I cannot understate how important it is to surround yourself with people that are high energy, excellent at what they do, and genuinely want to see you win. Impossible not to level up when you’re constantly learning, feeding off each other and having fun in the process.
I wasted months last year ruminating on my life’s purpose, and what I should be doing with my time. It made me miserable. It’s only when I tuned into my curiosity and started just doing stuff that things changed. Get out of your own head and start living life. Go do things.
Canadian banks be like:
“Put your money to work with a high interest savings account”
The interest rate: 0.05%
What is this? A savings account for ants?
Toronto has some of the most talented builders, creatives and technologists I've ever met, but for some reason, many of them are afraid to talk about their work publicly. If you have a gift, perhaps consider that you have an obligation to share it with the world.
Can’t wait for Canadians to get their hands on the
@shakepay
card 💳
They’ll soon be stacking, shaking _and_ spending their way to financial sovereignty.
Toronto has been part of the public discourse for the wrong reasons lately: Productivity down. Crime up. Etc. Last night,
@tommytrxnh
&
@internetvin
put on an event that replaced the doomer narrative with pure techno-optimism. Thanks for everything. Let’s build the way forward.
100 Days of Design
Starting tomorrow, I'll be participating in a challenge led by
@tommytrxnh
to pursue a skill for 100 consecutive days. Everything will be tracked in
@futurelandtv
.
My skill of choice is software design. I will commit to spending at least 60 minutes a day
Some personal news: I'm joining the Product team at
@SpellbookLegal
. Excited for this next chapter building AI products with a team that cares deeply about the product craft :)
Hmu you’re also building AI experiences and want to share learnings!
Today,
@tommytrxnh
and I hosted another walk and talk on the West end of Toronto. Vibes were off the charts; I really didn’t want it to end.
Thanks to everyone that showed up! Summer walks are going to be next level.
Next one in 2 weeks!
First group walk in the books! 🌲🚶♂️
Ossington + Bellwoods with the gang, Lambo’s Deli for lunch. Great chats, good vibes and dope weather.
Lots of areas to improve the next one. Just the beginning! Stay tuned 🔥
Wrapped up the 3rd Walk and Talk in Roncy. It was a blast. Really enjoying these walks as a way to kick off the weekend. Thanks everyone for attending! On to the next.
Today,
@tommytrxnh
and I hosted another walk and talk on the West end of Toronto. Vibes were off the charts; I really didn’t want it to end.
Thanks to everyone that showed up! Summer walks are going to be next level.
Next one in 2 weeks!
Going on a dopamine fast this weekend by swapping my iPhone with this dumb Nokia 3310 for at least half a day. Important to do these every once in a while to give the brain a break.
With banks:
Shake your fist? Still jump through hoops to move your money.
With
@shakepay
:
Shake your phone? Jump for joy and get free
#bitcoin
every day.
The culture that’s been spreading in Toronto is focused on potential maximization. Whether you design, code, write or sell, it doesn’t matter. You can find your place in the community and meet others who want to be the best version of themselves.
There’s a real opportunity cost to not sharing your ideas online—no matter how half-baked they are. You might miss out on potentially life-changing opportunities and connections. Don’t overthink it. Just share. Create your digital footprint and let the Internet work its magic.
> Run walkandtalk_v2.exe
Welcome to Walk and Talk: Season 2
Location: Roncesvalles Ave, Toronto
Date: Saturday, August 31st
Time: 10:00 AM
Link: See comments
Press any key to join the lobby...
If you’re not going as fast you’d like to, it may be because you’re not surrounding yourself with the right people. Don’t underestimate the value in developing your own infrastructure for social accountability. The fear of letting others down can be a powerful motivator.
First group walk in the books! 🌲🚶♂️
Ossington + Bellwoods with the gang, Lambo’s Deli for lunch. Great chats, good vibes and dope weather.
