read time ~3 mins

Hey everyone,

This is Dan from ReadWriteDev.com

In this edition, I’m sharing my thoughts on Steven Pressfield’s Turning Pro, an atomic essay about the 8-second rule for grabbing attention, and the latest updates as I gear up for Content Flywheel’s big relaunch. From crafting the perfect headline to finalizing pricing plans, it’s been a busy week of building and learning.

Here we go!

what i’m reading…

“Turning Pro” by Steven Pressfield

Last week I re-read one of my favorite books: “Turning Pro” by Steven Pressfield. Every time I read it, I walk away feeling incredibly motivated. Pressfield doesn’t sugarcoat anything… he speaks candidly about what it means to move from being an amateur to becoming a professional in your craft.

For years, I’ve treated my side projects like an amateur. I tinker, dabble, and never take them as seriously as I should if I want them to succeed. Every time I read this book (it’s really short), it reminds me that if I want to make it as a solopreneur, if I want to replace my full-time income and finally leave my job, then eventually I need to fully commit.

Pressfield talks about the mindset shift required to “turn pro.” It’s about showing up every day, doing the work, and not letting distractions or excuses hold you back. It’s a reminder that success doesn’t come from waiting for the perfect moment; it comes from acting like a professional, even before you have the results to prove it.

Have you read anything that has motivated you to level up recently?

what i’m writing…

This week, I wrote an atomic essay called “The 8-Second Rule: Designing for Modern Attention Spans”. The idea came to me while working on the landing page for Content Flywheel last weekend (see below).

Creating a page for a half-built, unproven product is not easy. With no social proof, no testimonials, and just a couple of half-baked features, I found myself staring at the screen, wondering: how am I going to convince someone to sign-up?

People don’t want to guess what you are offering or why it matters. They need immediate answers and a compelling reason to stay. This process has been an exercise in ruthless prioritization, forcing me to focus only on what matters most.

If you’ve ever build a product landing page, I think you will find this essay relatable. It is a reminder that even small tweaks and clear messaging can help turn a random visitor into a paying customer.

Give it a read and let me know what you think!

what i’m developing…

The new Content Flywheel landing page!

I’ve been spending so much time working on the Content Flywheel landing page, and it’s starting to wear me out. Between writing the right messaging, tweaking the design, and setting up pricing plans, it’s been a lot. Every detail feels important, but I’m sure no one will sign-up for the next few weeks anyway, so I’m not sure why I’m even stressing it.

Some weeks are harder than others, but I just keep reminding myself that each step is progress!

tweet(s) of the week…

Twitter tweet

I thought the quote was funny, but also, if you aren’t watching the show “From” then you are missing out!

Just be warned, it’s a scary-ass show. Watching it gives me anxiety, but I love it 💀

Thanks for reading! This week, I’d love to know:

What’s one way you’ve captured attention in a crowded, fast-paced world?

Share it with me on Twitter, and let’s talk about how small changes can make a big impact!

read time ~4 mins

Hey everyone,

This is Dan from ReadWriteDev.com

In today’s newsletter, I’ve got a review of Ethan Mollick’s new “Co-Intelligence” book. I’ll also share my new atomic essay on why nerves and fear are signs of growth. Then I wrap things up with a first-look at the new social preview components that I build for Content Flywheel, with the help of Cursor and Claude.

Let’s get started!

what i’m reading…

Co-Intelligence by Ethan Mollick

A couple of weeks ago I finished “Co-Intelligence” by Ethan Mollick. It’s a newer book about how AI is evolving into something we can work alongside to be more creative and productive. I’ve been thinking a lot about AI Agents and the future of AI <> Human interactions, so I wanted to check out this book and hear Ethan’s thoughts on the subject.

Just to warn you, I personally wasn’t a huge fan of this book, but I’m also probably not the target audience, so take my notes with a grain of salt:

• AI as a Creative Partner: The book discusses how AI can enhance creativity by working alongside humans. He makes some interesting points, but the examples provided tend to oversimplify things, and you can tell he’s talking to readers with less of an understanding of today’s AI tools.

