Be Romantic — Behzod Why the most important work comes from people who care about things nobody asked them to care about.

A dinner conversation this weekend helped catalyze why love and play are uniquely human and, just maybe, the whole point.

behzod.com/blog/be-roma...

Whether you call it play, care, dreamweaving, or just giving a damn, how you do something matters.

Great post by @behzod.com on infinite romance.

11 Months at the Triangle Factory — Behzod Over the last eleven months at Vercel, I've been playing three overlapping roles: Chief of Staff, leading ShipOps, and Forward-Deployed Executive. This is what I've learned about why care, not process...

Somehow it's already been 11 months at the triangle factory. This is a reflection on my role(s) and why care, not process, is the real operating system companies need.

behzod.com/blog/11-mont...

🙏🏻🫶🏻

A flag post for my dear brother @behzod.com who through my perfect judgement is an excellent startup operator, organization designer, researcher, drummer, human and friend.

He is a man who understands service and how to be of service.

via flagpost.org

30 Days at the Triangle Factory — Behzod A brief reflection on my first month-ish at Vercel as Chief of Staff for Product & Engineering.

A brief reflection on my first month at Vercel — behzod.com/blog/30-days...

“Be with people who make you feel alive” — an airport reflection

August 5th is the next time the sun will set in Seattle before 8pm.

Reviewing my past course content as I build "Mastering Customer Feedback" for Reforge (launching in March: www.reforge.com/courses/mast...).

I knew it was long, but I didn’t realize it was 550-page-book long.

🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻 thanks for being a force multiplier for indies.

Yet Another Year in Review - Year 04.5 — Behzod I’ve now been working for myself longer than I’ve had any other job. May 2024 marked 4 years and it felt a bit surreal, not because I didn’t think that I would get here, but because being here has fel...

Yet Another Year in Review - Year 04.5: behzod.com/blog/yet-ano...

In this (very delayed) annual-ish reflection, I highlight lessons from the first four years of being me-as-service and talk about how I prioritize projects based on earning and learning.

No pics of the goods?

"Every gift you give this holiday season will (most likely) be disposable garbage."

Thank you Kasey for this kind of writing and thinking.

It’s a good one

Feels like we’re moving back into an era of products giving us more levers to control our experience.

I love how elegantly Particle does this for content preferences.

(particle.news)

"Building a portfolio of play" is how I hope to spend the rest of my professional life — finding great people to collaborate with and letting that be the north star across all that I do.

Prior to being in tech, I ran social media for a climate change documentary, helped make movies, and built kindness curriculum for kids.

In the last 4.5 years, I've done traditional research and strategy consulting, but also helped a city reimagine downtown, worked on a bag, and run dinner parties.

In doing this, I've somewhat left the "sports" of a traditional corporate environment with established rules, players, etc and am leaning more into "playing" new and different (and sometimes made up) games with people (at least in terms of how I get to show up).

Me-As-A-Service — Behzod A riff on what it’s been like to be a solo studio / service business over the last four years.

It's part charter and part challenge.

Since I started consulting/advising, my hope was that I get to work on projects that matter with people I respect. Instead of having a clear set of offerings, I've leaned into being "me-as-a-service" (behzod.com/blog/me-as-a...).

Solo Studio Summit(s) I've been fortunate to have dozens of conversations with thoughtful individuals who run some form of a solo practice over the last 5 years. A recurring theme in those conversations is a need for more ...

One of the recurring themes from talking to other indies/solo studio folks over the last 5 years is the need for more community and conversation as we navigate our practices.

So, if you're interested in a Solo Studio Summit (series?) in January, lmk 👇🏻
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

And morning glory muffins on other days

Jonathan Lee of Trainer Road has a dope wattage cottage in his garage — go here and see the dream garage highlight www.instagram.com/leejonathan_...

Fair point — putting something on the calendar to deem it "important enough" to be worth time and attention is a good thing. And doing it poorly so that you realize you want to get better at it can also be a good thing.

And maybe *I* need to be more nuanced about the difference between doing something well and the performance of doing something (or the wasted time of that performance).

I'll noodle on that.

I think my main contention with "just talk to customers" (especially in the continuous discovery framing) is research at an arbitrary cadence for the sake of “regularly engaging with customers” feels as foolish as filling a water glass every hour, regardless of whether or not you’ve had a drink.

I appreciate the feedback — you’re right that I probably should rephrase “nothing” as “no meaningful progress.”

In some cases you do get something out it: you’re led astray per @miekd.bsky.social here bsky.app/profile/miek...

🙏🏻🫶🏻

Appreciate you, my friend!

You two should get coffee.

Exactly! I don’t think that the presenters have to do it in the talk themselves, but I would love there to be a clear activity or leave behind for everyone in the audience from each talk.

I am also more than happy to volunteer as a speaker coach to provide feedback to folks 👀

I think a lot of expanding human agency is helping people recognize the difference between a real and perceived barrier.

Presenters/facilitators should help people identify where those lines are and what to do about them.