Siri is about to become good, but that’s not the problem

What happens when 1.5 billion people suddenly get a good AI assistant in their pocket?

In just a few days time, when Apple holds the keynote for WWDC 2026, we are likely to finally see (and hear) a Siri that doesn’t suck.

While this has been rumoured in the tech press, I don’t think most people are quite ready for how big of a deal this is.

And even if Siri stops sucking, it’s going to take a long time and a lot of advertising dollars to persuade people it’s actually true.*

Apple is a victim of its own doing. They are the boy who cried wolf on AI.

The lowest barrier to entry for AI


For years, the modern wave of AI has been mostly opt-in.

People have had to:

  • Download ChatGPT
  • Sign up for Claude
  • Try Gemini
  • Learn new habits

A lot of people have, of course, but many (most?) people still haven’t.

And even for those who have downloaded and used any of those apps, I suspect the majority of iPhone users don’t use AI regularly, or benefit from even a slither of its capabilities.

But everybody knows Siri.

Everybody has a button for Siri.

Everybody has a microphone for Siri.

Everybody has already been trained to understand the concept.

The problem was simply that Siri sucked.

If Siri suddenly becomes genuinely useful, Apple will be transforming an existing habit that they’ve spent years training users to be disappointed by.

It’s potentially enormous, but it’s going to take a while for people to catch on.

Learned helplessness

Siri has created a form of technological learned helplessness.

Users stopped asking difficult questions of Siri. In fact, many users stopped asking anything of Siri.

They learned the answer would usually be disappointment.

If Apple has fixed that, the hardest part won’t be improving Siri, but teaching people to try again.

How is Siri suddenly getting better?

Multiple reports suggest Apple is increasingly turning to Google and its Gemini models to power some of their AI ambitions. Google event tweeted about it:

You can look at Google’s latest announcements to get a sense of what’s coming to the iPhone. If you squint, repeat the announcements in a Tim Cook voice, and apply some Liquid Glass to the UIs, you’re on the right track.

Apple is essentially forming their own variant of a multitude of Gemini features and models.

If Apple doesn’t screw this up, then WWDC is sure to be a demonstration of great AI functionality actually coming to iOS and Apple’s other platforms.

You can also look at the recent accessibility features Apple announced for

A few cool tools

There seems to be an explosion of great, useful, and beautifully designed tools popping up lately.

Perhaps this is in part down to the new powers we all have thanks to AI coding tools, but not exclusively. When combined with initiative, passion, and taste, the outcome is a wonderful renaissance of indie software development.

Screen Studio is not new but it’s a tool I find myself using more and more to create engaging screen recordings. It’s the optimum balance between Loom and a full-on video editor. You can create slick “produced” screen recordings and have a link on your clipboard ready to share with your team in minutes.

Quiche Browser is delightful Safari replacement for iOS. I have never seen an app balance this level of beauty, craft, and simplicity, while allowing for such extensive customisation. What a delicious treat.

Bevel is an “all in one” health tracking app that gives an unbelievable amount of value for free. If you wear an Apple Watch and want to track your health a little more intensely, this is worth a look. It’s worth it alone if you want to geek out on some cool data visualisation.

MacNotch is essentially the iPhone’s Dynamic Island but for your Mac. It makes great use of your MacBook’s “notch” and offers an extensive array of options and customisations.

Blank Page is a delightfully minimal Notion-like editor you can use without any need to sign up, pay, or install anything. It’s just a beautifully minimal writing experience through and through.

Clearly is a markdown editor for the Mac. It also offers “knowledge base” functionality allowing you to link notes together. It’s beautifully implemented and truly Mac-assed Mac app. And it’s free. If you use Obsidian on a Mac then this is worth a look. Pink Floyd fans might like the icon too.

Sofa has existed for a while but the new version is a big update. It’s a beautiful iOS app to keep track of all the TV shows, movies, podcasts, and books you’re consuming.

Granola is a meeting note-taker I have previously written about, but continues to "just work" for me. It's just so good at staying in the background and being a silent helper to my daily meetings, giving me genuinely helpful notes and nothing I don't want.

Dato is a menubar-based calendar app for the Mac that makes it easy to see your upcoming events and pop new meetings in with a few clicks. It is reminiscent of the original Fantastical — before it offered to replace your whole calendar experience. I use it with the built-in Apple Calendar app to manage my schedule.

Let me know if you've recently discovered a new favourite little app or tool — I'd love to hear about it.

Newer isn’t better: why I switched to a 100-year-old razor

It’s very easy to be different, but very difficult to be better. — Jony Ive

This is a post about shaving.

For years I used whatever razor was easiest to buy.

Gillette. Harry’s. Subscription refills. Plastic handles. Multi-blade cartridges.

A lifetime of marketing persuading me a “better” shave would be available with every new version.

Two blades. Three blades. Five? Why not!

It felt like progress, and who was I to disagree? Everyone I know has one of the well-known brands, and every ad I see shows me that the latest gaudy multi-blade razor really is “the best a man can get”.

But recently I started questioning that assumption.

Is this actually better? Or is it just newer and marketed better?

So I tried something older: wet shaving.

A safety razor. A brush. Proper soap. A setup that hasn’t fundamentally changed in decades.

It’s been a bit of a revelation.

The quality of shave

The biggest surprise was the shave itself.

More blades are supposed to mean a closer shave. In reality, it often means more irritation—multiple blades dragging over the same skin.

A safety razor is the opposite. One blade.

You slow down. Let the weight of the razor do the work.

The result is a closer shave with less irritation and fewer ingrown hairs.

It feels calmer, more deliberate, and less like scraping plastic across your face.

Skin and experience

Wet shaving isn’t just the blade, it’s the process.

You build a lather. You prepare your skin. You take a minute instead of rushing through it.

My skin feels noticeably better. Less redness. Less dryness. And the act itself has become something I look forward to.

There’s something grounding about it.

In a world optimised for speed, it forces a little slowness.

The cost

Cartridge razors are expensive. There’s a good reason most pharmacies lock them down and hide them behind the counter.

