Will Roman

Lessons I Wish Someone Had Told Me Tomorrow I'm conversing with students in a university setting. The below lessons are what I'll be sharing with them. Anything you'd add? 1. All the old cliches are true. 2. Figure out which game you’re playing. a. If you’re driven to achieve, make sure you actually want the prize. b. Challenge the traditional metrics of success (prestige) and make your own. 3. Life (and career) are a series of experiments. The linear path is a myth. 4. You will suffer. So make sure you’re suffering for something that matters to you. 5. Get married after age 24, but before age 30. Have kids. Lots of them. 6. Make a small number of high-conviction bets to build wealth. a. Except for birth, you achieve wealth through Time x Risk x Being Correct b. Build conviction by writing a thesis based on your unique perspective. 7. Find a wave and ride it. 8. Ultimately, the value you create for others is what matters in most scenarios. a. You don’t need permission. Credentials don’t matter. b. Your background/limitations/hardships are not an excuse. 9. Optimism, obsession, and raw horsepower are how things get started. 10. Cohesive teams, the right combination of calmness and urgency, and an unreasonable commitment are how things get finished. 11. It’s easier to do hard things that really matter. 12. Moving quickly is a competitive advantage. So is focus. 13. Being “real” is magnetic to the right people. And repels the wrong ones. 14. Think long term. 15. Relationships are all that matter in the end.

@dhh Thank you, DHH. We must bring these facts into the light.

Denmark keeps impeccable statistics on crime, immigration, and, as shown here, crime committed by immigrants. And that's very important because the Western intuition on these numbers is usually completely off. Only remedy is repeated exposure to the data and the facts.

@Seanfrank 🇺🇸

Fuck all this doomer shit. The world is a better place because of America. America is awesome. It’s edgy to post about us being the bad guy, but the entire world is safer because we exist. 1,000 year empire. The moon will be a state.

@BillDA What I see: 🇺🇸 de-risking a significant threat by destroying their real capacity to harm and as well as their influence via perception of capacity to harm. A super power doing super power things.

Ayatollah Khamenei brutalized his own people for 37 YEARS, exported terror globally, sanctioned the rape and murder of women, threatened nuclear war. Now he’s finally gone, and people don’t have the stomach for temporarily higher oil prices? Spare me.

@AustinJustice Austin is becoming like Mexico: walled gardens for those that can afford it, consequences for the rest of us.

Austin’s new homeless strategy plan is not to end homelessness but to "pursue new public/private funding" so that Austin's homeless industry can expand. The plan is to build 650 new shelter beds, two new "navigation centers," create a larger bureaucracy, hire more more outreach teams, more contracts, more staff, more KPIs measuring not whether the problem is solved but whether staff attended training. There is no goal trying to reduce the number of the nation's homeless moving to Austin in search of a hospitable environment to live their disordered life. The department that runs this didn't even exist before 2023. It was carved out of City Hall as its own standalone bureaucracy, which now has an incentive to maintaining and growing itself. One performance indicator asks staff to track the percentage of employees who complete 16 hours of training annually. Another tracks whether team-building events happened. These are the measurable benchmarks Austin uses to evaluate its homelessness response. The city has spent hundreds of millions on the current system that funds the growth of “permanent housing” for the homeless through some of the nation's most well-resourced homelessness NGOs. The city is making itself an even more attractive destination of the nation’s homeless, so the nation’s homeless will continue to flock to Austin, and the NGOs will grow and get more funding.

@nateliason @AlphaSchoolATX Phenomenal. Would love to volunteer or guest lecture, Nat.

Make $1m by graduation. Or get 100% of your tuition refunded. That's the promise of the new high school for entrepreneurs Cameron and I are launching this fall through @AlphaSchoolATX. We need 2-3 coaches to help make it happen. DM us or apply!

@CameronSorsby @AlphaSchoolATX Despite all my complaints about Austin, it's still a frontier town doing frontier things. This is excellent. Take the home school mindset to the school set.

We’re launching a new @alphaschoolatx high school for aspiring entrepreneurs. Our promise: Make $1m by graduation, or receive a full tuition refund. Yes, this will be the coolest high school in the world. And we're building the best team in the world to make it happen. We’re looking for 2-3 exceptional coaches to help us guide the students towards achieving this aggressive but achievable goal. You won’t be giving lectures or assigning homework. You’ll be grilling them on their P&L, driving them to the car wash they bought, critiquing their email funnels, pushing them to do things 99% of the world doesn't believe is possible. Job posting is live and DMs are open.

@Literariium Yes.

