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Wednesday May 28, 3:09pm Kreuzberg, Berlin

Dear John,

It’s been a cold two days filled with rain and I’m sitting here at my friend Volker’s desk in Kreuzberg, Berlin to write this letter to you today.

I’ve got two very different topics I wanted to tell you more about and inspire you to think about.

Topic No.1Persons Of Inspiration

The first thing is a task I’ve given myself while re-reading “Psycho Cybernetics.”

This task is to make a list of people–living and dead–who represent the type of person that I want to aspire to be. In particular, for each personality trait and accomplishment, I am tasked to find a specific person and research their life. A big goal of this exercise is to find out that many of the people I deem successful were NOT (genetically, socially) pre-disposed to becoming who they became.

I’m excited about this and I think you would have a lot of fun with this exercise.

Here’s my current breakdown of people who I consider successful in each their own rights and for different reasons altogether and who have, as far as I can tell (No one is an angel!) exhibited the right moral behavior to get there.

1. Entrepreneurial Success

   • Richard Branson (Serial entrepreneur, socialite, fun person, genius)
   • Jeff Koons (Art-impresario, multi-millionaire, genius)
   • Steven Levitt (Genius, curious mind, Richard Feynman of our age)

2. Financial Success (Having created financial empires)

   • Warren Buffet

3. Creative Success (Having created empires from their imagination)

   • Jim Henson
   • Jeff Koons
   • Walt Disney
   • Brian Eno

4. Cultural Success (Having influenced culture as a whole and millions of individuals)

   • Stewart Brand
   • Buddha
   • Joseph Beuys

Note, for example, that Steve Jobs is not on any of the lists. It’s because he didn’t make it for the following reasons.

Surely he is on-par with the financial and entrepreneurial success of Warren Buffet and Richard Branson BUT I am not convinced of the moral soundness of his person. My criteria for my list of aspirational persons of interest include empathy (Did/does this person make the impression of being interested in the emotional well-being of others?), approachability (Did/does this person make the impression one could, given the right circumstances, have a great conversation with them?), relaxedness (How effortless does this person come across?) etc.

You should of course have your own list of criteria to filter these people by.

My next step with this list is to get to know those better that I only know vaguely right now.

For me that’ll be Warren Buffett and Walt Disney about who I barely know anything.

That’s my homework for the coming days.

• Who are/were they?
• What motivated them?
• What does their outlook on life look like?
• What can I learn from them?
• Are/were they happy with their success?
• How do/did they use their success and power for the greater good?
• What is their legacy?

Topic #2 Working Remote

The second topic today is the fact that I’ve been in Berlin, as you know, for the past 3 weeks and that I am part of the founding team of VA, as you know, which is based in New York.

The challenge for me this month has been to be physically and psychologically here (Berlin) while at the same time maintaining my connection abroad with Valerie, Adrian, Lily and Sandip.

Daily Standup Meeting

So far, I’ve been able to make almost every scheduled standup meeting with the VA  team by using Google Hangouts video and audio conferencing.

On a technical level…

Google Hangouts

The experience so far has been good and I would say that Google Hangouts is superior to using Skype, the quality is better and group-calls are easy to set up.

So, if you find yourself working from a different location than your team (different time-zone optional) definitely give Google Hangouts a spin.

With Google Hangouts I recommend to try

1. to join an ongoing call
2. to create a group-call yourself
3. to switch between video and audio
4. to experiment with headphones and built-in mic and speakers
5. to stand up while video-calling and adjust your laptop accordingly

Slack

Lily introduced Slack the day she joined the team and we have been using it everyday successfully.

I am mentioning Slack as part of Standup because we use it to sync up before the meeting every day. If someone can’t make it or will be late, Slack is our channel to let everyone know.

On a personal level…

I love regular check-ins. I think they’re absolutely crucial for team dynamics and morale.

But I also think really staying in touch without seeing each other in person is hard. If you look at the 80/20 rule, I suggest that doing remote stand ups with Google Hangout and Slack covers… 50% of what needs to be conveyed. BUT using these tools is still a 100% improvement over using only email.

Team communication, nay, communication in general is so important and so multi-faceted, that technology is merely a temporary substitute.

Could you stay productive and in-tune as a team for a month while everyone works from different places?

Yes, definitely.

Could you run an organization consistently with everyone being in different locations and only do in-person meetings once in a while.

No, definitely not.

–

So, that’s it for today! That’s my report of this transcontinental cybernetic communication experiment.

I hope you found an inspiration or two and please don’t hesitate to leave a comment below!

Sincerely,

Alexis

PS: I found this article today on BLOOMBERG http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014–05–28/to-make-killing-on-wall-street-start-meditating.html and am now thinking of creating a list of efficient meditations. Any modalities (Increase focus, reduce stress, reduce anxieties, augment depression) that you would find interesting in particular?

Thought #1: “When do people buy things? When other people SELL things.”

Basically, unless you’re selling something people won’t buy it. It’s so obvious but when you’re like me then you just assume that–because your product is solid, and because you spent so much time thinking about it, and because, I mean, just look at it! It’s gorgeous. etc.–people will buy it with no need for persuasion.

I’m realizing this has been a fallacy in my thinking. Unless I “sell” what I have no one will feel the need to buy from me.

