Scott Brills

@noahkagan HBD Homie! 🙌

Today is my 44th birthday 🎂 Few thoughts for it: 1- was reflecting to keep being my biggest cheerleader for myself 2- there’s a lot more in our lives to be grateful than we realize. 3- the noise on social media is deafening, good to get out and be in the world. Not everyone knows what Openclaw is. 4- attempting to text my mom everyday overall is a good thing 5- the tech world moves insanely fast. Good to focus and think about opportunities that are slow 6- finding a great wife is life’s greatest unlock. 7- First time having a baby is scary. Second time is more chill. This relates to many things in life. 8- there are No awards for being a parent. Why do we do it? Love? Responsibility? Not exactly sure, I just do. The older I get my birthday is still one of my favorite days of the year but it becomes more about my family, my friends and the simple things that matter. Ps. There’s no way some lame ass AI bot could have written this 😂 🤖

american craftsmanship is declining. 20 years ago, if you wanted to manufacture a reason for a war, you had to make a map and do a little presentation at the UN. now you just say anything.

@maneesh Tbf, if this actually WAS a Japanese invention, I wouldn't be surprised one bit. 😂

Just found out I’m Japanese. Cc @scottbrills

@Travis_Jamison Whoa.

Dude in Snowball just casually drops: > "Vibe coded an app for the coaching space. 200k+ launch. Who's the best pro engineer I should chat with that could help me "de-vibe" and scale?" We love to hate on vibe coders, but a $200k launch is insane for an app w/o a dev.

Have always felt this way — going it more or less alone for many years without a tribe can be ROUGH.

Major cheat code for life: build small pockets of doing nothing on purpose. The line at the store. Waiting for a meeting. Sitting in traffic. Those are chances to think. Most people bury them in their phone. Leave space. Just let your mind wander. Don’t numb the gaps, use them.

Something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately: Most decisions are small. What’s for lunch. Which app to cancel. Whether to take the meeting at 3pm or 4pm. Tiny stuff that moves the needle maybe 1%. But every few years, you get a choice that acts like a lever. One decision that tilts everything that comes after. For example, in 2012 I moved to San Francisco after googling "where rea internet companies started?". in July of 2014 I quit drinking. Everything change. In 2016 I started a newsletter that I eventually sold and changed my life. However, what’s hard is big decisions don’t always look important when you’re making them. They can just show up disguised as regular Tuesday choices. - Join the gym or stay on the couch - Start the side project or keep watching Netflix. - Cold email that person you admire or scroll twitter instead (i’ve made so many huge connections over cold email, including with my co-founder Joe!). Small decisions compound daily. Big decisions compound for decades. Here’s how to spot the big ones: The choice makes you slightly uncomfortable. If it feels too easy, it’s probably not the lever you’re looking for. It involves other people who are ahead of where you want to be. Growth happens fastest when you’re the least experienced person in the room. This makes you feel nervous almost. And there’s no immediate payoff. The best decisions pay dividends for years, not quarters. It costs something real - time, money, comfort, or pride. Free rarely changes everything. Most people miss these moments because they’re optimizing for the wrong thing. They want guarantees. They want to see the ROI spreadsheet. They want proof it’ll work before they try. But leverage doesn’t work that way. I think about this a lot because I see it with Hampton. Many join thinking they need help with some specific business problem. Should I ask my co-founder to leave? How do I price this new product? Is this investor term sheet fair? Fair enough. Those are real problems. But the actual value isn’t solving one problem. It’s having 7 other people like you in your corner for the next thousand problems. One choice - surrounding yourself with people who’ve been where you want to go - influences every choice that comes after. Anyway, that’s my take. Most choices are small. A few change everything. Obviously the hard part is recognizing which is which.

UPDATE: I survived.

Off for my 4th @TheAdventurists Rickshaw Run—the first road rally I've done since I did the Jaisalmer-Kerala leg in January 2018. This time I'll be starting in the Himalayan mountains and heading to the sweltering deserts of Rajasthan. Adventure ho! DFW-EWR-DEL-IXL

@jdigiacomo @allenwalton ...and seeing the quality of the images/autofocus speed. It's what I use for all of my businesses now, as well as any trip I want to lug around a larger camera. Amazing quality for both images and video. (A7R V)

@allenwalton Ask @scottbrills! He is smart about such things.