• Co-Intelligence: Mollick emphasizes combining human intuition with AI’s computational power. While the idea is interesting to me (from an AI Agent standpoint), the book doesn’t go into the current approaches or limitations that exist. As far as I remember, he doesn’t even really predict what the future innovations in this area might be, it’s more of a high-level overview.

• Practical Applications of AI: The book gives examples of how AI can boost productivity and problem-solving across fields like education and business. This part might be the most helpful for non-technical readers. But honestly, most people interested in AI have probably already learned about these practical uses by simply experimenting with the tools.

• Ethics and Responsible AI Use: As expected, a recurring theme is the importance of aligning AI with human values. While the ethical discussions are valuable, they might feel basic for those already familiar with these hotly debated topics. I didn’t feel like the author brought much new to the table.

The book is written in an approachable style and is clearly aimed at non-technical users who want to understand AI without getting into the complexities. If you regularly use AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, or Perplexity, you’ve probably already encountered or thought through most of the topics covered in this book.

Personally, I was hoping for something more technical and forward-thinking. The content feels like it might become outdated by the end of 2025, even though the book was just released in April 2024. This could be why the author chose not to dive deeply into the details, because there’s still so much innovation happening in this space. Then again, maybe I’m overestimating how quickly and widely these AI tools will actually be adopted.

what i’m writing…

Yesterday I wrote an atomic essay called “If You’re Not Scared, You’re Not Growing”, inspired by the idea that nerves and fear are signs of growth. Every time I create something new — this newsletter, a blog post, a new side project — I get that feeling of doubt, a voice whispering, “What if this flops?”

This essay talks about why discomfort is essential for personal growth and why avoiding fear often means avoiding opportunities to level up. It’s a reminder that nerves are proof that you’re going out on a limb, taking chances, and growing as a result.

If you’ve ever felt like fear was holding you back, this essay might inspire you to see it differently. I’d love for you to read it and share your thoughts!

what i’m developing…

A demo view of my new LinkedIn carousel preview component

This week I’ve been using Cursor.sh and Claude to help me build these awesome new “social preview” components in Content Flywheel.

Previously, when a social post was imported, I was just rendering the content in a Notion-style text editor. These new components allow you to view imported content more visually, as if you were looking at it directly in YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.. When possible, I’m also pulling in the latest engagement numbers (likes, comments, shares) and displaying them on the component as well.

My problem is, as you’ll see in my Tweet below, this functionality definitely isn’t required to launch an MVP version of my product, and I’m really just procrastinating at this point 😅

I’m hoping to finish up the pricing/billing functionality of the product this weekend, and hopefully “launch” the product in early October. I’m sure I’ll have an update on my progress in my next newsletter!

tweet of the week…

Twitter tweet

Thanks for reading! This week, I want to ask:

What’s a bold step you’ve taken recently that pushed you outside your comfort zone?

Share it with me on Twitter, and let’s talk about how stepping into discomfort leads to growth!

read time ~4 mins

Hey everyone,

This is Dan from ReadWriteDev.com

In this edition, we’re diving into how big ideas take hold, inspired by Everett Rogers’ “Diffusion of Innovations”. I’ll share my thoughts on the rhythm of innovation in an atomic essay, insights from Nat Eliason’s “Crypto Confidential”, and a sneak peek at the new AI mini-tools I’ve been building for Content Flywheel.

Let’s get started!

what i’m reading…

Crypto Confidential by Nat Eliason

Last week, I listened to the “Crypto Confidential” audiobook by Nat Eliason. The book takes you through Eliason’s personal experiences during the wild ride of the 2021 crypto-boom. It’s filled with some great stories about the highs and lows of investing in crypto, something that I could really relate to.

Here are some of the main ideas from the book:

• The Temptation of Quick Riches: Eliason talks about how easy it is to get caught up in the excitement of making money fast, but also how risky it can be.

• The Wild West of Crypto: He explains how the lack of rules in crypto markets makes it both exciting and dangerous, and why it’s so important to do your homework before diving in.

• The Emotional Toll: The book also dives into how stressful and overwhelming it can be to deal with the ups and downs of high-stakes investing, and why keeping a clear head is crucial.

Like I said, reading this book really hit home for me because I went through some very similar experiences during the 2021 NFT boom. Like Nat, I saw how thrilling (and stressful) the crypto world can be, and also how easy it is to get swept up in the hype. It’s been interesting to see someone else put words to what I felt during that time.