A girl asked, “Be honest. What do you think when you see a girl whose face and body look better than your wife’s or girlfriend’s?” And a man replied, “Why light a candle when the sun is shining?” And honestly, that response stayed with me. Because it was not about pretending other women do not exist. It was about perspective. There will always be someone prettier, someone different, someone new. But when a man truly values the woman he has chosen, he does not measure her against passing faces. He sees her as his sun. And when the sun is shining, you do not go searching for small lights to impress you. Real loyalty is not blindness. It is intention. It is waking up every day and choosing the person you already have. It is understanding that attraction is common, but commitment is rare. that kind of mindset is what makes a relationship feel safe. Not because no one else is beautiful, but because to him, she is home.

@KJP double collars can't be beat

Day we bought our factory 2013

@elonmusk x.com/AustinJustice/…

If someone has mental rabies, they must be contained or killed or they will keep hurting and killing innocent people

@AustinJustice Thank you for continuing to report on his dereliction of duty.

@soundslikecanoe Would you be willing to share an outline of functionality so that us other plebeians might attempt to replicate some of this concept for our own shops? I've got forecasting built into an app. Got me hooked and want to expand. Tasks and docs sounds wild.

Finally got to a point where we using our new vibe coded OS for all internal processes / client work. We are ditching: Notion Frame Google Docs (parts of) Slack Claude Skills Zapier Will soon be ditching: Forecasting spreadsheets Meta reporting apps Only took two straight months of vibe coding and terrible sleep

@MehtabKarta @BillDA this one is infuriating

@BillDA My vote for most insane tax goes to payroll lol

My son just bought a Lego with his allowance money and asked me about sales tax I told him “every time we buy something we have to give the government a little bit of money” He looked at me like I was insane And it does sound that way when you say it out loud…

@joelrunyon @ImpossibleHQ No reserve, no retreat, no regrets.

Today is day 1,802 of getting sued by a billion dollar company. The trial is tomorrow. Thank you for being a part of @ImpossibleHQ See you soon.

"Get a rope" = undefeated crime solution

@ecommcowboy @codyschneiderxx did it book you on ecomm cowboy, tho

This AI agent did more outreach in a day than most founders do in a year. “It booked 35 of them on my calendar last week… I was like, f***, this worked too well.” Cody Schneider (@codyschneiderxx) Co-founder of Graphed.com says AI agents are already replacing huge parts of go‑to‑market teams.

@yojimmykim @KodyNordquist @iamshackelford @CommerceRound

@KodyNordquist @iamshackelford @CommerceRound i already hit up @willroman for boots. Who sells chaps?!

Some will call this AI... Wanna see @iamshackelford and I in Chaps IRL? In less than 45 days.. @iamshackelford and I will be hosting 350 DTC and ecommerce Founders, Executives, Operators, Marketers, Agencys and SaaS professionals for @CommerceRound table Austin! And it's only 20% locals.. .with people flying in from all over the world: Germany, Isreal, Asia, Canada, Mexico, Australia, India and all over the United States! And we're over 60% sold out! It's happening on April 20-21 in downtown Austin for two days of what’s actually working in ecommerce right now. From AI, to operations, to marketing and more.. we have over 18+ practitioners joining the stage with keynotes. All lead by the best MC in the game. Plus the BEST catered meals (breakfast and lunch), sunset happy hours, after parties, AND we're giving away $220,000 worth of stuff on stage! And right now, you can save $75 with code CR75! Grab your tickets today and we'll see you in Austin! 🤠

@cathrynlavery @claudeai I have no idea what I'm doing, but I asked Claude Code to install your skill for me and it did. My first skill 🤓 Thank you!

What if @claudeai could get a second opinion before writing your code? I made Claude Code automatically consult OpenAI's Codex before approving any plan. Two competing models reviewing each other = way better output. Just updated the skill with @OpenAI 5.4 model. link below.

@shinboson it is wise to be correct it is sometimes unwise to speak

@ambrosian_co The hardest part is always the starting.

15 years ago, I planted my first garden at the age of 26. I spent way too much money on Cypress lumber to make raised beds. I planted corn about two months after I should have. I produced a measly 20 pounds of food, and that’s probably generous. However, more than the initial outcomes, the work set a fire within me to return to the land that I really never knew, to work with my hands and my family and learn a craft rather than the keyboard. There are people on this platform that talk about , “You can just do things.” like @CaseyBHead @OldHollowTree and @Mathew_of_LWFAH It often comes across as cliché to many people however what they’re saying is true. You really can just do something, and you may be pleasantly surprised on how it shapes your future . The hardest part is often just starting.