It can cost £10–£20 for a set of refills.

So a single cartridge will often be ~£1-2.

Safety razor blades cost pennies.

Even factoring in a razor, brush, and soap, the ongoing cost drops dramatically.

It’s one of those rare cases where the higher-quality option is also cheaper.

So much of the shaving industry today is seemingly focused on newer and flashier, with “improved formulas”. But so much of the cost you pay goes to profit margin and marketing. And the rest goes to product and packaging that I’d argue doesn’t need to exist.

The environmental angle

This was part of what pushed me to try it.

Plastic handles. Disposable cartridges. Excess packaging.

It all adds up, and I’m continually inspired by how many solutions to our environmental challenges are not “new” ways of doing things that we need to invest - they are old ways that we need to bring back and normalise again.

Safety razor blades are just a slither of metal. Small. Recyclable. There is no bulky plastic casing.

20 years of GoSquared

On Tuesday of this week, GoSquared turned 20. Yes, we've been in business for twenty years.

I thought it was the perfect excuse to resurrect the Lost and Founder podcast to reflect on our journey to this point.

In this long-overdue episode, I share 8 lessons from building GoSquared: on team, leadership, and focus. And I dropped in a few inspiring quotes for good measure.

On team

  1. Never underestimate what a small group of focused, aligned, motivated people can do. 
  2. Celebrate the small wins. Have fun along the way.
  3. Most meetings don’t need to happen.
  4. Knowing yourself is a superpower.

On business and leadership

  1. Simplicity is a war.
  2. If you think you’re repeating yourself too much, repeat some more.
  3. Focus is impossibly hard, but without it you’re doomed.
  4. Just do it.

To see more about our 20th birthday, you might also want to check out:

Thanks, and after this reflection, here's to the future!

Listen here:

Or watch it on YouTube:

When should you separate “growth” and “product” in a startup?

In the summer we removed any concept of a “growth” and “product” department at EcoSend.

I should say “department” is a loose term. We aren’t a big team (less than 10 people) so the terms mostly applied to meetings, and areas in our tools like Slack for chat and Linear for project management.

The distinction between the two was starting to cause more issues than it was solving.

The problem with separation

I found myself asking questions daily:

  • Is this a growth thing?
  • Is this a product thing?

Those questions can be helpful in a larger team.

But at our size, the primary thing I care about is: What will this do for the business? How will this make things better for our customers?

And often the answers to those questions don’t naturally fall into one bucket or the other.

What’s a product thing if it’s not about growth, for a team of our size?

How do you classify and prioritise a product feature that’s designed to help us grow? Like a viral loop or a public facing design change?

With the two concepts labelled separately, a lot of the most valuable work fell through the cracks.

Almost everything one could label “Product Led Growth” (PLG) was in the middle. And it rarely got done!

We needed to change, and thankfully as a small team, changes like this don’t have to be a big deal.

The results so far

We removed the distinction over the summer and it went far more smoothly than I expected.

What we’ve shipped since this change: 

These are the real results.

But I’m just as excited about the underlying changes, behind the scenes.

As a team we are now prioritising as one. One list, with a focus on impact.

We are uncovering problems that used to get passed around — yes even in a small team — and actually discussing them and finding a solution.

When coming up with ideas or reporting a problem, there was an overhead on every addition to Linear: where do I put this?

Now it’s all in one place. The prioritisation and decision is separate, and weighed up against everything, not an isolated set of priorities in one part of the business.

Some of this likely sounds obvious.

Or maybe you’re reading this thinking “hah! There’s no way that will scale!”

You’d be right to have either of those opinions.

Yes it’s quite obvious for us, but obvious solutions can stare me in the face for months before I try them. And often the change is not as bad as my worst fears.

I don’t believe this would scale to a team even with 10 people. But as I’ve noted in the past, referencing the wonderful Joel Gasgoine of Buffer: there’s an optimum level of process for any company. And too much,

Apple's muted climate stance

Yesterday Apple held their annual event launching the latest models of the iPhone and Apple Watch.

As always, the devices are beautiful, and show Apple at its best in almost all regards.

Except one area where they were conspicuously quiet: climate.

In previous years, there has been a steady drumbeat proudly declared from the Apple Park rooftops: “our first carbon neutral Apple Watch!”, “Our 2030 goal for net zero”, the Mother Nature skit, and an array of responsible, climate-focused details when describing each new product introduced.

One can criticise Apple’s previous climate messaging as being misleading, as not being enough, and as a ploy to reduce the climate guilt of buying a new electronics device you don’t need every year or two.

But you can’t argue that Apple was trying to get a message out there.

This year, however? It was different.

None of the new products introduced were declared as carbon neutral. They barely spoke about the sustainability story, apart from a few brief mentions of their use of recycled aluminium and titanium.

The sustainability story was mute.

What gives me hope, is Apple seems to quietly be doing the hard work under the hood — each product page on the site has a section outlining their work to reduce the use of virgin materials, prioritise renewable energy, and underscores their 2030 goals.

They just don't seem to want to talk about it too loudly any more.

I love my iPhone. I love my Apple Watch.

But in 5-10 years, the 200+ million iPhones that people buy in 2025 will be at the end of their useful life.

All electronics products ultimately end up in some form of landfill. We need to do better — a companies and as consumers. And it starts with talking about it.

Let’s hope Mother Nature can cope with another iPhone cycle.

It’d be nice if she got more airtime from Apple in the future.

Don’t stop

I’ve been away for a week, and whenever I travel I tend to find time to pause a little.

I love to stop and break from routine every now and then.

Being in a different place gives an incredible opportunity to see how different people and different cultures act differently. Perhaps more interesting is what stays the same across countries and cultures.

A realisation I’ve come to is that so much of the world we live in is built on the assumption, or perhaps the hope(?), that we don’t stop to think.

Don’t stop to think about where the ham in your ham sandwich comes from.

Don’t stop to think about why that t-shirt is only £4.