On a personal note, it’s also pretty cool that Nat and I both live in Austin. I’ll admit, I’m a little jealous that I’m not in similar social circles with people like him. It’s a reminder of how much I’d like to connect more with others who share these kinds of experiences.

If you’re curious about the crypto world or want to learn from someone who’s been through it all, “Crypto Confidential” is a fascinating read.

Let me know if you check it out!

what i’m writing…

This week, I wrote an atomic essay called “The Rhythm of Innovation”, inspired by Everett Rogers’ concept of “Diffusion of Innovations”. It’s a framework that explains how ideas spread through society—and how they often don’t.

I’ve experienced this pattern a few times myself. I’ve built things that early adopters loved, only to watch them stall when it came to reaching the mainstream. The challenge isn’t always the idea, it’s crossing what Geoffrey Moore famously called the “chasm.”

In the essay, I explore how innovation doesn’t just happen. It takes strategy. It’s about understanding who to focus on, when to pivot, and how to build a bridge that connects early enthusiasm to wider adoption.

If you’ve ever felt frustrated by a great idea that didn’t take off, this essay might resonate with you. It’s a reminder that success isn’t just about invention, it’s about execution.

I’d love for you to give it a read (it’s another short one) and let me know if it sparks any thoughts.

what i’m developing…

As I get closer to re-release Content Flywheel, I’ve been sporadically building new AI mini-tools to help myself with everyday tasks. Most of them are also features that I eventually want to offer in a more automated workflow approach, so setting up the API calls to the third-party services is something I’ll need to do eventually anyway.

Imagine this type of workflow:

• You publish a new YouTube video

• Its automatically imported into Content Flywheel

• The video is downloaded and transcribed

• The major themes, talking points, quotes, and questions are extracted

• Stock images on the topic are generated and added to your Media Library

• Engaging social posts are generated w/ images and links back to the video

• The first-draft of a related blog post is written and awaiting your approval

• The blog post is converted to an audio podcast in your own voice

• Highlight clips of the audio are detected and converted into short-form videos

This is the type of functionality I’m trying to create with Content Flywheel. I’m not trying to replace human creators, I’m trying to empower them to reach a broader audience and spread their ideas.

I’m also hoping this can be a powerful tool for content marketing agencies so they can spend more of their time on strategic thinking and less of their time on mundane content repurposing tasks.

I’ve never been more excited about a product I’ve built. I can’t wait for people to try it out.

tweet of the week…

Twitter tweet

The developer efficiency that Cursor and Claude are unlocking is incredible to see. I can now build things in a day that used to take me weeks. I can’t wait to see how this evolves in the future. Hopefully it doesn’t completely put me out of a job 😅

Thanks for reading! This week, I’d love to know:

What’s a great idea you’ve had that didn’t quite cross the “chasm”?

Share it with me on Twitter, and let’s chat about how to turn stalled innovations into momentum!

read time ~3 mins

Hey everyone,

This is Dan from ReadWriteDev.com

In this edition, we’re exploring how small wins lead to big outcomes, inspired by Dr. Grace Lordan’s “Think Big”. I’ll also share my thoughts on the power of small wins in an atomic essay and give you a behind-the-scenes look at the latest evolution of Content Flywheel: team workspaces to better support businesses and agencies.

Let’s dive in!

what i’m reading…

Think Big by Dr. Grace Lordan

This week I’ve been listening to “Think Big” by Dr. Grace Lordan. The book discusses how small, consistent actions can lead to big achievements over time. It focuses on setting clear goals and taking manageable steps to reach them, which ties perfectly to my recent essay on the power of small wins (see next section).

Here are some of my favorite ideas from the book…

• Set Clear Goals: Picture who you want to be in the future and map out the steps you need to take to get there.

• Recognize Biases: Be aware of mental habits that might be holding you back, and work on overcoming them.

• Focus on Small Steps: Progress happens when you take small, steady actions toward your goals.

• Ask for Feedback: Use feedback from others to improve and stay on track.

• Build Resilience: You’re always going to face challenges. Learn to bounce back from them and keep moving forward.

