I know, another late-20s guy with a newsletter.

I'm starting this in part to give myself an excuse to write more regularly and in a more structured way. And as the CEO of an early-stage AI company, I figured my writing might be interesting or useful to folks. If not, at least I'm doing something like journaling, in a somewhat accountable way.

Each week, I'll answer three questions, share a quote that inspired me during the week, and a reflection. The questions will be about my business, my personal life, and things more generally.

I won't bulk-write these in advance. I'll give myself three questions to think about throughout the week and only write the newsletter after deep thought on those questions. The questions will tend to be things I’m actively dealing with at the time.

If that sounds like something worth sticking around for, I encourage you to subscribe.

Questions

Business

How can we improve our messaging around the problem space and unique selling points?

My cofounder and I are continuing to refine our messaging.

While I was thinking about this, I saw something highly relevant from Alex Lieberman, which informed my approach.

Using Alex’s framework, I came up with this. “I am making sales processes 10x better for Data Providers and Professional Services companies by doing real-time, multivariate experiments to optimize strategies and improve efficiency.”

It’s not perfect, but I think it’s improving.

Here’s some more detail.

Problem Space: Sales teams often struggle with efficiency, facing challenges in scaling their operations due to rapidly changing variables in each deal or buyer interaction.

USP: Nayak.ai introduces a state-of-the-art infrastructure specifically designed to conduct multivariate A/B testing in real-time sales scenarios. This feature allows sales teams to experiment with various strategies and variables simultaneously, providing a deeper understanding of what resonates best with each buyer.

What do you think? Please email me any feedback. Always looking to improve.

Personal

​How can I let go of a failed relationship?

I recently got out of a long-term relationship and have been working on myself and trying to heal.

I feel better than I did even a month ago, but I still find myself asking this question regularly. Did some thinking on it this week.

Remember the Good

The relationship ended poorly, but it wasn’t all bad. We had a lot of good times.

A few that I remember:

• We bought a nice bottle of wine and held onto it for more than a year before we spontaneously opened it, put on our fanciest clothes, and ate paté and olives in our living room. Then we danced to silly music.

• We found a way to have fun doing boring things, like running errands. I remember driving through the Home Depot parking lot multiple times for no reason laughing like a bunch of goofballs.

• There was a long period of time when I woke up feeling excited and lucky to be able to spend time with her. To walk around with her, talk to her, and laugh with her.

Forgive the Bad

Don’t worry — I won’t air our dirty laundry. I’ve always struggled with forgiveness. This is where I’ll share HOW I’m working on forgiveness, including self-forgiveness.

• We were both doing the best we could with the tools and information we had. I don’t believe either of us had any malice. We both fell into some bad communication patterns, but I don’t believe that’s anyone’s fault. It’s a learning opportunity.

• Resentment builds when assumptions are made. Forgiveness is born out of empathy. When we assume things, it’s easy to fall into storytelling mode and get stuck in a rigid story of ‘how things are.’ Empathy lets me believe she had my best interests in mind.

  Empathy > Rigidity

• We actually loved each other. If I was just looking at the things we did/said to each other in the final month(s) of the relationship, that might not be obvious. But I believe we did actually love each other.

• When it comes to relationship problems and breakups, there is no good timing. I was dealing with a lot of startup stress at the time, and I blamed her for quite awhile because of that. Why did everything have to happen at once? I wouldn’t have wanted her to just stick around because I was dealing with a lot. It wasn’t her fault.

Work on Myself

After moping for a bit, getting into a healthy amount of debauchery, and taking a week off work to visit the Shakers, I realized I needed to improve myself.

Towards the end of the relationship, I hadn’t been taking care of myself. My sleep schedule was on the fritz. I was having a hard time dealing with the startup stress. I wasn’t doing much reading or writing (outside of my work). My work-life balance was totally out of wack.

What I’m doing now:

• Exercise 3-5 days a week. I invested in a WHOOP, which is like the NASA of fitness trackers. It gives me a daily Recovery Score and a Strain Score and uses AI to tell me how much I should work out that day.

  Usually, 3-5 miles running and 20-30 minutes on weights does the trick.

• (Semi) regular sleep schedule. I know someone who never sets an alarm. To me, not setting an alarm means I’m on vacation. To her, that’s nothing special. She goes to sleep before 10 every night and wakes up at 6 every day. I’m not quite there yet.

• Starting to pay attention to what I’m eating. I’m trying to cut down on processed carbs and up my proteins.

Misc.

How do I stay motivated when I feel sick, tired, or lazy?

First of all, it’s important to rest when it’s needed. If you’re running on empty, you’re going to have bigger issues than skipping the gym if you try and push past your limits.

If you’re able to keep going, remember that motivation ebbs and flows. You can’t always rely on motivation to take you to the finish line.

Routines can keep you honest even when your motivation fades.

This week I’m going to try scheduling things like: dedicated times for sales, marketing, and investor outreach; gym; mindfulness; writing.

The key to routines is to turn them into systems and habits.

There are no major insights here. Probably nothing you haven’t heard before. Exercise is important; sleep is important; mindfulness is important; good eating is important; routines take time to establish; there is no cheat code other than time + hard work; small and consistent progress is better than inconsistent marathon work sessions.

Sometimes motivation follows action, not the other way around.

It is important to regularly seek out beauty and give yourself time to appreciate beauty. For me this is usually good books, good TV, good movies; sometimes, spectacles of nature; sometimes, works of art. Beauty is the fuel for life when everything else feels flat and dull and gray. You’ve probably heard to ‘touch grass’ daily. That’s undoubtedly important, but I’d challenge you to also appreciate beauty daily.

Quote

Reflection

I am still recovering from several hard months. Sometimes it feels like I’m just going through the motions. I remind myself that’s OK. Optimism and motivation wane. Sticking to a system, a way of doing things, even imperfectly, will get you there in the long run.

I remind myself about the 1% rule, which goes like this, “1% improvement every day is 37x better by the end of a year. 1% worse each day leaves you with only 3% of where you started.”

Keeping this in mind has inspired me to keep working on myself even when it feels like there’s no gas in the tank left.

Qs for Next Week's Newsletter

Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this, I encourage you to subscribe. Here are the questions I’m going to be looking at in the next newsletter.

Business

How do I ensure success as we kick off our first pilots?

Personal

What advice do you have for founders in navigating romantic relationships?

Misc.

How can I eat healthier?

PS - Have suggestions on which questions I should answer? Let me know in a reply.