Don’t stop to think where that plastic water bottle will end up after you’ve used it.

Don’t stop to think what that packet of crisps will do to your body.

We live in a world where we are surrounded by nudges — both big and small — to act in a certain way.

It’s normal to buy a plastic-wrapped cheese and ham toastie at the airport.

It’s normal to buy clothes from Primark.

It’s normal to drink a plastic bottle of Coca Cola.

But today’s normal won’t be normal forever.

It once was normal to smoke cigarettes. It once was normal to drink pints of ale all day.

You don’t have to act like today’s normal is OK. You don’t have to accept “what everyone else does” as the only way.

To change the world for the better takes awareness and understanding. But it also takes courage.

Changing the world starts with the smallest of questions and individual decisions.

Other things

Jony Ive (who previously led design at Apple) gave a wonderful interview with Patrick Collison at Stripe Sessions this week.

It’s wonderful to see Jony making a few more public appearances lately. His opinions and thoughts are greatly needed as a counterbalance in the world of technology today.

A few comments that really stood out to me:

  • While you may not always sense care in a product, you tend to sense carelessness.
  • Finishing the back of the cabinet: it’s what we do as makers when no one is looking. That’s why it matters.
  • What often kills ideas is people’s urge to express their opinion.
  • Make things for your colleagues. It could be breakfast, a cake, or a tool or product. That’s how you can care for your fellow workers.
  • There is more to making a product than to deliver something functional. We owe it to our species to do more than that. To do otherwise is a waste.
  • Everyone can have an opinion on design. That is easy. But that does not mean everyone’s opinion should be treated equally.
  • The worst place to make product decisions is in a conference room! Nobody has ever wanted to spend more time in

34 lessons

I’m turning thirty four years old. I had been meaning to write a post on my birthday for at least four years, so it’s long overdue that I get my typing fingers out and commit myself to writing this.

Let me be abundantly clear: these are not lessons I have fully learnt. But they are lessons that I hope will prove as useful to you as they have to me.

What started as a ”30 lessons at 30” post has turned into “34 lessons at 34”.

Which is a wonderful tee up for lesson one…

1. Start today

The best time to plant a tree was thirty (four) years ago. The second best time to plant a tree is now.* Get started and stop thinking you're too late.

2. Get a coach

Find someone who can support you, listen to you, never judge you, and help you be the best version of yourself. I have worked with a coach on and off for the last four years. In that time I have become clearer than ever about what I want from life, I have co-founded a new endeavour, proposed to my partner, become fitter and healthier than ever before, and I feel more comfortable than ever in my own skin. For me, coaching has given me the space I didn't realise I needed to explore and articulate my thoughts. You can solve so many of your challenges if you give yourself the space and ask the right questions.

3. Wake up earlier

Wake up early — you can be a morning person if you fix your evenings. I believe I am naturally a night owl, but I love an early morning when I can do it. Earlier dinner, earlier bed-time, reducing screen time, and a consistent routine seem to be the path to earlier mornings for me.

4. You can run a marathon

You can run a marathon, but you need to put some trainers on first. Master putting your kit on and the rest will get easier. I still don't really think of myself as "a runner", but I find immense satisfaction from running.

5. Write a diary

It’s therapeutic and develops like a second brain. I can look back on any day in the last year and recall the tiniest details I noted down. Magic. Much like coaching, it enables me to clarify my thoughts and spot patterns in how I approach situations.

6. Take a break

Take a break – don’t quit. One day may be all you need to check in with yourself and get yourself back on track.

7. Overnight success is easy

Overnight success is easy once you’ve spent years (or decades) practicing, building, failing, and learning.

8. Build habits

Build habits a day at a time. This applies to both good and bad habits. Acknowledge what triggers both, and try to avoid living on autopilot with all of them. Small changes can compound

It just works

There’s a saying, much popularised by Apple, that distinguishes certain products:

"It just works."

It seems like a very low bar on the surface, doesn’t it?

Surely every product works, to some extent.

“It just works” only becomes a selling point when you consider how much hassle most products are to use.

Remember the last time you bought anything significant — was it entirely effortless? Was it a pleasure? Was it obvious at every step what you needed to do to start getting value from it?

I think this concept applies to services and experiences as well as products. I've written before about the experience of using my gym for the first time. And there are plenty of restaurants and hotels I've been to that fall short of the mark when judging them by the "it just works" assessment.

I don’t believe these are exhaustive, but here are a few principles that come to mind for building a product or service that just works:

  1. “It just works” means a lack of cruft and complexity.
  2. "It just works" means the product is reliable and consistently so over its lifetime.
  3. “It just works” means the maker has an opinion.
  4. “It just works” cuts to the chase, and gets the user to their desired outcome as quickly as possible.
  5. “It just works” eschews end-user choice for simplicity and obviousness.
  6. “It just works” means prioritising the primary function of the product above all else, even if that is at the expense of other meaningful uses.

These are easy to write, but very hard to achieve in a team building a real product.

It begs the question, then, why do so many products and services not “just work”?

I believe most products on the market exhibit some combination of the following:

  • A lack of care. The designers and makers just don’t care enough about the end user.
  • There is a misunderstanding of the core purpose of the product.
  • Feature creep. In a drive to make the product more attractive to more people, extra features are added in.
  • Short-term financial incentives drive cost-cutting and profit over product quality.

There are too many products that fall short of the "it just works" goal. Fortunately, that leaves tremendous opportunity for makers willing to go the extra mile.

A few products I’ve used recently that just work:

  • Granola — we’ve all been on a Zoom call that has had some form of AI note taker unexpectedly join. We’ve all experienced how useless a transcription can be. And we’ve all tried taking notes from a meeting only to find we either weren’t paying attention or missed a critical piece of information. Granola is the first note taker I’ve found that truly “just works”. You install it on your Mac, there are no awkward bots, and the results I've seen have been exactly what I wanted. It just works!
  • The Journal app — one of Apple's more recent new apps. I've

Two Clothes Hooks

It has flown by, but one of my highlights in January was attending the Better Business Summit in Manchester.