Dr. Lordan’s advice in this book has helped me rethink how to make progress, both personally and professionally. It’s a good reminder that small efforts, done consistently, can lead to big changes over time.

If you’re interested in understanding how small steps can lead to big changes, I highly recommend checking out this book!

what i’m writing…

This week, I wrote an atomic essay about the compounding effect of small wins, inspired by my own journey as a solopreneur. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the distance between where you are now and where you want to be, but I’ve learned that progress isn’t about giant leaps, it’s in celebrating the little victories along the way.

Whether it’s landing your first customer, launching an MVP, or even just hitting “publish” on a blog post, these small wins fuel momentum and remind you that you’re moving forward.

If you’ve been feeling stuck or discouraged, this essay might help you see how the accumulation of small wins can create big outcomes over time.

I’d love for you to give it a read (it’s very short) and share your thoughts with me!

what i’m developing…

Almost a year ago I built a simple MVP for ContentFlywheel.com and had a couple people sign-up. The immediate feedback I received was “can I invite my co-workers?”.

At the time, I threw together a simple multi-tenant invite system, but I was never really happy with it and was even a little scared there might be some security risks. So this summer I decided to bite the bullet and fully commit to building a true multi-tenant app.

This functionality will also support my latest idea to begin targeting content marketing agencies and advertise how easy it is to build an “AI-Powered Content Marketing Agency”. I might even create a free course to share some of the ways Content Flywheel could help empower people who are looking to build this type of side hustle.

Is “course-driven marketing” a thing? Did I just invent that?

tweet of the week…

Twitter tweet

Thanks for reading! This week, I’m curious:

What’s a small win that’s had a big impact on your journey recently?

Share it with me on Twitter, I’d love to hear about it!

read time ~4 mins

Hey everyone,

This is Dan from ReadWriteDev.com

I’m going to try something new and simplify the format of my newsletter. Every couple of weeks, I’ll break things down into three sections: what I’m reading, what I’m writing, and what I’m developing.

My goal is to keep things concise, actionable, and focused on the latest adventures of my solopreneur journey.

Let’s dive into this week’s edition!

what i’m reading…

Day Trading Attention by Gary Vaynerchuk

I’ve been doing a lot of reading listening lately. Each night I walk about 3 miles around my neighborhood while listening to an audiobook. It’s awesome because I feel 2x productive because I’m not only reading a book a week, but I’m also leaving my desk and getting some exercise in.

This week I finished Gary Vaynerchuk’s new book, “Day Trading Attention”. I’ve been excited to read this one because I used to build a social publishing tool, and have always been interested in the latest social trends. I’m also a big fan of Gary’s audiobooks because he reads them himself an is always interjecting additional details or updates.

Here are some of the notes I jotted down while listening…

• Attention is Priceless: Growing your social influence and having an engaged audience is one of the most valuable skills in the world today. Once you gain a person’s trust, everything after that becomes significantly easier. This isn’t just relate to your business, but in every aspect of your life.

• Be Real, Not Perfect: People like honest and authentic content more than super-polished ads. This point was a motivating factor behind my new blog post, “Done Is Better Than Perfect“.

• Create a Lot of (Good) Content: It’s impossible to predict what content is going to resonate with your audience, so it’s often better to just hit “publish” sooner rather than later. Then iterate on the content that gains traction.

• Jump on New Platforms Early: Being one of the first people to use new apps or features often gives you a major advantage when it comes to growing your following. We’ve seen this play out over and over again as new social networks emerge and the early adopters quickly gain a ton of traction.

• Use Data to Grow: Pay attention to numbers like views, clicks, and likes to see what’s working. Then publish more content in related areas or styles.

• Stay Flexible: Things change quickly, so you need to keep an eye on what works and be willing to change up your strategy when necessary.

• Build Your Personal Brand: Your personal brand is often more important than your company’s image. There’s a growing trend where people are tired of following a faceless brand pages, but are happy to follow the energetic founder.

what i’m writing…

Done Is Better Than Perfect

Last week I published a short blog post on some of the challenges I faced while building my new side project (see next section). As I mentioned above, it was greatly influenced by GaryVee’s “Be Real, Not Perfect” point in the book.

