Public Journals Pt. 9

Focus, basketball, and the grip of vulnerability

Welcome to my Public Journal. Here, I share the journey of building a company, my thoughts on life, and the random things I find useful.

Why are you getting this? Because at some point, our paths crossed. This is my way of staying in touch.

---

I’m a huge procrastinator. So much so that I’ve developed a ritual: every time I write a newsletter, I need to go for a run first.

The run’s usually around Golden Gate Park. After I’ve sprinted a 5K, I’ll sit on a bench, babble into my phone, and somehow a newsletter emerges on the other side.

This bench is my writing partner

Why do I share this? Partially to brag (see my Strava for proof of a sub-8-minute mile 5K).

But also to highlight something important: the state in which you create matters almost as much as the will to create at all. When my blood is pumping, and my face is red, for some reason, the writer’s block lifts.

Flowline Heath

Despite living in San Francisco, I generally dislike the Y Combinator type of founder. If you’re not familiar with them, it’s the start-up bro with an overinflated sense of self and a tendency to look down on anyone not building B2B agentic workflows. Basically, all the worst parts of me.

But because I’m a big business nerd, I do religiously watch the Y Combinator YouTube videos.

One piece of advice they repeat: “Do things that don’t scale.”

And boy, we’ve been doing A LOT of that lately.

Since September, the demand for voice agents has been growing, and it’s clear that most medical administrative tasks, like appointment reminders, pharmacy calls, and even calling to collect email addresses, are in demand.

And if the customer wants it? We sell it, baby.

While the strategy was great for gaining traction, now we have to say no to all of the random use cases and start to focus.

Looking ahead to 2026, I’m convinced our growth will come from a hyper-specific ICP and an incredibly narrow wedge. Something like: “We only do appointment reminder calls for for-profit behavioral health providers in the state of Wisconsin.” (Joking about the Wisconsin part.)

Story of the Week

This week, I heard a story about two brothers. The younger is naturally talented at everything (flute, basketball, piano).

It drives the older brother crazy. He spends an hour and a half every night shooting hoops, just to be worse than the kid who barely tries.

It made me think about my own childhood. I wasn’t good at sports. I rarely hit my goals. Compared to my friends, I was consistently in second or third place.

I distinctly remember, in high school, hearing that my friends were applying to Stanford and thinking, “Dang, I’ll just be happy if I get a job in the insurance industry.”

But at 17, I learned to show up consistently for myself when I committed to losing weight (details in my post, Brushing Your Teeth).

That consistency was like learning how to put gas in my engine.

And when I found business (something I had a natural talent for), I realized I not only had gasoline, but a fast car to put it in.

So if I had to bet on one of those kids? I’d take the older brother.

Thought Bugs

What does the fear of vulnerability keep us from achieving?

When I told friends I quit my job, the reaction was usually, “Oh, cool. Good for you.”

But when the same friends saw me regularly posting on LinkedIn, the reaction was often, “OMG! I would never do that.”

Here’s the thing: being vulnerable costs a little embarrassment. Leaving my job could cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars. Our emotions are obviously very bad at gauging these risks.

And if we shiver at posting on LinkedIn, what else are we missing out on in life?

---

Thanks for sticking around! If you enjoyed this read, I’d love a like. I’m trying to get ✨ Substack Famous ✨