Inspired by the Better Business Summit

It’s an annual gathering of inspiring people running businesses small and large, all finding ways to do business in a better way. There were conversations on all the topics you might imagine — paying staff fairly, making products with sustainability in mind, and questioning what each of us can do to both sell and shop more thoughtfully.

Rather than relay the whole thing here, go check out the post I wrote on the EcoSend Blog about the Better Business Summit.

Patagonia, clothing, and going back in time

One of the images that has stuck in my mind since the Summit was from the impossible-to-pronounce Patagonia movie about how our habits around buying clothing have changed over the last few hundred years.

There was a time, some years after we evolved from Neanderthals, but some years before today, where we had clothes, but significantly fewer.

There was a time where each of us had just two clothes hooks.

One hook was for our everyday clothes — the ones we wore to work the land and around the house for six days of the week.

The other clothes hook was for our special clothes — the fancier of the two options that would be worn to church on a Sunday — that we kept clean and pristine.

Some years later, supposedly the French aristocracy invented something called “fashion” and it’s all gotten a bit out of hand since then.

In today’s world of fast fashion, things have changed somewhat. Even compared to 1980 (quite recent in the scheme of things), as a percentage of household spending, spend on clothing has halved, while the number of items purchased has more than doubled.

What can I do about it?

It prompted me to ask, not just for my clothes, but for all aspects of my life: do I need as much stuff?

What do I need? What do I want? And what can I give to a better home?

Last weekend I found it therapeutic to clear out over 30 items of clothing, sending them all to the local charity collection.

I now have much more space in my wardrobe. I can see more easily what I have. And I appreciate the clothes I kept.

And I still need a LOT more than just two clothes hooks.

Other things

  • I never normally catch the Super Bowl, but I always love to see the ads. Nike’s ad was my favourite this year. Incredible marketing, and a great sound track. So Win.
  • Also Super Bowl related — the Half Time Show is quite something. Here’s a look at how they put on a full-on concert in the space of about 15 minutes. I am such a geek for insider information like this!
  • The Art of Fauna is my favourite new iOS app / game — it’s a beautifully made puzzle

Reflecting on 2024

As is often the case, the Christmas period was a busy one, full of delightful moments with loved ones. I wanted to write a little about 2024 in 2024 but, predictably, I ran out of time.

We are just teetering on the edge of ”Happy New Year!” being a stale greeting, so it’s now-or-never for me to share a look back at 2024 and jot thoughts down about the year ahead.

Highlights of 2024

2024 has been a momentous year for me, with some life-defining moments I will never forget.

Engagement

I don’t think my partner would forgive me if I didn’t put this at the top of my list.

In January I took a trip to Rome and proposed. In fact, it was on this very day last year.

It felt like a dream, and was a moment I had envisioned for a long time. Somehow I managed to keep it secret, even though my partner fiancée is a rather impressive detective!

There's not a detail about the weekend I would change. It underscored my love for the person I am choosing to spend my life with, and for Italy!

Running and exercise

Accountability

Both 2023 and 2024 have been big years for my exercise regime. Early in 2023 I began working Daily Body Coach, run by a friend of mine. The experience has driven me to achieve things I never thought possible. I've transformed my attitude to fitness, to eating, to routines, and have been blown away by the results.

While DBC was not specifically about running, it clearly had an impact here. I have written about running before, and while I didn't run a marathon in 2024 it was still a personal-record-breaking year for me.

Half marathon

I took part in the Royal Parks Half marathon and completed it in my fastest time yet. I wrote a piece shortly after this about why I run.

The Hardest Mile

I also completed an event called The Hardest Mile. It's hard to describe this as anything other than ridiculous. The challenge is to get around a running track four times in an hour. Does that sound hard? No. Not until you add in the small detail of how you get around each lap:

  1. Burpees
  2. Lunges
  3. Bear crawl
  4. Run

It was brutal! Once it was over, and I made my way home on a rail replacement bus service, I reflected. When I was at school, or even just a few years ago, I would never have even contemplated doing something like this.

Parkrun

Parkrun has also been a mainstay of my weekly routine. Almost every Saturday, I get down to my local park and run 5km.

If you've never heard of Parkrun, I can't recommend it enough. It's a free, community event where you can walk, jog, or run 5km around your local park. You can volunteer or spectate as people make their way around, and they happen all around the world.

Having taken part in Parkrun

Why I run

I was proud to run another half marathon over the weekend: the Royal Parks Half in London.

Seeing the city I love from the viewpoint of running the streets on a race day is wonderful: no cars, no trucks, no buses.

Instead, the roads are filled with people pushing themselves mentally and physically, and crowds of people — parents, children, friends, and strangers cheering you on.

How I got into running

As I ran around I thought to myself about my journey as a runner.

How did I go from avoiding running at all costs, to running a marathon?

I never used to like running.

At school I hated running.

I would always set off too fast and wear myself out.

I’d try to do anything possible to get out of running: volunteer to be a timekeeper, pretend to be a little unwell, or switch to another sport entirely!

As school finished, I started to change my attitude to running. I learned to pace myself, I started to measure my progress with apps and then my watch, and I embraced the sense of achievement when completing a run.

I became increasingly addicted to measuring my progress. For better or for worse, once I got an Apple Watch, I simply had to complete my Fitness Rings. Running became a great way to keep my streak going and give me a sense of achievement week-in, week-out.

I then came across Parkrun, a series of wonderful volunteer-led runs that happen every Saturday in parks across the U.K. and around the world.

I started to realise: the more I ran, the faster I became. And the faster I ran, the better I felt.

What I have learned from running

There are so many aspects of running that I find to be applicable to other parts of life.

Measurement leads to improvement

When you measure something it helps you understand it better, which forms a basis to improve it.

Just do it

The first draft (or run) is always rubbish. No one starts out as a pro. But to become a pro, you must start. Whatever it is you want to achieve, you have to just start.