A lot of people struggle with imposter syndrome, myself included, but these days I more frequently find myself wrestling with this obsession with perfectionism. I’ll spend weeks or months building something new, but then I have a hard time publicly sharing it until I’m able to add “just one more feature”.

The irony here is that this typically results in me never “finishing” the product at all, getting bored, and moving on to something new. I’m sure many of you can relate.

If this sounds like you, I’d love for you to read the post and let me know what you think!

what i’m developing…

For Buildspace’s “Nights & Weekends (season 5)”, I’ve decided to reuse a domain that I’ve owned for a few years now: Trendy.so.

With the ever increasing functionality of AI language models, I thought it would be cool to create an app that queried the day’s trending news stories, summarize various source articles, and then rewrite the article from a neutral point-of-view. This could help decrease the political bias from some news outlets, while also delivering the content in a very minimalistic format that isn’t littered with advertisements.

I’ve always been a fan of daily newsletters that provide a high-level overview of the previous day’s top stories (Morning Brew, The Hustle, etc.). I think it would be cool to eventually add a feature where the read can “subscribe” to certain topics and then just have those stories sent to their inbox each morning.

There are a few other AI functions that I think could be implemented in a modern media site like this:

• Text-to-Audio could read the article summaries to you in a podcast-style format

• A faceless video template could be used to auto-generate a daily rundown video

• Each night you could auto-publish these formats to YouTube, TikTok, etc.

tweet of the week…

Twitter tweet

Thanks for reading! I would love to hear what you think of my new newsletter format, send me a DM on Twitter if you ever want to chat.

Read Time ~4 mins

Hey Everyone!

Welcome back to another edition of SchoonStories, my weekly-ish newsletter on emerging technologies and their impact on solopreneurs and society as a whole.

I’ve got an exciting update this week, which is actually why this is arriving a little later than I had originally planned. Almost 400 people(!) viewed my last newsletter, which focused on ChatGPT and the rising popularity of text-based A.I. models. So my plan this week was to expand on that theme and provide an overview of the arguably more impressive text-to-image A.I. models.

But then I thought to myself…

“Would my amazing subscribers really prefer to read a long, boring text-based newsletter about how exciting these new A.I. art generators are? Or should I instead dedicate my entire week to building them a tool so they can actually experience it for themselves?”

And because I appreciate each and every one of you more than words can express… THAT’S WHAT I DID!

First Look: imgine.io

Imgine is an A.I. generative art platform that I’m building that allows you to enter a text prompt, and it will respond with a unique image based on the text you provided.

Under the covers, this project uses a custom-trained A.I. model that was trained on top of the popular Stable Diffusion model that was released in August 2022. Unlike some of the alternatives, like OpenAI’s DALL-E or the very impressive Midjourney, Stable Diffusion is open-source and publically available for developers to customize and self-host in their own environment.

Next, I’m working on implementing additional A.I. functionality. The first will “enhance” your images by scaling up the resolution and automatically touching up faces. The other, which is still under development, will let you “clean” images by using a magic eraser to remove objects the A.I. may have added incorrectly.

But enough talking from me; here’s a quick demo of it in action:

As you can see, it’s pretty close to being ready for a more public release, but I thought it would be more fun to give you all an exclusive sneak peek before everyone else!

I’d love for you to try it out and see what types of interesting artwork you can generate. Then, if you have any feedback, I would love to hear it so I can work on addressing it before the rest of the world gets access.

Let me know what you think!

Favorite Tweet of the week

Is it me, or does this headline sound like the Avengers are getting back together…

Twitter tweet

Now Streaming: The Last of Us (HBO)

I haven’t been this excited about a new show in a while. The opening scene alone is incredibly written and gave me major “Newsroom” (also HBO) vibes.

I played the original video game back in 2013, and at the time, the style of the game was so cinematic that it felt like you were already watching a movie. Since then, I’ve always wondered how an adaptation would look. From what I’ve seen so far, I am not disappointed.