I'd like to get my first 'nice' camera so that not all of my pictures of the kids are iPhone quality. Two thoughts: 1) Wish I'd done it sooner. 2) I have insane brand loyalty to Canon only because it's what my grandpa used in the early 2000s, it's irrational.

@jdigiacomo @allenwalton I was a Canon guy for 16 years or so, then switched to Nikon for my business camera, as I heard it had faster autofocus and was better in the field for what I needed it for. After five years I switched to Sony Alpha on the recommendation of MANY pro photographers.

@Travis_Jamison I can second this 💯

Found someone asking how they can "buy into" (invest) in small businesses. Here's my beefy answer: There are two different main ways to invest into small businesses, and they're VERY different. 1. You can help someone fund a new business venture. Basically an angel investment, except it's not a startup, so no 1000x return potential despite having a similarly high chance of failure. 2. Buy into *existing* small businesses. Find profitable SMBs, buy equity in those. Option-1 is usually a write-off IMHO, but Option-2 has been VERY good to me. The problem is that you can't just arbitrarily convince someone with a good business to sell you 10% (I've tried, you can do it, but it's really rare to find). The only answer, AFAIK, is to help fund the acquisition of an already successful SMB. Imagine a local HVAC company that's been around and profitable for 30 years. The owner is retiring, they have no successor, it's a great company (an asset), it just needs a new owner. The HVAC company owner decides to sell to a new owner, someone who is looking to buy a good quality company and run it for the long term. These potential buyers are called "Searchers". These "Searchers" are entrepreneurial at heart, but they don't want to start from scratch. They want to acquire a high-quality, already-profitable, company and care for it and grow it over the long term. Now back to the investing angle. THIS is where the investor can step in. The Searchers need investors to help acquire the company. They'll usually use an SBA loan and some savings to help fund the acquisition, but they still need investors to help fill the equity gap. And this is how investors can build a portfolio of small businesses, owning small stakes in a handful of different companies. Help fund acquisitions of different SMBs, and become a passive owner, participating in any profit distributions along the way, or whenever the company is resold in the future. I was investing in these SMB acquisitions myself for a long time, and then decided to build CapitalPad to enable investing in these at scale for investors who don't have the network needed to find these deals. CapitalPad invests in SMB acquisitions, and other investors can co-invest, but it's only available to accredited investors.

@jessicamalnik @anferneec @ThatChristinaG @NASASocial How did I *just* get the notification that I was tagged on this post?? 😂 (you're welcome anytime Jessica! Next one starts November 29)

@anferneec @ThatChristinaG @NASASocial Indeed, one of these days I'm going to make it on one of @scottbrills' safari excursions. :)

What are you manifesting/working towards for 2023? I'm focused on experiences and travel, specifically Europe and hopefully another @NASASocial.

@NeelBParekh If you think that's bad, don't delve into the colonial history of Italy or Belgium! 😂

The more I travel, the more I realize just how much the British Empire completely screwed over so many countries.

@JesseSchoberg Oh, the case has a built in battery w USB-C charging? Cool (albeit $$$).

@scottbrills as noted in the comments you don't have to. the case is usbc don't need the doc, it holds charge for 2 weeks.

Somehow this post stuck in my head for 2 years. Now I have a $300 toothbrush and Travis is right. 😂

The indomitable @kevin2kelly shares 50 of his most insightful travel tips garnered via 50+ years of journeying around the world. kk.org/thetechnium/50…

@pagayaland @NeelBParekh @MaidThis @pamojasafaris Let me know! Standing by @pagayaland ~ 🐘

@scottbrills @NeelBParekh @MaidThis @pamojasafaris Thanks @NeelBParekh! Gotcha in my tasks (and soon, IG), Scott Cheers

I’m booking a safari and just got off the phone with a local company. Smoothest sales pitch I’ve ever heard. I dropped $5K in 10 minutes. In fact, I was *relieved* to hand over my credit card. THAT’S how dialed in this company’s pitch was. Here’s the 4 step sales process they used on me:

@pagayaland @NeelBParekh @MaidThis @pamojasafaris 🙌

@pagayaland @NeelBParekh @MaidThis Hit me up with the details and I'll assist however I can! 🙌

@NeelBParekh @MaidThis Now I want to know which safari company. My wife's been dreaming of this exact trip for decades. Might be time for me to make it happen!