Consistency is key

Once you start something, you are rarely any good at it for a while. You must keep going. You must repeat. You will still fail many times, but you pick yourself up and you go again. Consistency is boring, but crucial for running, fitness, any most positive changes in life.

Unexpected rewards for effort

Running longer distances has enabled me to run faster. Often improving in one area can lead to unexpected improvements in other areas.

Don’t compare with others

I don’t run to be faster than anyone else. I find it can help to run with other people for encouragement, and healthy competition. But I am always running my own race: to do the best I can. If I do that then I will always be proud.

Make it easy to

The joy of creation

Lately I have been conflicted in where I spend my time.

I love creating things. But I also love building a team, leading, marketing, and selling.

There have been patches of time where I have done very little creation, and in those periods I realise I quickly become demoralised.

I find joy in creation.

For as long as I can remember, I have been in awe of the idea that anyone can grab a computer, connect it to the internet, and build something. And that someone else on the other side of the world can then utilise and benefit from that thing.

Anyone can create something of value, and you don't need to ask anyone else for permission.

Creating vs publishing

I don't just like creating, I like publishing.

Don't get me wrong, publishing can induce immense fear.

But I get a kick out of directly creating something and then putting it live.

Getting feedback is addictive — whether it's seeing usage, receiving comments, or simply knowing "it's out there".

I sense that the act of creating is never complete, but publishing (or shipping) is a marker to say: I've completed the first step.

"Publishing" can mean anything here — deploying to production, putting a blog post live, hitting send on a Tweet or Thread, or even just writing an idea down and sharing it with your team.

The critical benefit of "publishing" is that you not only get to call your work "done" for now, you get to receive at least a little feedback: did anyone care?

Speed vs perfection

There's a study I read a while back in the book Art and Fear that summarises the dichotomy of aiming for perfection:

The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality.

His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pound of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot – albeit a perfect one – to get an “A”.

Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes – the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.

Ever since I read this, it changed my views on perfection.

"Quick and scrappy" is often viewed as "not the proper way". The proper way is to do X and Y and Z in a specific order.

In reality,

Journaling — how and why I keep a daily diary

Whether you call it journaling or reflection or writing a diary, I think of them in the same way: making time to reflect on your day, and keeping a record of what you did and how you felt.

I’ve been keeping a daily diary for years, and it’s one of the habits I’m most pleased to have maintained.

Journaling for memory

I can point to almost any day in the last few years and learn what I did, how I felt, and understand what was on my mind.

Every now and then, I’ll compare my current day to the same day one or two years ago. I’m frequently amazed at how issues and challenges that seemed insurmountable rapidly fade away into distant memories, or are completely forgotten until purposefully being resurfaced.

It’s a good reminder to keep my current fears in check.

Journaling for self-awareness

Journaling has enabled me to become considerably more self-aware.

I can see patterns of behaviour, consistency in what causes me to have a good or a bad day, and an awareness of what makes me excited or anxious.

I have learned how exercise, diet, and weather affect my mood. I’ve learned how creativity and socialising and alone-time affect me in different, and unexpected ways.

Journaling for thought development

Something I often need to remind myself is that journaling can be an incredible way to process my thoughts.

When I’m overwhelmed or stressed, it can sometimes feel like there is no good path forward. I could become frustrated or waste hours in an unproductive state fretting over my next move.

Journaling can sometimes feel like a cheat code for escaping this sense of overwhelm. If I can detect the feeling then I’ll try to find a quiet moment to write what’s on my mind in my journal.

Sometimes, just writing out all of the things worrying me is an incredible shortcut to clarify what’s bothering me, and can help me prioritise what’s most critical.

If I’m really stressed about a situation, I’ll attempt to answer some templated questions that will pull more thoughts from my mind. Often, framing a difficult decision with the question of “What’s the worst possible outcome?” can be enough to make progress.

Resources for journaling

Apps and resources that have helped me over the years:

  • Apple Notes — one of the most underrated apps on the iPhone. I used Notes to maintain a daily journal for over a year. It’s often the fastest way to jot a thought down.
  • Apple’s Journal app — for over a year Apple has offered a Journal app, with helpful hints and automatic suggestions. I love that it’s “moment” based rather than day based.
  • State of Mind on iOS — at a similar time to rolling out Journal, Apple introduced a method for logging your state of mind to Apple Health. You can set up reminders and a widget on your Lock

Ultraprocessed food and how to avoid it

I recently read a book called Ultraprocessed People and I’ve been telling almost everyone I know about it ever since.

Ultraprocessed Food, or “UPF”, has been in the news for some time, and it may induce a yawn for you to hear more about it.

But reading the book has enabled me to go deeper on the topic than the news headlines. I’m no longer just curious about UPF, I have genuinely changed my outlook and approach to nutrition as a result of what I’ve learned.

A short summary of ultraprocessed food

Over the last 100 years, we have grown to become inundated with “food” that is made up of stuff nothing like the raw ingredients we would find in our kitchens.

The situation has reached a point where it’s hard to go a single meal without consuming something that’s the output of a system focused on mass production, high profit margins, aggressive marketing, and crucially, of low nutritional value.

Most UPF is not truly “food” in the sense that our bodies can’t always fully understand it. UPF is often engineered to give a quick hit of taste, appealing to our senses thus encouraging us to crave that hit time and time again (see: Pringles, and their tagline “once you pop you just can’t stop).

It’s this way because most companies prioritise profit and growth over everything else. Why does shop-bought ice cream have bacterial slime in it? To help it keep its structure and stop melting so easily during transit between distribution centres, supermarkets, and our own homes. I.e. to optimise the supply chain.

The book is pretty clear: UPF is bad for you! But if you want, you can find ways to disprove that. And there are many vested interests (every large name in food manufacturing) to seed as much doubt as possible into this notion.

If you want a healthy diet, eat a variety of lots of plants, cook your own meals from scratch, and minimise eating Ultraprocessed food.

As far as I’m concerned, there are few things more important for health than what we choose to consume. Changing your diet (not just going on a diet) can have tremendous consequences for your health.