To celebrate, I thought it would be fun to use a combination of A.I. art generation tools to create an image of myself in a post-apocalyptic world…

Breaking it down:

• Background generated with MidJourney (paid A.I. model trained on video games)

  • Prompt: “An (epic) post-apocalyptic scene from the video game (("The Last of Us")), Unreal Engine 5, 8k, high definition, extra fine detail --ar 3:2 --v 4”

• Image of myself generated with upcoming imgine.io feature (custom A.I. model)

  • Prompt: “A highly detailed portrait of SUBJECT as Joel Miller (from The Last of Us), masterpiece digital painting, 4k wallpaper, intricate detail, beautiful, gorgeous, stunning”.

  • The word “SUBJECT” tells the A.I. model to use the custom-trained object as the base object in the image.

  • The parenthesis around the show/game title tells the A.I. to emphasize it.

• Avatar resolution upscaling with imgine.io’s “enhance” feature

• Then I combined the images using Canva, one of my favorite tools

Read Time ~6 mins

Happy New Year 🎉

Thanks to everyone who took the time to read my first newsletter. Especially the six of you who had the courage to reply or comment. It was really great to hear from you!

Unfortunately, a few hours after scheduling last week’s edition, I was swiftly knocked down by the Covid fairy (for the first time), and I spent my next four days on the couch. Not the way I was hoping to kick off 2023, but sometimes you have to roll with the punches.

Thankfully, I’m feeling much better now, just in time for this week’s newsletter!

ChatGPT dominates the headlines

Everywhere I turn these days, people are discussing OpenAI’s new ChatGPT chatbot. Since we’ve got a broad audience subscribed to this newsletter, I will do my best to break this down into a 5-part “choose your own adventure”-style overview. This way, you can skip ahead to where you think you’re at, and we can all learn together…

Level 1 - What is OpenAI and ChatGPT?

OpenAI is a research organization (approaching a $30B valuation) dedicated to advancing “friendly” artificial intelligence. One of their most notable projects is GPT (“Generative Pre-training Transformer”), a language generation model that can produce human-like text based on a given prompt. Another exciting project is ChatGPT, designed explicitly for conversational interactions with the model. It has been trained on a huge dataset, allowing it to generate appropriate and coherent responses within the context of a conversation. Both GPT and ChatGPT are highly regarded as state-of-the-art language models.

Level 2 - Who is using ChatGPT & GPT-3?

If you haven’t already, you will soon begin to notice several products popping up that promise “Powered by ChatGPT.” This isn’t technically true because ChatGPT doesn’t have a public API available, but the previous version of the language model behind it, GPT-3 (more specifically, “text-davinci-003”), does. In reality, ChatGPT is actually using a newer version, GPT-3.5, which consists of data up until late 2021.

If you’re not a developer, there are nearly unlimited ways to integrate ChatGPT into your daily life. Treat ChatGPT like a research assistant who can provide instantaneous responses. The major limitation here is the fact that the information is limited to pre-2022 data, but trust me; there are still plenty of use cases I’ve used it for recently (technical questions, product management planning, book summarization, email writing, blog post outlines)

Level 3 - When will GPT-4 be released?

The OpenAI team has not announced a release date for GPT-4 or provided any information about its current development status. Even before ChatGPT (with GPT-3.5) was released on November 30th, it was widely believed that GPT-4 was well under development and expected to arrive at some point in 2023. Initial rumors suggest as early as Dec-Feb (so right now).

Similar to what we’re starting to see with A.I. generative art models that accept an image input along with a prompt, many people believe that GPT-4 will allow you to input audio, image, and possibly even video files, along with a prompt, and receive contextual information about that particular file. This would be an incredible advancement and make the A.I. model much more like a human research assistant rather than an intelligent Google replacement.

Level 4 - What other A.I. models should I learn about?

While OpenAI continues to receive most of the media coverage, there is no shortage of exciting advancements happening in other areas of A.I. as well. With OpenAI taking the “closed-source” approach to their products (meaning they don’t publicly share how they build them), Stability A.I. recently raised $101M to take the opposite approach and build open-source products for the masses. Their Stable Diffusion A.I. image generation model was released in August 2022 as an alternative to OpenAI’s DALL-E generative art model. This is what I was experimenting with on my Instagram a couple of months ago when I custom-trained an A.I. model on my own images (and my dog 😂).

Another tool that is exploding in popularity among A.I.-curious developers is HuggingFace.co. They’ve built a marketplace/gallery of A.I. models, datasets, and code spaces that allow you to share or customize other users’ code directly through your browser. This is a great way to start learning how others are using A.I. models in new and exciting ways.

