Jess Villanueva

Recently got my @1517fund Medici grant items from the mail! I’m diving into how scrappy young people defy the odds with microgrants, residencies, and hacker houses through film and journalism outside school and jobs. Zero film school. 18 years old. Landed Top 20/1500+ globally in a sprint by @enter_delta with a cracked iPhone SE as second youngest as only filmmaker. Key purchases: > Zipper binder + looseleaf paper: 5+ year commitment for my thoughts and a life taking the red pill > Cable management: the lunchbox-sized case beats a Hollywood production setup > General ticket to @WebSummit Vancouver 2026: paid my own ticket to get in front of smartest people coming to home city (looking for those in tech, content creation, and entertainment/media) > @Artlist_io music subscription for a year against copyright > Colour checker: fixing out of sync colour between shoots when borrowing cameras Super grateful again to @DStrachman, @William_Blake, @hayleeejohnsonn, and @zeldapoem at @1517fund for taking the first chance on me. Onwards and upwards!

tonight really is a good night ran into @apldeap from the @bep (black eyed peas) at vancouver :)

@themoonspeck great first video hehe

@jayveesme tried using capcut 🤣

hosted a chill founder's lunch in vancouver. great energy. contacts were being exchanged over convos. got people in media, ai, cleantech, sleep, mental health and more. i'll be hosting more events so stay tuned. if this is the first time you're seeing me, hi im cher. im the founder of purple lotus and i host events in vancouver. if you want to be the first to know about my future events (they fill up fast!), follow me and comment below to be added to my luma guestlist.

@themoonspeck thank you for hosting this!!

@roohi_kr ROOHI THE QUEEN OF PERSISTENCE

This is a bit old news I got accepted to Singapore Management University for my Masters- in the Wealth Management Program Grateful to be in Singapore for the next year or so potentially It’s a really good program in Asia- and I am grateful for everyone that took a bet on me( during this process)

@LisaLi_T LISA THE GOATT

Two weeks ago, I posted that two of ESJ’s podcast eps both surpassed 1K downloads. Today, one of them got 1K downloads in a single day. Yesterday, it was around 200. For this ep, I spent a few months getting to know the founders, their backstories, their business, and their industry in general. Then I spent a few weeks drafting and editing the piece in between client work. It wasn’t until V9 that I felt the story was complete. Afterward, I spent another few weeks trying to save the audio on my own because several people—including a professional studio for major labels—told me it was too complex (I made the mistake of recording in a new co-working space that hadn’t properly set up their podcast studio). All that to say, thoughtfulness over speed has always been my process. If that’s yours too, let this be your reminder to keep going.

@tokifyi builder!! life shit got in the way for me that day, would love to join the next one🙏

just hosted our first builder happy hour in vancouver yesterday 200+ applied we could only have 50 due to space limitations met a ton of amazing builders yesterday’s room had insanely talented builders, from robotics startups to bootstrapped founders with millions of users, indie hackers hitting huge mrr, and many more building incredible things would’ve loved to have more builders there 50 felt a bit crowded to really catch up thinking of a smaller, more curated group next time comment "builder" if you want to join the next one, i’ll try to rotate people so everyone gets a chance

@pwalshbuilds great to meet you pat! just followed, hyped to see where you go next :)

Hey everyone! I'm Pat I grew up an hour outside of Boston I built Minecraft mods and computers for fun In college, I fell in love with building software from the ground up I participated in multiple hackathons, game jams, and loads of personal projects I learned about machine learning and signal processing in college, and got an awesome role to build those systems straight out of school At the start of 2026, I went off on my own to build my own company full time, which I'm doing now! I started this account to meet other awesome people and follow them on their journey, and post about my own Just last week we got our first pre-launch revenue and we're going to grow more and more over the coming weeks Excited for what's ahead! P.S. I run half marathons and this picture is from my pre-race shakeout with my now-fiancee Katy

@tokifyi love love

vancouver summer is here

thinking about this quote lately “what i knew then’s what i knew best, and wouldn’t have thought anything else otherwise. and what i know now best will change”

I'm in love with this sentence: “Forgive yourself for not knowing earlier what only time could teach.”

this guy just put the most banger slide on the screen

Be patient.

everytime i watch one of these videos i think that its very important that we learn at least how to do the first step, never know when we actually need it

@gracepace_ @UseCorgi so cute!!

The corgi cafe in San Francisco is goated and open 24/7 I was coworking there and a founder walked up to everyone asking to upvote them on hacker news I respect the hustle 🫡 @UseCorgi

Bro to bro 🙏

the world is going to be full of creators. when intelligence is so democratized, i believe the way to stand out and have a “branding” is going to be through video and producing high quality content.