Beyond ourselves, though, the consequences of us reducing UPF consumption seem to be extensive: healthier diets, reduced demand on our health service, less packaging, less litter, a more sustainable approach to farming, and more.

Here are a few other takeaways from the book.

Cooking at home

If you’ve been following my recent posts, you might remember I’ve also been paying closer attention to my spending habits.

UPF can be cheaper than “proper food” sometimes, but the tradeoffs generally aren’t worth it. All in all I’ve found it hard to eat more cheaply and healthily than eating at home and cooking your own food.

Fortunately I love cooking. I haven’t always been into cooking, but I’ve

I don’t want an iPhone 16

If you know me, you know I like a good Apple product.

In fact, you could say, I’m a little obsessed.

On Monday of this week, Apple held its annual event for releasing their most crucial products: iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods.

Before I share a summary of the event, I must answer an important question that I am often asked by my friends and relatives the moment they realise a new iPhone is on the shelves:

Are you buying the new iPhone this year?

My answer is No.

It’s not because of my focus on personal finances.

And it's not because these updates are the most minor year-over-year improvements in memory.

It's because I'm finding ever more enjoyment from making things last.

I'll admit, it feels easy to say this when both my devices are barely one year old. Let's see where my mind is at next year.

More than ever, though, I see the cost of a new iPhone or any gadget beyond the price tag. The materials, the processes, the energy, the shipping.

Even if Apple is pushing for a more sustainable supply chain, and reducing their emissions as fast as they can, there's nothing more sustainable than using your devices for longer.

So, my purchasing decision aside... what did Apple release?

iPhone 16 and 16 Pro

Don't get too excited.

The iPhone 16 has some beautiful new colours, a new camera bump (similar to iPhone X but with larger lenses), and gets the new Camera Button. This is a clever button with a touchpad to make it easy to snap, zoom, and focus the camera.

iPhone 16 Pro got a shiny titanium bezel, the new camera button, and an assortment of other camera upgrades. It also now comes in a delightful gold colour.

One of the most controversial aspects of the launch of the new iPhones is Apple touting their ability to run Apple Intelligence.

Apple's own AI features make it easier to write and edit text, edit photos, and speak to Siri.

The small detail is that Apple Intelligence features aren't ready yet — so a lot of the great new functionality isn't on these new phones from day one.

If you've been holding off getting a new iPhone for many years, then these new devices are just great. As Apple always likes to say — they're the best iPhones they've ever made. Thank goodness for that!

If you have one of last year's models, these are only small updates — this is to be expected in the 16th generation of any product, so you won't miss out on much if you only have an iPhone 15.

Apple Watch

Apple Watch reached a milestone: Series 10.

I remember my original "Series 0" Apple Watch and recall how much I enjoyed its introduction as a hugely anticipated product.

The Apple Watch persuaded me to wear a watch for the first time since school, and has been a sidekick for making me a healthier, fitter human. I also

Strict evenings, early mornings

After acquiring an old-school alarm clock, this week I’ve been paying close attention to my routine.

I’ve never truly been a morning person.

But lately, due in part to having more on my plate (a dog to walk, a partner to look after, and a lack of hot water) I’ve been finding I desperately need more hours in the day.

What I was forgetting was that my evening hours were not well spent. After a long day I’m often tired and lacking motivation. All I really want to do is chill, put my feet up, and watch Slow Horses (or some sort of TV show that is far more trashy!)

My routine was stacked against me: hope (and fail) to do productive, valuable tasks at the end of the day, end up spending too long watching nonsense (aside from Slow Horses — it’s anything but), and then look at my phone and realise I should be in bed… Then end up getting drawn into my phone and realising I should have been in bed an hour ago.

Strict evenings

So I’ve made my evenings stricter. Earlier dinner, less TV, and then as little screen time as possible.

What’s really helped is deliberately putting my phone in another room to where I sleep. I completely removed my charger from the bedroom to avoid having any excuse for bringing my phone to bed.

Bedtime is now a deliberate cut off from screen time.

It’s just me and my alarm clock. And my partner too, I guess!

Calm mornings

What I’ve started to find, after a few weeks, is nothing short of a miracle: I’m actually starting to wake up earlier!

What I love about my mornings now is the tranquility of being awake when no one else is.

No sounds, no chaos, no tasks, no emails.

Just me and my thoughts.

I’m finding I have an hour or more most mornings where I can think, review, reflect, and ponder. I can wander aimlessly in my mind. I can wonder, too.

I’m realising how desperately my mind needed this space to breathe.

Here’s to a calm week ahead.

Other things

  • Brad Pitt and George Clooney in the south of France discussing their careers.
  • What is Founder Mode? Paul Graham of Y Combinator shared an essay outlining how the founder of AirBnB runs differently to most conventional organisations led by managers.
  • After the elation of achieving a milestone with my running last week, I was in awe of someone else this Saturday. I witnessed a blind runner with a guide, and saw how they sped around 5km at the same time as me. There are no limits but those we set ourselves.
  • Perhaps soon your emails might have an expiry date?

Quote

"The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up." — Paul Valery (a French poet)

Personal finances and the 8th wonder of the world

This week I have been working on my personal finances.

Personal finance is a topic I haven’t spent much time on, and I haven’t spoken about much.

Most of what I know about personal finance I have learned from books, business, and making mistakes.

For the most part I feel fortunate with my current circumstances, but the ambition within me causes me to rarely stay satisfied for long.

I‘ve noticed myself fall into a common trap: lifestyle creep. As one earns more over the years, it’s easy for spend to increase in line with any increase in earnings.

I don’t think I’m extreme here — I am not buying yachts, or even cars, but it’s all relative. A rare treats becomes a regular treat. Which becomes a habit. Which becomes hard to remove from your life. In my reflections this week I could see several instances of treats that had become hard-to-remove habits. It was a wake-up call.

Learning to budget

I’ve never been very good at budgeting, but I thought a good place to start would be to adopt a simple high level goal: spend less than I make.

Spend less than I make.