This can be…

…selling more consulting hours

…selling getting coffee with me

…selling a spot for a VC on VA

…selling a spot for a Startup on VA

Even myself! If I can persuade myself to do things then I can do the same with others. I am not sure if I’ve ever tried to sell to myself something BUT while reading Psycho Cybernetics I’m coming to the conclusion that selling/persuading is a huge part of transformation. And it’s a deliberate act. If I want to become successful then I should sell myself to that vision and buy into it and mobilize energy and resources to become successful.

This was prompted by the way, by a conversation I overheard of a startup that, after years of good growth has started to slow down in making money. The question the team raised was “How do we grow again?” without seeing the obvious answer: You’ve got an existing mailing list, so SELL THEM! – Also, sell them your story the way you sold it to them the first time. How you struggled learning X and how you overcame it and how it wasn’t that hard after all and how you succeeded. I think a variation of that will work and will work again.

Note to self: Must re-read ‘Advertising secrets of the written word.’

Thought #2: To Struggle In Life and Career IS A CHOICE

(came sometime yesterday) – I’ve been choosing to have difficulties with being successful. I think, subconsciously, I’ve been holding myself back for years, decades, based on the fact that the type of person that I am has to go through years of suffering and hardship and ONLY THEN would I be worthy the success that I secretly desire.

How effed-up is that? I’ve been actively sabotaging myself from “just being successful”. I realized it’s a choice I’m making and that the choice I’ve taken so far is a bad one.

Instead, I’ve decided that business success will from now on come easily to me. Why does everything have to be a struggle until, at the end, there is a moment of absolution? I’m tired of this and I’m tired of holding myself back.

This is going to be expanded but the key take away is that my self-image has, generally speaking, always included myself having a hard time with business things BY DEFAULT and that is what happens.

I can’t believe it’s that obvious.

I’m over struggling and luckily with VA I am seeing for the first time that business things can just click. I know we’re not yet making money but it’s by far the most successful piece of software I’ve created and I’m quiet proud of it, too!

For tomorrow I want to create a list of things that I’m proud of having achieved. It’s always a good idea to make such a list for boosting my self-esteem and confidence. Confidence is good, so is self-esteem and it’s good to document it just for myself as I have done before.

Alright, this is very stream-of-consciousness today but remember the two key take-aways:

1. People Won’t Buy Unless Someone Is Selling So, if I want to make more money, well, I have to start selling what I have and not assume and expect others to make that sale for me. How obvious!
2. Struggle In Life Is A Choice So, if I want to be successful, more than I already am, then I have to make it a choice to stop having to go through trials and trials and feel good about just doing it and having fun and success with it.

Good stuff.

More to come so stay tuned.

Ready, set, go! It’s been quiet a busy week and I’m ready, happy to just chill today. It’s Saturday, the summer is warm outside and I’m sitting here with the radio playing motown songs. As always, there is a cup of green tea waiting next to me. I’m currently reading a few books of which the one I bought most recently is right across from me on the table.

I thought today is a good review of the things that are on my mind:

1. Relaxation I’ve been working hard since last week on building out a completely new section of VA and this weekend I’m just chilling and not doing anymore work. I wrapped up my project, merged my development branch into staging and demo’ed my solution to Adrian.

The section I created is called “Business Metrics” and will allow us to survey and benchmark companies on any sort of metric such as Revenue, Marketing Costs, User Counts and, really, anything else we or our users come up with.

The system I built stays flexible because it allows us to add, edit and remove groups of metrics and the metrics themselves. If, for example, we decided tomorrow that we wanted to survey “Happiness” metrics, we would simply create a new metric group named “Happiness” and create metric types for that group such as “Customer Happiness” or “Employee Happiness.”

I feel proud of my achievement and believe that my contributions this week to VA are going to propel the value upwards.

1. Book #1: Alpha Male Tutorial

I decided to re-read the book I followed last year. I do like the little exercises he gives to boost self-esteem and improve ones self-image in relation to women. I don’t think I have a big problem with being Alpha but it’s good to remind myself of what makes a leader. I do listen to the self-hypnosis mp3 and my goal is to listen to it repeatedly over the coming weeks.

1. Book #2: The Ultimate Sales Letter

I want to brush up on my sales letter writing and brought with me a few books. My writing has suffered a bit this week but at least I dug into Dan Kennedy’s “The Ultimate Sales Letter” which, like the Boron Letters and Secrets of Advertising Copy helps write better long-form sales copy.

Writing sales letters is actually a bunch of fun and now that I’m writing again, I’m looking forward to writing more sales stuff again. I do like Kennedy’s style of writing because it’s very clear and methodical. I haven yet to implement his advice and hope that there will be some exercises to follow besides the general points he makes.

I still have and want to re-read Halbert’s letters.

1. Book #3: You Are Your Own Gym

This came about by luck. It’s a book that is all about how to use your own body to get fit without the need for any equipment at all. Just use what’s there and what’s around in any normal apartment. It’s a quintessential book in that I’m learning how to stay fit anywhere. I bought it yesterday and started reading today. I’ve decided to try out the exercises today and tomorrow but really start a 10 week program on Monday.

I’ve been meaning to get fit again but both, Gym and even Yoga are boring me.

1. Berlin in general

My trip is getting better. The first 10 days here were tough, I was annoyed about the lack of internet and I think I really missed Valerie, too. I felt like my flow that I have in New York was completely gone. I tried to give in to Berlin and relax but I still ran into resistances anywhere I turned.

