Personal Board Update: Q1 2021

March 11, 2021

Sheesh it's been an intense couple of months. I went full time on intros (between the end of Dec and early Jan), moved to New York to be closer to my co-founder Rob, and turned 22. I made this update far shorter than the other ones just for brevity's sake. This email covers some high points, low points, an update on personal metrics, goals, and an ask.

High Points:

  • Won $7,000 in grant money from a program at UMich.
  • Landed 7 paying customers for intros (and another 15 in trial).
  • Brought on 4 part-time engineers for intros (friends at Michigan/Cornell) that offered to lend a hand before starting full time at companies like Facebook and Google this summer.
  • Moved to NY and feel more independent than ever.
  • Visited friends at Michigan for a few days to experience the entirety of my "senior year".

Low Points:

  • Definitely had a few lonely days, but in a totally normal type of way (not depressed, thankfully).
  • I haven't read as much as I'd like to, need to hold myself to a higher reading standard.
  • I haven't stayed on top of health-related habits (Meditating, journaling, and working out) and gained 3-5 lbs since January.

Metrics

I had slightly better sleep than last quarter:

  • Average bed time: 1:13am (40 min earlier than last quarter)
  • Average sleep length: 6 hrs 21 min (+6 more minutes than last quarter)
  • Average Sleep rating (1-10 based on Oura sleep ring): 6.4 (+4.9% compared to last quarter)

Dropped in my health-related habits:

  • Time spent meditating (weekly average): 25 minutes (-37.4% compared to last quarter)
  • Time spent Journaling (weekly average): 42 minutes (-40.5% compared to last quarter)
  • Time spent working out (weekly average): 1hr 15min (-37.5% compared to last quarter)

Made less content:

  • Time spent making content (weekly average): 46 min (-50% compared to last quarter)

Connected with friends + new people less:

  • Time spent on social media/dating apps (Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Hinge Weekly average): 5hr 15 minutes (-25% from last quarter)
  • Time spent 1:1 catching up with friends or being social (weekly average excluding weekends): 2 hour 32 minutes (-65% compared to last quarter)

Hosted more brunches which sorta made up for the fewer 1:1s (NEW):

  • Time spent connecting friends through brunches or manual introductions (Weekly average): 42 minutes

Started measuring a few more things (NEW):

  • Morning routine time (from wake up to starting work): 50 minutes average
  • Focused rating (measured daily 1-10): 7.5
  • Fulfillment rating (measured daily 1-10): 8.0

Stopped measuring a few things:

  • Sleep efficiency → Not actionable enough
  • Productivity score → Measuring level of focus daily is more tangible

Observations:

Fulfillment rating (How "fulfilled" I feel at the end of each day) is closely related to my focused rating (How well I stayed on task). There's also a heavy correlation between fulfillment and the amount of time I spend connecting others that day. It seems like I enjoy connecting friends more than I enjoy connecting with friends.

Goals:

  • Write more and start building a personal brand
  • Get into more intense workouts
  • Raise a pre-seed for intros and get to $1000 in monthly recurring revenue.

Ask:

We may be doing a friends and family round for Intros over the coming months. We'd only look to raise between $50k-100k from friends + fam and just want to put out a feeler in case you'd be interested (we'd probably take max $5k-10k from an individual).

Thank you for taking the time to read through!