That sounds pretty simple, right?!

Except… in today’s world, I haven’t found this easy at all — to even know how much you are spending is hard.

There is so much to juggle and understand: get a credit card, get a current account, get a joint account with a partner, get a savings account, pay a mortgage / rent, pay recurring payments, bills, subscriptions, direct debits, transfers, donate to charity, pay tax, and maybe even go on holiday and spend money in a different currency once in a while.

Even with great tools to track my spending (I’m a huge fan of Monzo here in the UK), I still find it hard to truly know what I’m spending during a month.

Not only have I found it difficult to understand and get a baseline of my spending, but I have also found life getting more expensive. “Inflation” has been mentioned a lot in the UK news cycle for as long as I can remember, but I never fully understood its implications.

Taking action on my spending

I won’t bore you with everything I‘ve learned, but I will jump to a few realisations and actions and I have taken since drawing my attention to my finances more intently:

  • Plan my meals at the weekend for the week ahead.
  • Don’t get a coffee out every morning. Make one at home and bring it on my dog walk.
  • Make avoiding spending fun — set a budget goal for the month in Monzo and try to stick to it.
  • Buy good quality ingredients at local shops on Saturdays. Combine this with a meal plan and I have no excuse for getting a takeaway mid-week.
  • Question everything I spend on. Do I need to eat there? Drink then?

Gratitude for normality — Weekly Review

My partner had an operation on her foot this week and it means she can’t walk on it for a few weeks. She’s on crutches and resting up, and otherwise doing well.

It’s incredibly easy to take one’s regular routine, limbs, and life for granted.

I’m often curious and hungry for the next thing, to do more, explore more, achieve more. But this week has been a good reminder to reflect on what I have, and what bliss normality looks like.

It’s easy to forget how helpful two working legs and feet are until you see a loved one suddenly having to operate normal life without them.

My partner and I, to a lesser extent, have experienced a change to our routines. Because my partner has been less mobile, her parents visited for the week to help us both out.

Having in-laws stay has been helpful for many reasons, but it has also been a good reminder of how much I appreciate my own space. It’s also been an insight into how different people have different habits, lifestyles, schedules, and more.

There’s an old joke that I was reminded of: What’s the difference between in-laws and outlaws? Outlaws are wanted!

But, joking aside, I have been feeling very fortunate this week to be surrounded by such a wonderful group of people in my life — family, friends, and colleagues.

Here's to normality resuming soon.

A few other notes

  • We got the team together on a boat in London for our summer social. It was so much fun, even if it was windy and not-at-all like summer.
  • Fred Again at Reading — really cool, fun DJ set with a huge crowd having a great time.
  • How did Roman aqueducts work? I stumbled upon this explainer and it's incredible how precise the engineering was.
  • I bought an alarm clock to discourage me from bringing my phone to bed with me. Let’s see how I fair with my evening and morning routine now…

Quote

“I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.” — Pablo Picasso

A week in Scotland, climbing mountains, and what it takes to make it as a comedian — Weekly Roundup

I’ve been in Scotland this week and, despite having a few days away from my laptop, it’s been busy.

I climbed a Munro — a Scottish mountain that’s at least 3,000 feet high.

I’d never have dreamt of tackling this just a few years ago — why climb a steep hill just to come back down the other side?

It’s a question I was pondering while stumbling up, plodding one foot after the other, being battered by high winds and chilling rain.

The rationale hit me after we reached the top and made our way back to the base. It feels great to accomplish something difficult.

Knowing I had managed to climb to the top of Ben Lawers, the 10th highest Munro, and knowing I had exerted all my energy to get there… it felt good.

Sometimes, doing something hard, no matter how useful, is a reward in itself.

A few other things from the week:

  • A wonderfully practical article on how to grow a newsletter from zero.
  • I spent some time at the Edinburgh Fringe festival. Here are a few jokes from this year to keep you entertained.
  • Every time I go to the Fringe I’m reminded of how hard it is for anyone to break into the comedy world. You need to be funny, and confident in front of a crowd, you need to be a marketer, a sales person, and you need to invest huge amounts of time and money to have a shot at building an audience.
  • We’re already wrapping up series 5 of the EcoSend Podcast. I loved this episode with Michelle Miles on how to make weddings more sustainable.
  • I’ve posted a bunch more of the back catalogue of episodes of Lost + Founder on YouTube.

A quote for the week ahead

“Often it isn’t the mountains ahead that wear you out, it’s the little pebble in your shoe.” — Muhammad Ali

GoSquared on iOS, coincidences, and medieval beats — Weekly Roundup

This week we released our first major integration for GoSquared in a long time: Numerics.

You can now get your GoSquared analytics data on all Apple platforms (iOS, Apple Watch, and even on Vision Pro) for the first time ever. I’m so excited for this — we’ve wanted to bring GoSquared to the iPhone since… well, the beginning of the App Store.

Numerics integration for GoSquared

Other notes from the week

  • On a walk in my local high street I stumbled on a plaque on the side of a shop. By some incredible coincidence, I noticed it on the exact day, 80 years on from the event it marks. Dulwich Society Plaque and August 5th 1944.
  • I’ve gone back and forth on my belief in AB tests. They can be helpful but they can also be a lazy, if not misleading way to make decisions. The team at Equals put forward a strong case for why startups shouldn’t bother with AB testing.
  • Do you like medieval music? Ever wanted a beautifully designed piece of audio equipment dedicated to generating medieval beats? I thought so! The weirdest gadget I’ve seen in years, designed by Teenage Engineering. I love it.
  • I posted a few more episodes of Lost & Founder on YouTube.
  • I’m in Edinburgh for a few days for the Fringe. A beautiful city bursting with incredible talent and buzz, a melting pot of creativity, laughter, and culture.
  • The Paris 2024 Olympics is now over. It’s been incredible, and has had me reliving moments from London 2012. As usual, the BBC put together a beautiful montage of Team GB’s incredible games.

