Hi Friends 👋🏽
The last edition of Monday Seven had a 56% open rate. The top two links were South Korea’s millionaire schoolteachers and the problem with education pandemic pods.
Dang. Missed writing to you last week. No excuses, but I’d be amiss not to catch you up on what pulled me away.
1️⃣ This summer I’ve been part of On Deck, a 10-week fellowship for experienced founders and talented individuals who are in the earliest days of building their next company. The program just wrapped up and I can confidently say that when I look back on the experience, it will be a major inflection point. The number of incredibly talented, generous, high energy people I’ve met while sitting at home has been greater than the sum of college, conferences, and dreadful networking events.
So what does On Deck have to do with my tardiness last week?
The fellowship culminated in a pitch day where fellows presented what they have been building for the past few weeks. Everyone is moving at a different pace and presenting is completely optional. While I am still working on what’s next, the competitor in me could not show up with a goose-egg. This is not a competition, but peer accountability is a powerful force. I had to build.
Before joining On Deck, I wish there had been a place to learn what the fellowship is really about. Not just praise, but things to watch out for and how to get the most out of it. What advice would past fellows have for me? There is plenty of Twitter hype, and for good reason. But I’ve also heard that On Deck wasn’t for everyone. I asked myself how I can help strengthen the On Deck community while also helping future hopeful fellows make better decisions around joining and getting the most out of it. Could I take this a step further and apply the same thinking to other learning communities?
2️⃣ That’s why I built Supertrack — a place to discover and learn about communities and programs that supercharge your career. With Supertrack, I set out to answer two questions:
If I want to level-up professionally, where do I go to discover new programs and learn which are right for me?
What learning communities are the people I'm connected to a part of?
Supertrack has about 30 reviews so far. They are mostly of On Deck, with a handful of reviews of other programs including Reforge, Write of Passage, Pioneer, Antler, and MoGraph. I built it from scratch and it shows. It’s unpolished and I am not proud of it in its current form. But, I tend to be too proud of my work. This is the Maximal Limiting Factor to my potential. I’m curious to see what happens if I just ship.
It’s far too early to tell where Supertrack will go. For now I am enjoying building this weekend project. At the very least it will be a good way to remain connected with the On Deck community.
No. 018 — Supertrack, Naming, and Immersed in Melody
This week I’m getting ready for a Great Canadian Road Trip. We’ll be driving from Toronto to Vancouver over the next 10-14 days, taking our time to see the country. We hit the road on Tuesday.
Let’s keep going…
3️⃣ How I built Supertrack — I used three tools to build the site: Webflow, Airtable, and Zapier. Simply, these are respectively the front end, back end, and the piping that connects them. It was straightforward with a quick learning curve. Though it helped to have a community to ask questions as I was learning and troubleshooting. I watched Webflow University and YouTube tutorials at 2x speed and slowed down where needed. Building with no code feels like learning to snowboard. Easy to pick up, hard to master.
4️⃣ Naming — I’m quite fond of the name Supertrack. Though I’ve never considered myself good at naming things. Whether companies (thisopenspace) or newsletters (Monday Seven), the names I’ve come up with have always been descriptive. While these do a great job explaining to the world what the thing is, they serve no other purpose. A brand name never lives in a vacuum, and you will always have context for what the thing is. Last week I finally decided to learn how to name things and came across two incredible resources. The Igor Naming Guide helped me learn about different types of names. I also spend time exploring the tools and resources inside the Onym Guide (caution: deep rabbit hole). I highly recommend saving these for next time you’re naming things. Onym Guide has great resources for just writing in general. It’s important to mention that I didn’t name Supertrack, it was suggested by a friend after I threw a few names around. I guess having friends who are good at naming things is a good hack too.
5️⃣ Watching and Awaiting — Kamasi Washington at the LA Phil SOUND/STAGE.
6️⃣ Track of the week — Immersed in Melody by Catamine Therapy aka Eiman Rashidian. I’ve been into anything Eiman puts out these days. This one’s a rhythmic flow full of international sounds. I easily picked up different 5 languages but there easily could have been more. If you’re more about that destination than the journey (oh child, you are missing out), skip right to 1:11:45 and just let it ride for a minute.
7️⃣ Quote
Why would I want to write about what little I know? Don’t I want to use writing to learn more? — Stephen J. Dubner
Last Words
Thanks for reading.
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Until next week from the road,
Yashar