Happy Sunday ☀️
So you might notice something quite different about this newsletter - the title is different 👀. It definitely has been more than a week since my last newsletter and it got me thinking - does it make sense to continue doing a “weekly newsletter”?
Ever since I moved to NYC my goal has to been to have some baseline schedule. Now that it’s been 10 months here, I have started to realize that it is not about keeping to a schedule, but more so how to be flexible and understanding when you can’t do things at the same time every day.
With that said, I don’t see myself doing weekly newsletters anymore, but more so understanding that there are weeks I may not want to write and thats cool! I know eventually I’ll get to it 🤘.
This newsletter is cool though because I am writing it from Utah! I am out here for the next few weeks with family.
Go grab your beverage of choice and let’s chat for a bit ☕️.
🔥 Hype buildspace Moments
Over the past few weeks buildspace has been doing wonders in my eyes. We literally had a small meeting about how we should start managing our Discord and Twitter posts because they are SO MANY MESSAGES. This definitely was not a problem I thought we would be having this early on. It’s one of those “really good problems to have”, but doesn’t mean it still takes braincells to figure out how to optimize it!
Our four person team has been handling all the things in regards to community development and support. At this point we can interact with everyone on a personal level. In my opinion, thats one of the beautiful things about being a smaller company. Though, one of my main goals is to see how this can scale properly. That was the biggest thing I was missing at Microsoft. After I built something I wanted to talk to people who used it and see how they liked it!
We are at a grand total of three projects you can sign up for:
Build a Web3 App on Ethereum with Solidity + Smart Contracts
Create your own mini turn-based NFT browser game on Ethereum
The browser game on Ethereum is a FRESH new project that has received tons of hype. We started doing this thing where Farza will throw out a “feeler tweet” with some project idea. We then gauge the interaction we get on said tweet to see if its truly something people want!
For example here is the tweet Farza through out on the NFT game:
Ya. Pretty solid response I’d say 🤘. The crypto tech, Twitter scene is huge which is why it’s so awesome to be able to do something like this. The feedback for buildspace is incredible and I keep asking myself, “is this normal? Do all startups have such a clear path to feedback from users?”. Definitely let me know your thoughts!
So now that we have this awesome community of developers, what happens from here? Thats a great question and one we are trying to answer ourselves! Emily and David have been leading this right now with a really cool approach - getting our awesome developers in the Web3 role of their dreams! Once someone completes a project we give this person a special NFT that basically shows that they have completed this project. The cool thing is people are throwing this NFT on their LinkedIn’s signifying that they indeed find this valuable in their professional development.
So what does this mean? Well, we have these developers that are insanely excited about working in Web3, so what if we matched them up with companies looking for people in this space to hire (which is DEFINITELY a struggle from what we’ve seen). Emily and David are hard at work testing out this framework and understanding how it could work. Hopefully we will have more data on this #soon 👀.
The past month we have reached some major milestones on our Twitter account, Discord server, and just overall enrollments! Things are looking up for buildspace and I think the best part about all this is we are providing quality education to people that is fun, educative, and FREE. The same problems we were trying to tackle with ZipSchool is showing pretty successful in buildspace 🤘.
Finally, I am 6 days away from reaching my 1 year anniversary with ZipSchool / buildspace! Pretty insane to think just a year ago I left Microsoft ready to move onto something like this. All I can say is, it was 1000% the right choice.
🚀 Personal Growth
I was reading over my personal growth from last newsletter and it got me thinking how crazy it is how things can change so quickly. I was feeling a lot more anxious about things and how quickly life was moving. I think the last few weeks have helped me start realizing that while things are moving fast I am learning to not constantly push back and slow it down. More so I am learning to let it take me and move me in the right directions.
For example, I started a new workout program and one of the biggest struggles is just finding time to do it. Not only that, but I have been to over 10 live concerts in the past 3 weeks and my body has been really sore. So, what do I do? How do I deal with staying on track? Simple answer - I just adjust to what feels right for that day. Sure there are priorities, but even those can be shifted around depending on what is going on. I guess what I’m trying to say is, it’s a much better life for me to “go with the flow” instead of resisting things.
This all goes back to my “live my life while I work” mantra. I want to optimize for living while doing things that make me feel fulfilled. At the end of the day, I want my time to feel purposeful and impactful. Something my brother said recently that has really stuck with me was - “nothing you do is meaningless as you are moving humanity forward”.
WOW. That got a lot deeper than I intended, but I think it’s cool to bring up some of these thoughts that will hopefully make you think a little bit today 😊.
Yesterday started my next few months of traveling! I didn’t realize how much it was until I started looking at my schedule, but the next few months I’m going on some adventures in:
Utah
Florida
Puerto Rico
North Carolina
Las Vegas
Seattle
I finally think I may be hitting status on Delta which is pretty great 🎉! All of this is stuff for buildspace / just good times with friends and family.
Like I said earlier I have also been attending a TON of shows. The most recent one was A Day To Remember at a Rooftop in New York. It was insanely awesome. You literally had NYC skyline while moshing on top of a building. What can get better than that? Check it:
It’s been a good time in NYC with good company. I said out loud yesterday that I could see myself living in NYC for the next five years. I think I found a good spot to set some sort of roots down for the time being as I figure out whats next!
🤘 Music Of The Week
Oh my. Has it truly been an entire month of no newsletters 😅. This is sort of embarrassing LMAO. Well, I still have been keeping up with music every week! Im going to drop the last 4 playlists I put together! Again, I am thinking at the end of these year I am just going to run some cool algo I put together to see what this music says about me 🤔
Tell me which one is your favorite! I have been getting into so many different genres of music, it’s incredible.
Thanks for hanging out with me for a bit while I get my thoughts down! Again, the goal is to shoot for weekly updates, but this may not happen and thats okay! Until next time friend.
Salute y Saludes.
Alec