Back from NYC and my first @DynamiteCircle Black event DC Black is for founders doing > $1,000,000 in revenue I played baseball at Citi Field Watched two musicals Joined a fireside with @heif, the founder of @Meetup And had two masterminds with some of the smartest entrepreneurs I know My plan for 2026 is starting to firm up and it's mainly about growing the team to drive growth from $1M to $2M ARR I'm going to hire - A marketing ops / assistant - A growth marketer - 2 engineers I'm also considering ways to drive more revenue through customer expansion, and even buying competitors(!) It's fair to say I've come back feeling connected and focused Thanks @TropicalMBA for organising PS - yes there was street karaoke, it's NYC!

kinda crazy that we have self-driving cars but still send email calendar invites

It was a pleasure meeting with @sama, CEO of OpenAI, in Abu Dhabi where we discussed the future of artificial intelligence in the region.

I hate “lifestyle businesses.” Running them sounds like being a company man in the old days. In the 1950s, Company Man would drag himself to work every day, suffering through a job he hated, just so he could afford his mortgage and live in middle America suburbs. Maybe buy a Cadillac. He'd endure the humiliation of a junky job for the promise of a "good life" outside of work. Lifestyle businesses feel exactly the same way. You're doing something you don't really care about just so you can fund the life you actually want. That's backwards. Screw that, I want both. I want a great day-to-day job that I really enjoy, that challenges me and helps me grow AND that pays for the life I want. Why should I have to choose between loving my work and loving my life? I'd rather stretch myself on the lifestyle part and overspend to get what I want. Because I know that if I put myself in the right headspace and believe I deserve better things, then I'll work harder to actually afford them. When I bought my first car, I could have gotten a cheap $2,000 Toyota. I was 10s of thousands in debt thanks to NYU. Instead, I spent $17,000 on an Audi. I wanted to train my brain to believe I was worth more. I just don't like this idea that you have to suffer through work to enjoy life, or that you can't have both.

⭐ Business conversations, but at Michelin-recommended restaurants A small group of DCers got together in Riga, Latvia for an action-packed weekend adventure. Here are some highlights!