allow us to host hackathons, maintain existing resources, and keep the community’s doors open without requiring the time/financial burden of maintaining a for-profit entity that’s not generating revenue.
📸 Photography Lounge
I’ve been consistently impressed by Photography Lounge’s growth and wanted to think about ways to support the team. After speaking with our gear specialists and digging deeper into analytics, an opportunity slapped me in the face.
In the past 30 days, 140k of the 330k messages sent (41%) were shared in gear channels. Beyond the core community and photo contests, people come to Photography Lounge to decide which accessories, lenses, and cameras to purchase. For the past three years, we’ve sent members to countless online retailers to spend thousands of dollars on equipment.
This led us to partner with MPB, the world’s largest used gear retailer, and to incorporate the community as a 501(c)3 non-profit. All transactions are 100% publicly viewable and all money made goes straight back into funding community initiatives.
Now, onto the bigger news 🚢
As needed as my mini-sabbatical was, I couldn’t help but think about what I wanted to do next. I spoke with friends working at interesting companies and discussed potential roles with some amazing early-stage founders.
Then I spoke with Julian, the co-founder & CEO of On Deck. Through their fellowship (ODF), On Deck's mission is to help “more people start the best companies”, which they do and then some, playing a crucial role in 1k+ startups valued at a combined $9B. Founders of companies like Primer, Loyal, and Cal.com have come out of ODF, and more and more impressive founders and startups emerge from each cohort every few months. I’m excited to say that I’m now working with On Deck across functions. I’m also building a special new project within the org that I can’t wait to launch later this month.
Julian was extremely generous with his insights and advice while I was building Buildergroop and UltraRice and I attribute some of my best decisions for each of those projects to some of the conversations we had during that time. I can’t wait to continue working with and learning from him and the team.
Numbers 📊
UltraRice 🌾
$15.8k+ in the bank
4 months left in our planned research phase
Photography Lounge 📸
17.5k+ members (25% increase)
9.3M+ messages (32% increase)
533k+ images sent (22% increase)
Links 👀
Must-watch shows and movies 🎞️
I visited China’s Most Futuristic City, YouTube
City Lights, Max
Charade, Prime Video
Maestro, Netflix
Lessons in Chemistry, Apple TV
Top-notch links and resources 🔥
Chaos Theory, Tina Mai
The Entrepreneurial State, Works in Progress
The Rising Generation, Kyle Harrison
Climbing the Wrong Hill, Chris Dixon
Visions of the City Interview Series: Emmett Shear, Emmet Shear
Scrapbook 🤳🏼
Here are some photos from the past 6mo in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and San Francisco. Looking forward to getting into NYC as the weather warms up :)
Thank you neesh, alexa, mom, priya, and alistair for reading drafts of this.
see you next quarter 👋🏼