Luckily, at least my work flowed, and in a way, that was my goal for my stay here. Have time and space and quietude to really get into my work and kill it.

I’m not as social as I intended to be but that usually happens when I’m here. To me, Berlin is a primarily solitary experience. It’s beautiful this time of the year and finally the rain stopped for most of the week and I get to spend time outside, too, and on the bike riding around town.

Well, I feel better that’s for sure. I’ve also started to eat healthier with less sugar, better carbs, more protein and much more greens.

Here’s to the rest of trip!

Sunday May 11, 7:58pm Freiligrath Strasse 10 Kreuzberg, Berlin Germany

Dear John,

It was so packed. Yesterday turned out to be a fun and full and very long day and I wanna tell you a bit about what happened, hoping you’ll get a feeling what a Saturday can be like in Berlin.

The key take-away today for you is: It’s been amazing and you would like it a lot.

Before noon, the remaining One Month team Mattan, Sydney and Lee landed and checked in to the apartment where Chris was already waiting. From what Chris told me they went straight to bed and slept for most of the day after a long night of traveling. I’m very excited for them to be here and I met them briefly when I went to see Chris to take a walk and explore his neighborhood.

Last year around this time I happened to stay in Berlin for 10 days and an old friend of mine, Kris Merken, showed me around the area where Chris and his team now live. I vaguely remembered this one small and very nice coffee shop that sat on a little plaza only a block away from Tempelhof airport-runways-turned-public-park.

We found the little place (whose name escapes me, “Edels”?, “Edile”? something french I believe), sat down, ordered coffee, tea and two excellent slices of “Kuchen” (German for cake, Chris got a pecan pie, I got this delicious red-currant whipped cream sandwich pie thing. Both excellent.)

This little coffee shop represents very well what I call a typical Berlin experience. It’s running well, has lots of customers, has good food, good drinks, looks a little run-down (they all do) and charms you with its imperfections.

Chris and I had a good conversation and waited the passing rain showers to end to continue our little journey.

We stood at the brim to the former runway of Tempelhof airport only a minute later and we took a nice walk around the area which, for a Saturday, wasn’t very populated. I assume the on-and-off rain showers kept people staying inside.

If you can take one thing with you from Tempelhof, it’s the air. In fact, the air quality in Berlin is phenomenal and it is especially fresh when you’re standing in a mile-wide open space. It felt like standing close to the ocean.

Once I got back home, our mutual friend Tobi invited us to join him to go to a party he and his friends “had waited weeks to happen.” We got our tickets online and I slept a few more hours knowing that parties in Germany begin late, usually around 1pm or even later.

After a quick shower around 11:30 we was off to the races!

The Party

Man, I had forgotten how these things exist. This wasn’t just some little club in the East Village with a few people inside and some waiting to get in. This was a full-blown rave in the back of a former factory of sorts drawing hundreds of Berliners and travelers to form long lines to get in.

Luckily we got tickets hours before online so Mattan, Chris, Sydney, Lee and I were able to go directly to a very short queue and got in within 30 minutes or less.

The check-in personnel (three women, the security guard and their guest list) were so friendly! I couldn’t believe how we were greeted with a smile and how understanding they were. I surprised me because that situation is high-pressure, intense and people do get upset. Especially since it had just started pouring rain again, too.

Getting in didn’t pose a problem for our little travelers’ group and the positive vibes I got from those three people during check-in colored my night with a smile.

Since I’m not going to give you a boring run-down of what happened step-by-step of the evening (I frankly don’t remember a linear story either), I wanted to share with you a few observations that Chris, Mattan, Sydney and Lee and I shared throughout the night.

1. People come to dance and are serious about their dancing.
2. A party like this with ~2,000 people is not a place to meet someone (See #1)
3. People travel and stay in circles of 5. That’s where all the dating and sex seems to happen.
4. Besides Vodka there isn’t a huge selection of hard liquors. We mostly drank Beer, Club Mate (a yerba-mate tea soft drink) and one or two shots of Vodka mixed in.
5. Every second overheard conversation was in English.
6. There are a lot beautiful women in Berlin. However, they’re usually not dressed up and usually do not even wear make-up. “Poor but sexy”

9:45am, May 10, 2014 Lilienthaler Strasse 10 Berlin, Germany

Dear John,

The days in Berlin are already flying by fast. I think you would very much like this place. Berlin excites and entices especially in May and June, the most beautiful time of the year to spend in Germany. I wish you could be here right now, and smell the fresh morning air. The trees and flowers are all blooming and fill the air with musky, earthy aroma. Nature is moving with the sunbeams, birds sing and show themselves, looking and singing for a mate to make more birdies with.

It really is a spectacle and because today is Saturday, the city is only slowly waking up and shedding Friday nights’ sleep from its hair.

I am sitting here with my mom solving crossword puzzles across the room. I am glad to see her although I know she is suffering and in pain most of the nights. During the day she can endure the pain by taking medicine–which is laid out neatly on the table in front of me–but the comfort leaves her when she sleeps so she has to wake up to the pangs that stem from her lower back. I feel for her and yet can not do anything besides being here for these remaining 28 days.

Given these circumstances, she sports very good spirits though. She always has been a bright and smiling person and even in her dire times such as now, she doesn’t complain too much. Members of our family can usually see the bright side of things when others would succumb to negative thoughts. My father has a positive outlook, too. So do I.