Lots of areas to improve the next one. Just the beginning! Stay tuned 🔥
Planning to host a group walk n’ talk with
@tommytrxnh
to bring Toronto techno-creatives together, brainstorm ideas and explore the city.
10 people max to start.
Who’s in? Reply below or DM me.
Tonight,
@shaiyanhkhan
and I hosted v1 of the writing hour with a talented group of writers and wordsmiths. We wrote words, exchanged ideas, and talked about the writing craft. I can’t wait to do more of these.
Toronto writers: I’m hosting a weekly writing hour with my dawg
@hussamfyi
. In-person writing block, an open mic for anyone who’d like to share, and then we can chill/nerd out on semicolons or whatever
8 max for this first experiment, DM with your writing
Thanks for hosting
@lychkel
. If you're a beginner designer (like me) that's trying to develop their taste I'd highly recommend joining the next one.
Here are my before and after pics for the design challenge during the session. It's for a random app idea I had called Riff.
i bestowed the blessing (or curse?) of learning design onto 15 lovely individuals last night at da101
#2
(toronto edition!!) <3
attendees learned frameworks for approaching visual projects, applied them, and got mentorship in a fun and cozy space
dm to join the next one :)
Procrastination gets a bad rap.
It's your subconscious telling you something's not right. Don't shoot the messenger.
3 tips to confront procrastination and do great work again👇
Practicing gratitude makes you realize how much of a self-psyop negativity is. Your brain can take any experience and spin it to catastrophic levels of doom. You can accept that and still focus on what’s good in your life. If you’re reading this, you’re blessed beyond belief.
One of my goals in 2024 is to write more, so I’m doing a 30 day writing challenge with
@tommytrxnh
and
@immigrantdisco
. Goal is to hit publish every day for 30 days—can be a tweet, thread or essay. If you’re interested in doing it with us lmk and I’ll add you to our group chat.
Wrapped up the 3rd Walk and Talk in Roncy. It was a blast. Really enjoying these walks as a way to kick off the weekend. Thanks everyone for attending! On to the next.
So grateful to everyone that showed up tonight at
@lennysan
’s meetup in Toronto. Special shoutout to my co-host
@lfgraf
, and
@jamie_gelaskins
for opening up the beautiful GelaSkins space to us. Hope to do more of these :)
Calling all Toronto product people! I’m hosting a Lenny’s Newsletter meetup with
@lfgraf
next Thursday at
@GelaSkins
in Roncesvalles.
Come meet other product folks, and let’s chat about the highs and lows of making software.
the last couple of months have taught me just how much i enjoy being around people. it’s reinforced my belief that toronto needs infrastructure that connects people together so they can create magic and elevate their lives (and this city) in the process.
Updates to toronto dot page:
You can think of this as a kind of onboarding to Toronto's scene
Focused home page with a selection of interesting individuals willing to make time to walk with you
Added "General Directory" to explore other interesting people
A lot more soon.
The relationship you have with yourself determines everything else; how you relate to people, problems, pursuits. Are you a friend, mentor and confidante to yourself, or are you a tyrant?
I love computers so damn much. I'm so thankful I grew up in the Internet era and had an outlet to explore my quirky curiosities as a child. Computers were my escape to a rich, vibrant and stimulating world—and still are.
The Internet is the ultimate permissionless playground. You can learn how to build anything with a laptop and an internet connection. You don’t need a fancy degree or anyone’s blessing to build. You can just do it. How are you capitalizing on this truth today?
@dickiebush
Hey everyone, Hussam here from 🇨🇦
I’ll be writing about:
• 🚀 How world-class products grow
• 🧠 Unlocking our creative potential
• 💵 Why
#Bitcoin
+ web3 matter
Excited to ‘hit publish’, make new friends and learn a ton!
#ship30for30
Caught up with
@internetVin
(in Roncy of course) where we talked about
@newdemos_
, and the challenge of building a tight-knit community of techno-creatives in Toronto.