A quote for the week ahead

“A ship in port is safe, but that is not what ships are built for. Sail out to sea and do new things.” — Grace Hopper (a US Naval officer and an early computer programmer)

Olympic precision, and advice from Sam Altman — weekly roundup

Last week I shared a post summarising what I had learned in the week.

I found it helpful for myself, and hopefully it may be at least mildly interesting for others too.

Here’s a few things I found interesting this week.

An incredibly densely packed set of wisdom from Sam Altman. I found this very motivating to read:

7 frameworks Sam Altman wishes someone told him earlier

I found this via Joel Hansen of Napkin Notes.

  • Getting an idea off the ground: “Optimism, obsession, self-belief, raw horsepower and personal connections are how things get started.”
  • Thinking long term: “Cohesive teams, the right combination of calmness and urgency, and unreasonable commitment are how things get finished. Long-term orientation is in short supply; try not to worry about what people think in the short term, which will get easier over time.”
  • Hiring: “Spend more time recruiting. Take risks on high-potential people with a fastrate of improvement. Look for evidence of getting stuff done in addition to intelligence.”
  • Coworkers: “Working with great people is one of the best parts of life.”
  • Making bets: “Concentrate your resources on a small number of high-conviction bets; this is easy to say but evidently hard to do. You can delete more stuff than you think.”
  • Wasting time: “Fight b*llshit and bureaucracy every time you see it and get other people to fight it too. Do not let the org chart get in the way of people working productively together.”
  • Time: “Fast iteration can make up for a lot; it's usually ok to be wrong if you iterate quickly. Plans should be measured in decades, execution should be measured in weeks.”

Other things this week

  • The first week of the Olympics in Paris has been incredible. Beautiful venues, Paris at its best.
  • I’m blown away by how little separates Olympic athletes between a gold medal and no medal. The men’s 100m final separated gold from silver by just 0.005 of a second.
  • We wrapped up July at EcoSend and it was a busy month.
  • I figured out how to add the Lost and Founder to YouTube. A while ago I started sharing my deepest darkest thoughts as a founder. I haven’t published in a while but I’m hoping to change that. I’ve just started posting old episodes to YouTube to give them a new lease of life. Stay tuned to YouTube for more.
  • I’m excited for something new for GoSquared next week. Stay tuned!

A quote for the week ahead

"The ultimate form of preparation is not planning for a specific scenario, but a mindset that can handle uncertainty." — James Clear

P.S. If you’re receiving this via email, you might notice it’s not sent from EcoSend. I’ll be changing that soon!

What happened at EcoSend in July 2024?

Chris has put together another video showing what we've been up to at EcoSend in the last month.

Almost always, I am stunned by how much our little team can achieve in just one month.

July featured a bunch of new features and product improvements, a slew of helpful and inspiring new videos published, 5 episodes of our podcast, and a whole lot of volunteering and doing good.

Do check this out if you're interested to learn more!

A few things I learned this week

A handful of things I learned in the last week:

  • Carpetright was taken (back) over by its original founder, Lord Philip Harris who grew up in Peckham near where I live. He started with a market stall in Peckham, and built it up over time to become the most successful carpet retailer in the U.K. The story of the takeover and Lord Harris’s empire is outlined in The Times. It’s also available to Apple News+ subscribers.
  • By switching to using a compostable toilet you can save 27,000 litres of fresh clean drinking water per year.
  • I was on the “Can marketing save the world?” Podcast talking about EcoSend and responsible email marketing.
  • Nestle built a supermarket on a barge to sell confectionary to communities along the Amazon river. Years on, these local communities have experienced greater rates of obesity as locals began to prefer processed foods over their native diet. I learned this while reading the truly life-changing book: Ultraprocessed.
  • The Olympic opening ceremony for the Paris 2024 games happened on Friday. Despite many dismissive reports of the ceremony, I thought it was full of incredible moments. The Eiffel Tower looked stunning, and I have no idea how they have achieved the floating balloon for the Olympic cauldron!

A quote for the week ahead

"If you want to kill any idea in the world, get a committee working on it."

— Charles Kettering (an American inventor and the holder of 186 patents)

What sells? Climate or ROI?

Climate vs ROI

What sells? 🌍 Climate, or 💰 ROI?

In the world of sustainability, what *actually* sells?

Is it a friendly, climate-focused tagline?

Or is it cold, hard business return-on-investment?

As someone who’s been leading with a sustainability focused message for over a year, just asking that question makes me feel a little uncomfortable.

When selling a product in a crowded market, you always need to stand out from the rest of the industry. And it’s hard to dislike a more sustainable alternative.

Standing out from the industry tends to mean leading with a proposition that is different. If everyone else leads with a pitch around ROI, then how do you lead with a pitch on ROI and still maintain differentiation?

I recently had an inspiring conversation with Tim Schumacher who put the question to me: do people buy based on environmental benefits or business benefits?

What gets you in the door might not be what gets you bought.

From what we’ve seen at EcoSend, leading with a pitch around climate is a fantastic way to drive awareness and attention, and it expresses our values in building the most environmentally conscious email marketing platform in the world.

However, leading with an environmental pitch doesn’t always drive business.

In fact it’s a challenge I’ve heard many times from other founders in the climate space — people love the idea of changing the world for the better, but when push comes to shove the business decision almost always wins out.

That business decision might be:

  • Switching will take time, so we’ll stick with our current tool.
  • We will go with the most trusted brand, to avoid unnecessary risk.
  • There’s a specific feature we need that your product doesn’t have.
  • We can get this cheaper elsewhere.

Fortunately with many environmental focused products and propositions the trade-off of climate vs ROI doesn’t necessarily need to exist.

Often what is better for the environment is also the more effective, more impactful decision for the business.

The challenge is finding the right balance between communicating your climate focus while driving awareness of business impact.

It’s something we’re going to experiment with more at EcoSend — by focusing on sustainability, we’re building a highly optimised, efficient platform where your emails are much more likely to get delivered, opened, read, and actioned.

Can we ultimately drive more people to a climate conscious solution by leading with a business focused pitch?

We’ll find out.