What else? Well, for one thing my dear friend Chris arrived from New York yesterday morning and my father and I picked him up from the airport and drove him to his rental apartment that he’ll be sharing with his co-founder and 2 of his colleagues from work. He had never been to Berlin before (although he did study for a year in Amsterdam) and it looks like he had a good first impression of the city.

It really is nice right now.

Since both of us are transplants we took a walk and explored his neighborhood first and then, later in the afternoon, walked further and sat down for very good Pizza close to the local canal next to Graefen Strasse. The place was bursting with young people of all sorts and the food and the beer and the dessert tasted delicious. On top of that, my dear friend Irmina showed up out of nowhere with her two sweet kids and we got to say hi and introduce her to Chris.

Afterwards we went and got another beer around the corner at a place called “Fuchsbau” which was very, very cool and I recommend it highly.

People still smoke in bars! The craziest thing, really, coming from New York where even “vaping” is now banned from the streets. And here, in Berlin, people don’t give a damn and instead enjoy their beer and their smoke and their company. It worked. The combination of scents just worked and I feel like I had forgotten that world. It’s cerebral. It’s good.

Today, Chris’ team arrived, I just texted with him. They’re already out and about taking in their new environment, walking around Neukoelln.

Funny incident yesterday: I hadn’t had coffee in a few weeks and for no good reason other than indulgence, ordered an espresso for Chris and I each after dinner. Don’t get me wrong, it was delicious; However, once I went to bed to sleep I got exactly 2 hours of sleep and stayed awake and conscious for the remaining 5 hours! Basically I did not sleep tonight and knowing myself expect to crash mid-afternoon. Well, and you know what? That’s fine. It’s Saturday, it’s Berlin, it’s chill. I’m not going to stress myself out. The past months in New York were packed with new experiences and while I am looking forward to banging out some really awesome new features this month, I am also in progress of relaxing and living a bit off-computer and off-business.

Finally, I just bought a big bouquet of peonies for my mom for mothers day. I bought them still tucked in and expect them to blow up over night to fully show off their currently hidden beauty. I bought one bundle of reds, one with pinks and one with whites. The white ones should give a very nice smell the vendor said.

I can’t wait.

Alright! The first day of my stay in Berlin for the summer is in full effect. I just got back from meeting Chris at the airport and showing him around his (our) neighborhood a bit. He got tired from the jet lag so he went home and I went home and now I’m sitting here, fresh pot of tea sitting to my right, almonds sitting in a little bowl ahead and my finger flitting across the keys to send you this letter.

I want to give you a quick recap of the past 48 hours since I left The Farm in Soho to make way for Newark airport. Nothing crazy, just a few thoughts on this particular voyage that I think you’ll enjoy and find useful.

Transfer to Newark

Newark is really far out there. Getting to Newark from Manhattan isn’t that easy and it takes roughly 40 minutes to an hour. I first aimed to simply get a cab but when I researched online it turns out that that would cost up to $80 and more. Well, next up was the NJ Transit that someone recommended to me. Turns out that particular train isn’t running for the month of May! (Thank you, internet, for helping me learn this before I got to the station.)

Well, finally I found a bunch of buses that pick you up in Manhattan and shuttle you to the airport for only $16 on average. Bingo.

Taking the express shuttle bus for $16 from Port Authority might have been the easiest, most hassle-free way I’ve gotten to any airport in New York City. From Soho, I took the N/R up to 42nd Street, got out and onto 8th Avenue and 41st and hopped onto the first shuttle bus that was already waiting there. Paid my $16, got a nice seat by the window, and arrived at Terminal C only 40 minutes later completely stress-free.

Your key take-away: If you have to get to Newark airport from Manhattan quickly and stress-free, take the Newark Airport Express shuttle service that leaves from 41st Street between 8th and 9th Avenue. You’ll save money, time and it’ll get you there worry-free. Good stuff.

Flight

Little did I know how bad United Airlines is. I arrived happily at Terminal C for check-in on my transcontinental United Airlines flight from Newark to Berlin. Upon arriving at the check-in hall I could not find a single counter for plain old economy class travelers like myself. They had counters for business class, first class, silver class, premier access class, platinum member class, super traveller class but not one for economy.

I got very confused.

It turns out that, as a mere economy class traveler you have to haul your luggage 2 floors lower to a dungeon-like area that checks in us mortals. That’s not cool.

Then you were left to your own devices by checking in only using self-serve terminals.

And then, I learned that if you had more than one bag (which I didn’t luckily) you had to pay $100 extra. Unheard of. I felt as if consultants from McKinsey had optimized every single part of my check-in process to save $4 per 1,000 customers but in the process ruin any respect I had for United Airlines.

The actual flight was a-okay but again, I felt as if United was saving and eking out the tiniest of things such as an inch here and an inch there in the cabin to get just one more row of passengers in at the back. I usually sleep well on any plane but this time I felt so crammed and uncomfortable that I swore to myself to never ever again take United Airlines for my travels.

Your key take-away: Do not travel from the US to Berlin with United Airlines because they are trying to be so cheap and save anything they can not caring about how it affects you the traveller (hint: badly.) Instead, get an Air Berlin flight (as I learned from Chris, his experience was excellent) or, if it makes sense to fly to Frankfurt first, take Singapore airlines.

