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Published 2 years ago

Week #15: Artist vs. Entrepreneur (funny story 🤦‍♂️)

Hey there!


Funny story.


I've made it a goal to tweet once a day for the next month-or-so and see what happens.


So yesterday I tweeted this...

I've thought a lot about this distinction between building software for my own amusement and building software to be used (and paid for) by other people. Ever since hearing it back in 2018 during YC's startup school.


So imagine how embarrassed I was what I received this response from Paul Graham himself...

So I frantically started to dig through the archives of Google and YouTube. I was so sure I had heard him say it (though, now I realize that I probably neglected to @mention him in the tweet for a reason).


It turns out PG never said this 🤦‍♂️


It was actually Michael Seibel (you can see exactly where he said it via the link below)...

Michael Seibel - Building Product

YC CEO Michael Seibel outlines how successful startups think about building something people want. Startup School is YC's free online program for foun...

I wanted to share this with you for 3 reasons.


  1. Because it's funny (and laughing with you about this will help me recover from public humiliation)
  2. Because I think this is still a really important thing to consider when making software. Who is it for? You? Or for customers?
  3. Because I wanted to try out this new email-embedded tweet feature I added to Meeps!

Stuff that inspired me this week...

Unmaking the Myth of Mass Appeal

Really liked this video. Mainly, the transitions and title animations throughout. It was so simple but so engaging. I'm also a big fan of Kevin Kelly's 1000 true fans (regardless of the fact that he redacted it entirely after publishing...I still thing he was on to something).

Lemon.io

This site is gorgeous! Just get in there and scroll around. It's always inspiring to see a really nice site design like this.

Plastic Bag

This little short film blew my mind. First off; I'm a huge fan of Werner Herzog who narrated it (been devouring his MasterClass on filmmaking lately). But the combination of great cinematography, story, and a beautiful cause. Bam! So good.

JOJO Rabbit | Directed by Taika Waititi

This is officially my favourite movie of all time. I can't believe how Taika manages to make you laugh while at the same time reminding you how horrifying this time in history really was. I could go on for hours about this film. Watch it if you haven't yet! (we found it on Google Play)

That's it for this week! Thanks again for reading. This list is still just 11 people so it means a lot (it's so cool that 11 people feel these emails are still worth receiving in their inbox!).


Stay golden!


Josh