Level 5 - How can I implement this tech in my products?

In my opinion, now is the best time to begin using these technologies in your software products because you’ll be ahead of the curve as the technologies continue to advance. In late November, I created a “Podcast Idea Generator” and “Podcast Namer” to experiment with the OpenAI API. Building similar micro-apps for your particular industry as a lead magnet would be great marketing and lead generation approach. I’m actually working on creating an eLearning course to demonstrate this, which you can get early access to by clicking this button ⤵

As mentioned above, HuggingFace is also a great resource for accessing a number of really great A.I. models that can be integrated into a software product you build. Some of the Spaces are set up to automatically offer API endpoints for you to call, and others will link out to a hosted commercial service that you can pay to access. In most cases, though, the files and datasets are publicly available if you’re willing to experiment and learn how to run them on your own.

Wrapping Up

If you’ve interacted with ChatGPT or GPT-3, you’ll likely agree there’s very little chance that this technology is going away any time soon. When this happens, I like to get a head start on the rest of the competition and try to understand how new technology is going to disrupt existing industries.

Gamification in the real world

I mentioned last week that one topic I was interested in focusing on in 2023 was studying Gamification concepts. End-of-the-year emails from your favorite products tend to be fantastic examples of this. The now-famous Spotify Wrapped yearly review has been a very influential product feature in this category.

Below are some of the statistics shared with me from a software development plugin that I use called “WakaTime”. I joked on Twitter that seeing these numbers makes me want to work harder and write more code.

• Product builders, what gamification could you implement to increase usage?

• Everyone else, how could you use gamification to motivate yourself to accomplish your personal goals in 2023?

Favorite Tweet of the week

I recently realized that as I’ve gotten older and satisfied with my career growth, I stopped creating ambitious 5-year plans for myself. This Tweet has some great advice on ways to plan out longer-term life goals…

Twitter tweet

Now Streaming

As my fiancé and I dive deeper into planning our upcoming June 2023 wedding, I found myself researching what “string quartets” sounded like. In typical YouTube fashion, one thing led to the next, and I quickly found myself listening to every song Nicholas Yee (YouTube & Spotify) has ever released.

If you have eardrums, I would highly suggest checking him out…

Read Time ~ 3 mins

Hey 👋

Over the last five years, there were 503 of you who were gracious enough to subscribe to my email newsletter and invite me into your inbox. For that, I am grateful.

I proceeded to never send out a single email 😂

With Twitter’s recent announcement to shut down Revue (my previous newsletter provider) and 2023 around the corner, I thought this would be a good time for all of us to clean up our inboxes.

Before you hit that “unsubscribe” button, let’s try this out…

Things I want to focus on in 2023…

• Marketing & writing skills

  • Consistent newsletter, blog, and Twitter updates

  • Learn more about SEO, notably Programmatic SEO

• Gamification

  • I love the impact that gamification techniques have on human psychology

  • I’ve been brainstorming a micro-saas idea related to this topic

• Web 2.5

  • Much has been made of “web3”, but I think people greatly underestimate how much society depends on the trust that centralization provides

  • I plan to utilize a new library called MetaFab to share ideas I have on this

• A.I. Writing & Artwork

  • If you follow me on Twitter, you may have noticed that I’ve spent the NFT bear market playing around with this amazing new tech

  • I’m currently building imgine.io as I experiment with A.I. art generation

• Solopreneurship

  • It may have been obvious based on the tagline of this newsletter, but this minimalist approach to running businesses intrigues me

  • I’m nearing the end of my most recent 5-year plan and think this topic is going to play an important role over my next five years.

Favorite Tweet of the week…

Twitter tweet

Now Streaming…

While on vacation this week we managed to finish the latest season of Yellowstone, all ten episodes of 1883, and just started the first episode of 1923.

I love the approach that Taylor Sheridan and team are taking with these shows. With streaming providers constantly looking for new ways to put their intellectual property to work, I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw more of this over the next couple of years.

Random Facts: Taylor Sheridan graduated from Texas State University (40 minutes south of my house) and was inducted to the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame in 2021.