Prelude: My friend Mike decided to get frozen in time in 2005 and stayed frozen until 2014. His unfreezing has successfully completed and today I’m going to give him a few pieces of advice since he hasn’t been around much lately. Or in the past 9 years.

Mike!

So excited to have you, dude. Welcome back, man. You okay? How did the unfreezing go? Looking mighty fresh there. Well, man, sit back and relax for now. There is a whole new world waiting for you out there but I think you need some upfront coaching for it. Well, lucky you got me then.

Man, 2005 is a long time ago. It seems like a different world although some of the stuff I’m going to tell you is a natural extension of stuff you already knew in 2005.

So, first off, Apple released the iPhone in 2007 and it’s still a big deal. You’ll want to have a mobile phone like yesterday and you’ll want an iPhone (the latest is just dandy.)

Your iPhone will have high-speed internet on it. It’s marvelous. And a digital camera inside that’s better than anything you got your hands on back in the day. Take a lot of pictures of yourself. Make them awesome using something called “Instagram.”

Oh, and music? Any song is at your fingertips with Spotify. That’s a service that gives you music. Mp3s? So last century, today you just stream.

What else? Ah, yes. Google is still huge and if you’ve had a gmail.com email address, you can still use that today. Oh, right, and there is Facebook that just had come out around the time you went to the fridge. Facebook is huge with grown-ups, it’s kind of their internal newsreader where everyone posts pictures of themselves and their children. A lot of our friends now have children. So, you wanna get on Facebook just because and begin by “friending” all those people that you never really cared about and a few that actually are your friend.

Oh man, remember cat pictures? Well, time didn’t stand still. Back in 2005 a little site started called “Reddit”. It’s basically the frontpage of the internet giving you an endless stream of new links to click and images to gawk at. There you’ll find hundreds of “memes”, sort of one-panel comic strips that are usually funny .

Now, if you like “Reddit”, then you’ll love this thing called “Buzzfeed” which takes cat pictures to the next level. Trust me, it’s better than T.V. ever was.

Speaking of which, T.V. is pretty much dead. Remember Netflix? Yeah, they’re now making TV series. It’s all streaming only by the way. All A-List actors are flocking to starring in those Internet-first series. Here are a few ones you must watch if you want to be able to partake in any reasonably inebriated conversation at a bar: “The Wire” will blow your mind. Watch all seasons. “LOST” is amazing for exactly the first season. I remember you like thrillers so you gotta watch “House of Cards” and of course you must get caught up on “Game of Thrones.”

What else, what else…? Remember wanting to be a millionaire? Well, that’s outdated. Everyone now wants to be a billionaire. Can you believe it? Watch “The Social Network” and you’ll understand why. And once you’ve seen that, you will also understand why everyone and their mom are starting companies based on the slightest hint of an idea. You’ll meet a lot of people with ideas for an “app.”

Oh, yeah, and this just in. Russia is giving Europe shit over Ukraine. You thought the cold war was over? Well, looks like another one is coming. We did catch and kill Osama Bin Laden and also Saddam Hussein who we hung a few years back. Hurricanes and floods in New York City are now normal. Penicillin is losing its edge and the oceans are dying.

People still love their steak, fried chicken, their whiskey, cupcakes are huge thing now, everyone can’t eat gluten, most of our friends are either vegetarian or vegan and everyone goes to the gym. Also Yoga is still very popular which is good.

Anything else? Oh yeah, women are still beautiful, the morning sun still warm. Winters are still blistering and summers are hot. I’m so stoked to have you back. It’s been a while and I think you’ll find this new world exciting. I as hell do, with all it’s pros and cons.

Welcome back, Alexis

Today I’m writing to you from my loft apartment in Bushwick, Brooklyn. I am sitting in the living room with my cup of green tea and an empty bowl of salad with french mustard dressing (Delicious).

I had just gotten back from a long walk and a quick meet-up with Val. It was very good to see her, even just for half an hour or so, because we’re working through the fact that I’m going to be in Berlin for 4 weeks starting in 3 days. We had vegan ice-cream and took a nice little walk through Williamsburg just as the sun was setting for the day. We eventually sat down and had a more serious talk about ourselves. Nothing complicated but Val wanted to open up our communication to include deeper conversations as she and I are already really good at playing and having fun together.

Before I met up with Val I went on an hour-long walk starting from my apartment and going all the way from Bushwick to Williamsburg. The sun was still shining at that point and it was warm enough to just wear a sweater. Sundays in New York are the week’s spectacle to me and I enjoy not planning them in advance and instead letting things happen as they come.

Taking an hour-long walk is becoming one of my favorite things and I got inspired to do so reading a little book called “The Boron Letters.” in which the author, Gary Halbert, slowly but surely persuades the reader to take hour-long walks every day.

So far I’ve been enjoying them very, very much.

Well, I spent most of the day in bed sleeping or getting up for half an hour or so and eating and repeating the cycle three times until I felt I had recharged my batteries that I had depleted throughout the week. Sleeping in is an amazing thing to do and I highly recommend doing it more often than not because now that I’m sitting here with batteries restored I feel stronger and much more ready for the coming week than I did last night.

So, that’s where I’m coming from right now and now you know.

I think it’s going to be an interesting practice to review the highlights of the week and I’ve prepared a list of things that really stood out to me in the past 7 days that I would like to share with you.