As a member of this community—and a curious observer—I have a lot I want to say about this topic, and I feel
In SF for the week for Config. Spent the morning walking around and found myself reflecting on the impact North American culture has had on my life.
Having immigrated to Canada 14 years ago, being in the USA feels foreign yet oddly familiar. These feelings are compounded by my
We're hiring for a Partnerships Manager
@shakepay
The job? Get
#bitcoin
in the hands of 37M Canadians for shopping at their favourite brands with the Shakepay Card.
👉Apply now:
INTRODUCING: The Shakepay Card with bitcoin cashback!
Spend dollars, earn bitcoin.
Join the waitlist to be one of the first people to get the card!
#Bitcoin
Waking up and scrolling social media first thing in the morning is the nutritional equivalent of having a triple cheeseburger with fries and a coke for breakfast.
Why write? 60,000. That’s how many thoughts the average person has in a day. What would happen if you examined a single one? Observing it from multiple angles. Shaping it. Imagine the muscles you’d build over time turning foggy constellations of images into sharp written ideas.
One of my goals in 2024 is to write more, so I’m doing a 30 day writing challenge with
@tommytrxnh
and
@immigrantdisco
. Goal is to hit publish every day for 30 days—can be a tweet, thread or essay. If you’re interested in doing it with us lmk and I’ll add you to our group chat.
> be me, learning how to write code and using cursor
> ask claude what a piece of code is doing
> claude explains it to me like i'm a swe
> code rabbit hole turns into a deep, dark abyss
> i'm fighting for my fucking life rn
The reason you have writer’s block is because you’re not writing for yourself. You’re afraid of something, and that contaminates the sincerity of your ideas and makes it way harder to lose yourself in the act of writing. Just let go.
30-day writing challenge is done. I wrote 3,422 words for 30 days spread out over ~60 posts.
I got more writing done than I have in a long time. Very cool. It was also fun because I had 20 others join me on the challenge. I’m going to do a cooldown week and then restart.
One of my goals in 2024 is to write more, so I’m doing a 30 day writing challenge with
@tommytrxnh
and
@immigrantdisco
. Goal is to hit publish every day for 30 days—can be a tweet, thread or essay. If you’re interested in doing it with us lmk and I’ll add you to our group chat.
Drop the methods, tactics and hacks. Ground yourself in the quest for Truth in your domain. Forget what anyone else says. Build your own ways of doing things and navigating uncertainty. Ask questions sincerely. Then seek the answers by doing. Anything else is a distraction.
Pretty historic moment for Canadian consumer fintech. If KOHO successfully acquires a banking license, will this open the floodgates for others to compete with the Big 5? I sure hope so. Canadians need better financial products.
ICYMI: We have BIG, big news! 🚀 We're so excited to share that KOHO has been accepted into Phase II of becoming a bank in Canada! This means we’re one step closer to achieving our mission.
Walk and Talk today led by
@_kelindi
and
@melkuo
. East and west enders decided to put their macs down for 2 hours of peacetime. Then it’s back to pursuing excellence (and patty wars).
@SolBrah
Tomahawk steaks, giant pot of roasted potatoes, delicious side plate of kimchi, jug of goat kefir and/or laban ayran, giant bowl of greens (tomatoes, cucumbers, avocado, red onions) drizzled in olive oil
The team behind
@futurelandtv
aren’t just builders, they’re software artists. They took the mundane act of tracking habits and repackaged it into a tool that helps you build a personal OS for the most meaningful experiments in your life.
Still processing what happened yesterday. I don’t know where these walks go from here but it’s cool to see it take on a life of its own. Also felt great seeing everyone genuinely having a good time.
If you struggle to get restful sleep, I have two words for you:
Magnesium Bisglycinate
Pair it with L-Theanine and you’ll be sleeping in the astral planes.
There is no substitute to doing the actual work, and this is coming from a self-proclaimed course addict.
