Founder’s Dance with George Levin #1

Welcome to Founder’s Dance with George Levin

After a year of planning, my newsletter is finally here! I need this because I write often, but it usually stays with me. With you as my accountability partners, I'm motivated to develop my thoughts and ideas to share.

Writing also helps me slow down and reflect on life. To make this newsletter valuable for you, I've organized it into seven sections:

• Startup Hacks: Advice on building startups—from product development to fundraising, sales, and marketing tricks.

• Product Spotlight: Highlighting a standout product with insights on what makes it exceptional.

• Money Moves: Thoughts on achieving financial freedom.

• Founder Friends: Supporting a friend's startup (often without asking them).

• Culture Corner: Exploring this week's captivating movie, book, or podcast.

• Life Snippets: Personal moments from my week to keep it real.

• Mind Bender: An idea to ponder and reflect on.

Now that you know what to expect, let’s dive in!

Startup Hacks

On product description and onboarding:

I’ve been reflecting on an image Yakov Filippenko, Founder at Intch, shared after reading one of my blog posts in which I boasted about our cool features at Hints.

Here is my interpretation: Features alone don’t excite users. What excites and attracts them is the promise of becoming a better version of themselves. Rather than just listing features, it’s better to focus on the final positive outcome that will change your users’ lives.

I want to be more efficient, reliable, and impactful. I want to be less overwhelmed with information. If a product promises that, I’ll give it a try. And if it doesn’t deliver, I might even give it another chance.

Product Spotlight

We have a running club in New York, and I needed a place to drop our bags before the run. A search for “bag drop-off” on Google Maps led me to about 40 locations in Manhattan, all named “Bounce Luggage Storage.” I visited their website and had the most effortless experience: I picked the nearest location, paid $10, and got a QR code. The location was a grocery store, which threw me off initially, but the staff scanned my QR code, labeled my bag, and locked it in an employees-only room. Pickup was just as easy.

This company partnered with local grocery stores nationwide, offering them extra cash.

It turns out that it’s a startup from SF that raised $15M in 2022 and operates globally. I’m genuinely excited about the product and the business idea. More importantly, our running club now has a safe place to drop off our stuff before the run and pick it up an hour later.

Founder Friends

This week, I want to highlight Pioneers.ai, a startup founded by my close friends, Leo Shangin and Victor Novikov.

Disclaimer: This description is entirely mine. I haven’t talked to Leo and Victor about writing this, and I’m not sure if they’re subscribed to this newsletter. However, I’m a client (they filled two positions for Hints) and an early investor.

Pioneers.ai is shaking up recruitment by fully automating it with AI. I’ve followed their progress for over three years and admire their approach. Instead of spending years building a product only to rebuild it later when reality hits, they started by recruiting manually to understand the process, then gradually automated it with AI. Now, they can close dozens of positions simultaneously with minimal employees involved.

Money Moves

What is financial freedom? It’s the savings you need to retire comfortably, factoring in inflation and return rates. This concept is popular in the U.S., especially within the FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) movement.

The 4% Rule offers a rough estimate: divide your annual expenses by 4%. For example, if you plan to spend $60K annually after retirement, you’d need $1.5M in savings.

The easiest way to reach this number is through saving and investing. The standard approach is to max out your employer’s 401(k) match first, then invest in a Roth IRA. Next, max out your 401(k) limit, followed by contributions to your HSA and a traditional brokerage account. It’s generally wiser to avoid individual stocks and instead invest in ETFs or a Target Date Fund, which automatically adjusts your portfolio’s risk as you near retirement.

If this sounds confusing, don’t worry—it was for me, too. After a few conversations with friends and over 10 hours of YouTube videos, I grasped the key principles.

Check this subreddit to get more tips.

Culture Corner

Recently, I listened to an episode of Making Sense with Sam Harris featuring George Saunders, an American short story writer and Booker Prize winner, and I fell in love with him. I was drawn to his humility and wit.

George also teaches a class on Russian short stories at Syracuse University, focusing on works by Chekhov, Gogol, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and others.

I’m currently listening to his book A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, where actors read seven essays from Russian classics, followed by George’s analysis. The second essay is narrated by Nick Offerman (Ron Swanson from Parks and Recreation). The book is slow and sometimes boring, but I love it.

Life Snippets

This week was very fulfilling. First, I officially started my consulting side job. As a serial entrepreneur, I still feel some imposter syndrome when starting something new. Does the world need it? What will others say? Can I really help?

These doubts lingered until my first call. Now, I’m excited! Besides bringing in extra cash, which is helpful since I’m not taking a salary from Hints (and my savings keep reminding me that financial freedom is a target that keeps moving further away), it also connects me with exciting people and their great startups.

Knowing one call can save them months of work is incredibly rewarding. Here is the link if you need help with your startup.

Another highlight was launching the New York chapter of the Founders Running Club (FRC). FRC is a big organization with 9,000 members in 17 cities. It’s a free club with no membership fees, where founders, investors, creators, and their friends run together every Saturday and then hang out at a coffee shop—a healthy way to network.

Surprisingly, there wasn’t a chapter in New York. My friend Pasha invited me to join him as a city leader and open the new location. Yesterday was our first run, and it was awesome! Join us next time!

Mind Bender

People who know me well are familiar with my habit of dropping philosophical or spiritual thoughts into conversations out of the blue. It usually starts with something like, "By the way, I recently read about free will..." Now that you're in the loop, here we go.

"Frustration arises from a person's failure to accept the absence of a permanent self and the inevitability of change." This quote is from one of my favorite authors, Alan Watts. In a short clip from a lecture, he compares a person to a university: students change, faculty changes, buildings change, yet it's still called the University of California. The same goes for people—who you are today isn’t who you’ll be tomorrow. Accepting this helps us let go of the stereotypes and labels that hold us back and cause frustration.

Have a great week ahead!

Speak soon,

George,

August 25, 2024. Brooklyn Height.