The most important work that Adrian, Lily, Sandip and I did this week was getting to know each other and starting to bond as a team. I can’t stress how important the people are that you work with and what a difference it makes when there is a “space” created for everyone to start trusting each other. Startups are always risky and everyone shares that risk in one way or another.

We created this space to begin trusting each other by speaking out loud, listening to each other, raising concerns, openly giving feedback and getting drunk on Thursday night. All were equally important.

This week reminded me that my trip to Berlin is waiting around the corner and that I am going to spend 4 weeks there. I have a round of old friends that I am very much looking forward to seeing but I also view this trip as an opportunity to extend my circle of friends and acquaintances further.

What I did was to write a simple not up on Facebook asking friends to recommend and intro me to their friends in Berlin that could be a good match. I got a good response and 8 introductions to interesting people that I am looking forward to getting coffee with now as well!

I am also thinking of hosting a “Sundays Are For Friends” in Berlin, around the 18th of May or so getting those old and new friends (and their friends!) together. That should be fun, so I need to add “Find a place to buy reasonably priced Prosciutto, cheese and white wine for around 20 people.” If I can do that in New York, I’m confident I can do the same in Berlin.

Setting goals has been working well already and I am excited to see how much of them I can implement this month. In particular, eating more veggies and less sugar and processed foods is going nicely so far. It’s something I can control quiet well by making the right choices and I am also cooking/preparing more veggie-based food at home. To really make my salads and veggie dishes “pop” I am experimenting with minute amounts of MSG and the results are encouraging. I have also been sticking to only drinking green tea (or other teas) instead of coffee for the third week. I can highly recommend swapping coffee with green tea IF you know how to prepare the tea correctly (Which is a very good idea for future post by the way.)

Exercise has been so-so thus far but ensuring an hour-long walk and forcing myself to get up and move around is a good start for the month.

That’s it for tonight I would say. I’m gonna get some more zzz’s hopefully soon to have all the energy to kick off the week strong and make the transition to Germany strong, relaxed and focused.

What’s been happening in your week?

It’s Monday, 7:30am. Rain flows down my face. I race my bike to University. 6 students already wait outside the door when I arrive. I let them in and for the coming 2 hours I teach them intermediate C/C++ programming concepts.

We’re having a blast.

I don’t understand why Mondays get such a bad rep. Don’t get me wrong. I love weekends. I love sleeping in but I also thrive on kicking off the week with full force.

I love weekends because they allow me to decompress, think about complicated problems, sleep, eat and make sweet, sweet love but why should that make me feel bad about Monday? If anything, recharging my batteries allow me to get really excited for the week ahead. In the past months working on VA I have routinely gotten up around 6:30 and earlier and couldn’t wait to get to our office and kick ass together with the team.

What follows is an incomplete list of reasons I like Mondays.

Mondays Are an Opportunity To Start The Week On a High Note

Let me start with saying: However you start a week will determine how you continue to feel about it. So why not strive to kick things off on a high note?

Being relaxed and energized from sleeping, eating, working out and spending quality time with friends (and alone, too) allows me to have that much more focus and energy.

I usually try to make a point of getting up early, around 6:30 or 7am, stretch in bed, practice a round of Yoga and meditate for an hour or so. Nothing crazy. Just stretching, breathing and finally sitting still.

Beginning the week like this centers me and helps me focus.

A snack like a banana and a handful of nuts on my way to the subway keeps me light and nimble.

I try to consciously feel good about the days ahead and usually by the time I arrive at the office I’m excited to get started.

Everyone Is Coming Back From a Mini-Vacation

I think the most important part in my day are the people I work with. I am lucky and utterly excited to be working with such a smart team. In best case every one had a reasonably relaxing, inspiring and recharging Saturday and Sunday. In fact, at VA we’re trying to not email and code during the weekends. The value of a fresh mind is higher than cramming in a stressful late-night session or breaking up a smooth Saturday afternoon with a disembodied conversation over email that would take 5 minutes in person on Monday.

If emotions were high the week before, Mondays are a good time to recap without being blinded by immediate reactions.

If morale was lacking, Mondays are a great time to check in with everyone and get excited.

I’ll say it again and again. The people I work with are key to how I feel about work.

Mondays Are a Great Time To Plan And Set Goals

Before checking in with the team I like to sit down for 30 minutes and list out my goals for the day and often my overarching goals for the week.

It’s simple and I use a piece of paper for the high-level stuff and then use timestacks.com for detailed scheduling and sorting.

Nothing extraordinary but having that extra amount of focus and mental energy early on is harnessed well through goal-setting.

Summary

In summary, I love Mondays because they’re a fresh start, can be framed positively and with excitement, let me see the people I really enjoy working with, are great for morale and are a great time to organize the week and set goals.

But What To Do If You Still Really, Really Dislike Mondays?

So, my raving review of Mondays still hasn’t convinced you? Still can’t get out of bed, still loathe your life, still thinking “Here we go again…” again and again every week?

Well, as you probably can guess, the problem aren’t Mondays per se. The problem most likely is much more systemic:

• Are you in the right job?
• Do you have the right people around you?
• If you won $1,000,000 today, would you still go to work?

This is not a trivial problem because your attitude towards your work (and yourself, really) informs every other aspect in your life. Your friendships, your relationships, your self-esteem and self-worth. I have this nagging feeling that time is too short to be unhappy.