Sure, you can download someone else’s blueprint for a fee, but the only way to turn that into muscle memory is by doing the work over a long sustained period of time.
@AmritaGurney
Hey Amrita, if you’re in Toronto would love to have you join a Walk and Talk so you can see for yourself the collective enthusiasm and diversity in the community.
Planning to host a group walk n’ talk with
@tommytrxnh
to bring Toronto techno-creatives together, brainstorm ideas and explore the city.
10 people max to start.
Who’s in? Reply below or DM me.
good reminder to put the reps in with whatever craft you're pursuing. don't stress about the gap between your skillset and taste; just produce a high volume of work, and eventually the former will catch up to the latter.
It’s amazing how apps that seem simple turn out to be quite complicated as you dig into the design details. Every decision you make either adds or subtracts friction. Edge cases pop up out of nowhere, like a game of Whack a Mole. It’s true what they say: Simple is hard.
Like the budding trees in the spring, so is there a budding of sorts in Toronto. The air feels fresh again. This walk was super refreshing and uplifting. Thank you to everyone who made it out today.
#toronto
#design
#people
#community
Who’s building user-facing apps with LLMs? I’m setting up a group chat with other builders to exchange ideas and share learnings.
Must be working on building something, can be a side project or business.
Reply or DM me if you’d like to be added.
All software should feel like a game, but not exactly through ‘gamification’. Instead, as you use it more, it should feel like you’re leveling up—as if you’re able to slay dragons you couldn’t before—and that you’re arriving at a clear desirable future state for your life.
Excited to kickstart 2022 onboard the January Ship 30 for 30 cohort from
@dickiebush
and
@nicolascole77
Join me and 500+ others to learn the fundamentals of digital writing, form lifelong friendships, and publish every day for 30 days.
More info👇🏼🚢
Toronto looks crazy picturesque right now. What a blessing to be able to see the trees blossom and bless us with their graceful presence and stillness.
Calling all Toronto product people! I’m hosting a Lenny’s Newsletter meetup with
@lfgraf
next Thursday at
@GelaSkins
in Roncesvalles.
Come meet other product folks, and let’s chat about the highs and lows of making software.
if you stay in toronto, you have to go on a walk with
@tommytrxnh
in high park, toronto.
will change your outlook on toronto, life, and everything. im still processing it man. reminded me of my time in japan for some reason.
Yemeni food is so goated. Just had the best Lamb dish (Mandi) ever from this Mississauga joint called Monasaba. In utter disbelief at the succulence and flavours. Toronto food truly is world class.
The Command Palette (⌘ + K) is a goated design pattern in modern software. When done well, it feels like you're playing a video game on God mode. What I love is how it breaks down any software to its atomic units. Less flash and clicks. Just rows of actions and keystrokes.
Having fun tinkering in Figma for the first iteration of Riff. Great news is I can leverage existing UX/UI paradigms from iMessage and other chat apps, and then figure out how to map existing actions and patterns to tweeting. No need to reinvent the wheel just yet.
I’ll be participating in this. I wrote 3,422 words doing a 30-day writing challenge in April, so 5,000 words will be a test. Will aim to complete in a way that doesn’t interfere with my 100 Days of Design. Join me and let’s write together. Link in the comments.
Tomorrow I'm starting a race to see who can be the first to reach 5000 words published online.
I'll be using this as an opportunity to write consistently about Toronto. What I love the city, what makes it special, what makes it difficult and highlighting things that I think are
It’s a beautiful Sunday morning to make some music. When I sit the behind this kit, I disappear, and everything clicks into place. I hope today you get to indulge in whatever thing makes you feel the same way.
Met with
@steven_yuen
and
@ajaysabs
to test out
@gather_do
.
• It's fast—takes me less time to capture thoughts than other apps.
•
@steven_yuen
is a skilled interviewer. I learned a ton seeing him work.
• Building simple things is hard, but I'd bet on these two to nail it.