So, if you really, really hate Mondays you gotta check yourself.

What’s that one thing you can change today to make yourself get really excited about next Monday?

It blows my mind.

Here you are. Building the most complex software products in the world. They’re beautiful, they do their things really well. But you’re not making any money with them. You’re not cashing in! Everyone else seems to make a buck but not you.

I’ve been a technologist for most of my professional life. I love building things. I love breaking things. But I also build software because it can scalable make me money. “Build it and they will come” I always thought. I had listened to the pain points of my prospective customers (often myself) and had come up with an elegant solution written in Ruby or Lisp, running as a website in HTML, CSS and Javascript.

But actually selling what I had to offer? I’m sure you’re thinking “Ew, sales. That’s just for those pushy sales guys who wear popped collars on weekends and date dumb blondes.”–Harsh judgments aside, it turns out that unless you sell me your stuff, be it software, hardware, voting for your project, liking your Facebook post, making an intro to a cool new person, I won’t do it.

Do you want to make money?

Then sell me.

It floors me how we as a entrepreneurial community thrive on the “rags to riches” narrative, how we thrive on customer development and building ultra-scalable business models but crumble when it comes to actually selling them.

Please, sell me

I’m serious. Sell me. If you have a product or service you believe in and that you spent your savings and your weeks and weekends on perfecting. For the love of god.

Sell me.

Explain to me my benefits. Why should I be spending even a minute to consider to give you my money, my time or my endorsement. Sell me on how what you have fits into what I’m struggling with.

Relate to me.

Now, the first thing seems to be building one of those long-scroll parallax landing pages with lots of engaging images and icons and boxes of text.

No.

I want you to throw that away and instead write up 4 paragraphs why and how your product or service benefits me. Write it black on white. Simple. My benefits.

Oh, and just so you know: I don’t care about you or how much money you want to make. Or how you want to make money to travel the world. Seriously. I care about myself first, then my friends and family.

Tell me your story

Once you’ve been able to get my attention by giving me good reasons to listen to you, please also sell me your story. How did you come up with your product? What did your first prototype look like. What worked and what didn’t? What did you learn? Who are you? A single person, a team, a country?

Tell me how you came about it and show me how and why you care. In fact, I think you should take a storytelling class for that.

Make me feel it

And make me feel it. Take me to another place. Seduce me. Make me want to want whatever you have. Tease me. Be funny.

Recently, a friend of mine who is running an entertainment company of sorts (Think Disneyland for adults minus the sex) was wondering why he couldn’t get new customers as easily as he had hoped.

Their product is solid.

Their value proposition is solid.

Their games are really, really fun.

But what he was missing out on was to transport me to the place he wanted me to experience. Don’t be boring, be daring! What’s my world look like with your product? (Don’t worry. My BS-detectors are good enough to notice if your pitch is full of it but no one says, you can’t transport me from where I am sitting right into the middle of an exciting adventure that you want me to experience.)

And even if you’re working on something “boring” such as a B2B Saas business, I’m confident you can take that and turn it into something new, something exciting and profoundly emotional.

We humans make decisions based on our emotions and rationalize them by thought. Use this to your (and my) advantage and take me all the way.

Seduce me.

Make it easy

It’s funny. You’ve told me my benefits, you’ve told me your story, you even made me really feel it. But then you’re not telling me what my next step is.

You flounder at closing the deal. This is it, this is the part where I turn from an excited prospect to a paying (time, money, endorsements) customer.

How do I go to there?!

In fact. I want you to show me exactly what to do next. For example, give me one single button on your page. Not five. One.

You’re the expert and I’ve come to trust you. Don’t lose me now or we’ll both be sorry, baby.

But here’s the twist.

You can follow each and every one of the steps and approaches I just told you. You still have to really, really think hard about what makes your offering a no-brainer for me.

Let me ask you now: What’s the absolute no-brainer reason for me to pay for your service? We’re not talking about individual benefits, technicalities or emotional bonds.

What’s your no-brainer?

We all got really drunk last night. It’s going to be a bit to piece together last nights events but I’m feeling woozy, slow and thrilled at the same time.

Yesterday, Thursday, began like many other days in the past weeks started: Wake up, meditate, commute and kick the day off with a team standup via Google Hangouts.

Since all of our team happened to be in the office yesterday we split into smaller groups throughout the day to work on discreet tasks and found time later in the afternoon to sit down and talk openly about things we are enjoying and things that we would like to change.

The conversation was important because it allowed all of us to learn to express ourselves and open ourselves up to each other. I would say, up until yesterday, we were still just 4 people banding together to make a website. After yesterdays afternoon conversation and the following evening getting drunk on German beer, I feel like we established a baseline for trusting ourselves and each other more.

Again, I’m thrilled about the outcome because as a team we need to trust each other and we have to have good reasons to do so in the first place. Trust is something, like love, you can’t force upon someone. I can’t just say “Trust me.” without having proven to you in some way that you can and that it is safe. Trust matters. It’s the invisible glue that holds things together especially when things get rough. Trust is what you notice when it’s missing.

I would love to go on on the trust tangent today but darn my mind is slow!

The juice detail is that we all had far too much beer yesterday and out of nowhere shots of rum appeared! And I wound up taking a big swill of that transparent liquid (I prefer tequila over any other alcohol but I don’t think that was an option.)

Anyways, yadda yadda, we had a good day, had good team conversations, all went out for coffee, figured out a bunch of cool stuff, went out again to the German place, got beers, got more beers, did not eat much and got pretty drunk by midnight. Val, Sandip and I took a cab to Brooklyn together and Val and I crashed at her place eventually.

What I didn’t know was how much impact alcohol has on Vals petite body. She did not feel well at all when we woke up around 7am. Her condition worsened as time went on to the point where she threw up several times before 9am. At around 9 I started getting a bit worried about her because she really seemed struggling with getting the alcohol out of her body. She shivered. She sweated. She threw up. Very worrying to see someone you love in distress like that.

Anyways, so that happened. And I’m not making a lot of sense today. That’s fine, I’m just going to keep writing and rambling today

While I’m writing this, I’m also exploring a Growth Dashboard with Sandip and it’s coming together nicely. We’re building a kick-ass bar-chart system where we’ll be able to see trends and corelations between investors, companies and compensations

Oh, also, I added a new feature or re-write for timestacks that I think could be good: Planning my tasks for a day does not require when I’m going to start the day. So, now I’ve got it set up so that you create your list, assign times for each task but it’s not set when the first task on the stack will start. This way, I don’t have to ‘reverse-buffer’ things when I start my day later than I had planned (this can happen easily when I’m commuting or similar)

Now, it’s really cool: There’s a big red button “Start Day” that, only when hit, the times on each task are calculated on the fly and this will allow to better adjust and sync tasks/expected times/reality etc.

I still have to test it out and play with it. Maybe it’s not working. Maybe it is. The complexity of my UI has grown but I feel it’s much tighter now than for the past year. I definitely am digging the red count-down thingy and it’s good to know that everything is still syncing up with iCal.

Well, that’s it for today. Writing these words took much more effort than usual and I do not recommend mixing drinks and writing. Don’t drink and type!

Hi there!

Today I want to write about my goals for May 2014. I will spend most of the time in Berlin, starting on the 8th and I’m returning to New York on the 8th of June. So, a lot of these goals are created with my New York state of mind and might change once I get there. But, as they say, better changing a plan than not having a plan at all.

I usually break down my monthly goals into health (things I want to achieve in terms of my mental and physical health), wealth (things that I want to achieve in terms of personal and financial wealth) and love (things that I want to achieve in terms of family, friends and loved ones).

So, there are a bunch of things I want to achieve this month. And I really hope that the traveling won’t just put a wrench into my plan. I believe I can make pretty much all of them happen.

Also, today I’m going to adjust my list by using the OKR method. OKR stands for Objective and Key Results. It’s a means to distinguish the higher purpose of a goal from it’s measurable results.

For example, “Health” isn’t even an objective yet (It’s just a very general purpose concept). I find it better to create an objective such as “Get Fit For The Summer” that has key results such as “Having done daily yoga and meditation” or “be able to go in full lotus” or “lose 10 pounds”. Getting fit for the summer is really hard to measure but it’s the overarching goal. Using key results is a great way to measure the progress towards achieving the objective.

My Objectives and Key Results for May 2014 Berlin Edition are…

Health

Objective: Get Fit, Relaxed and Strong

At the end of May I want to feel fit, strong, flexible and well-fed. I want to feel light and at maximum alertness. I want to feel relaxed at the same time. Really fit, strong and relaxed.

Key Results

Lose weight by eating veggies, fruit and nuts and avoiding sugars

Get strong by going to the gym or working out at home 8 times

Get flexible enough to go into full lotus by doing Yoga every day

Get calm enough to spend 31 minutes in Bound Lotus

Stay focused and calm by drinking green tea

Wealth

Objective: Grow VA and Create Value

The main objective really is growing VA both by adding more startups and by building out the business metrics portion of the site. Also, because of staying in Berlin, it’s really important to stay in touch with the team. I want to wrap up an ongoing project and finally pick up daily writing (and publishing!). Finally, I want to get my side project “timestacks” ready for public use.

Key Results

Stay in close connection with NYC team via daily standup, slack and pivotal

Build out Business Metrics Portion of application

Onboard Y Combinator Portfolio and 500 Startups

Send RMV Second Invoice by 15th of May

Publish Inspirational Blog Post Daily

Open up TimeStacks for other Users

Love

I really want to make sure Val and I stay connected. I haven’t seen my parents in 5 months and I want to spend quality time with them. Then, reconnect with my existing circle of Berlin friends and extend my circle with new friends. Spend quality time with Chris, too!

Objective: Stay Connected With Val, Reconnect and Have Fun With Family, Have Fun With Old Friends and Make New Friends

Stay in close contact with Val via Google Hangouts

Spend Quality Time With My Parents At Least Every Other Day

Have fun and adventures with existing (Berlin, NYC) friends

Connect NYC and Berlin friends

Make 10 new friends

Host 1 “Sundays Are For Friends” Event around 3rd week of May

Well, there you have it. The plan for May. It’s an experiment, and I wonder if the OKR method will work but I have a good feeling about it. Mainly, I want to make sure I’m on track with those key areas in my life. And even if I don’t accomplish each and every one (maybe I’ll have to make some Key Results more concrete as I revisit this list) but at least I now have a plan that I’m EXCITED about.

Now, let me ask you: What are your goals for May 2014? What do you want to achieve in the realm of your personal Health, Wealth and Love?

Don’t be shy, tell me below.