Hello friend,
Why you’re getting this: this is my Friends Newsletter, a brain dump of interesting things that I send to interesting people I've met and friends I want to stay in touch with. Zero pressure to stick around—just click unsubscribe if you don’t want to get it (don’t worry, I won’t be notified).
Here’s what I’m thinking about…
- Last month, I made $20,303 power washing driveways.
There's a sentence I never thought I'd write. Here's how it happened.
It was a chilly October afternoon and I’d just finished speaking at a University of Victoria business school class. As usual, one of the eager beaver students (there’s always one) asked if he could walk me to my car.
As we walked, he gave a breathless elevator pitch on himself. His name was Andan, and a few years back he’d started a landscaping business in Calgary, hiring a bunch of his friends and paying his way through school. He’d even started a Hawaiian shave ice business on vacation at his lakeside summer cabin. Now, he was doing business school and feeling lost.
He asked me what he should do.
“Why would you waste your time with business school?” I asked, stating what I felt was obvious. “You’ve already run a business—you already know this stuff. Business school is for people who want to work at McKinsey. Just start a business and read books as you go.”
I told him he should drop out.
He hemmed and hawed. His parents. The money. All the usual excuses people have for not following their passion.
I gave him my number, told him that if he wanted to start a business I’d back him, and drove away.
I’ve said this sort of thing to dozens of business school students. I rarely hear from them again.
But this time, a couple hours later, I got the text: “Let’s do it. What should we start?”
I grinned. I had recently read a draft of The Sweaty Startup, my friend Nick Huber’s excellent new book on how to get rich by starting blue collar businesses, and pitched Andan on the idea of starting a pressure washing business together (low startup costs, easy to scale, recurring revenue).
We shook hands on a deal: me and my team would handle all the marketing, demand generation, and tech/workflows, and he’d run the business day-to-day and manage the team.
One month later, we launched PressurePros. One of the places we promoted was on this very newsletter, and I wanted to say a huge thank you to all of you who promptly hired us to wash your driveways and patios (don’t forget to leave a 5-star review on Google!).
I’m excited to report that in March, we did $20,303 in revenue and that number is scaling fast.
As you’d expect, Andan has been doing an incredible job, but he’s up to his eyeballs fielding sales calls, quoting, and hiring like crazy.
So, we need your help, dear reader:
We're looking for incredible people to join our team. We need motivated folks for sales (handling calls, visiting sites, giving estimates) and hard workers for pressure washing jobs (landscaping experience is a bonus). We care more about their attitude and work ethic than their resume.
If you’re based in Victoria and you know someone who might be interested, tell them to email Andan.
T-minus 12 months until we hit $203,030 per month (10x) 💪
PS: If you've been eyeing your moss-covered driveway or patio for the last few months and thinking "I should really deal with that," you know who to call.
- Most of the things that are making you miserable are derived from luck.
Too many emails.
A packed calendar.
A chaotic household.
A never ending list of missed calls.
Every morning at 9AM I get the same Apple Reminder notification.
It pops up on my phone’s home screen (which is always a beautiful photo of my kids).
It says:
“Invert: How is the stress lucky?”
I stop whatever I’m doing and take a second to flip things around and invert. I’m experiencing all this stress because I’m lucky enough to have:
A vibrant work life full of exciting and interesting businesses.
Friends who invite me to fun gatherings and hangouts.
Two miraculous little boys who want all my attention.
It never fails to lower my cortisol and make me smile. Try it.
- Once in a while, I read a book I can’t put down.
Here’s a few of them from the past month or so:
The Kid Stays in The Picture by Robert Evans
Robert Evans went from 50’s movie star to running Paramount Pictures during its Godfather heyday, only to fall flat on his face and go broke in the eighties. Pure Hollywood popcorn and full of fun (probably half-true) anecdotes about seemingly every celebrity of yesteryear.
When The Going Was Good by Graydon Carter
A memoir by Graydon Carter, the longtime editor of Vanity Fair. It’s a bit of a shock to read about just how incredible the magazine business used to be. Aside from lots of dishy gossip about various famous people and a great rags to riches story, this book is a grim reminder of how quickly the tides can change in business. In a matter of years, Conde Nast (publisher of Vanity Fair) went from one of the world’s strongest businesses to one of the most challenging.
Based on a True Story by Norm McDonald
I picked this one up on a recommendation from a friend expecting a tell all autobiography. What I got instead was far more weird and wonderful. I don’t think I could make it through more than a few pages without dying laughing—this book is pure comedy gold.
- Let’s have a VERY expensive lunch.
A couple times a year, my business partner Chris and I auction off a charity lunch to raise money for non-profits we love.
We'll spend a few hours with you and help you with anything we can.
Happy to brainstorm your business, help you solve a problem, or just get to know one another.
The bidding starts at $10,000 and ends on Wednesday at 6PM PST.
Go!
DM me on X or reply to this email to bid - the last one went for $100,000 👀
- Talk to most 30-50 year olds these days and they tell you two things:
1. The next generation is weak (phone addiction, no sex, no work ethic, etc)
2. Humanity is doomed (climate change, societal upheaval, nuclear war, etc)
Here’s 20 quotes presented without comment:
"The children now love luxury; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise." —Socrates
"Civilization will come to an end sometime in this century, when the fuel runs out." —William Shaw, 1974
"Democracy will be dead by 1950." —John Langdon-Davies, 1936
"When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders. Today's youth are exceedingly wise and impatient of restraint." —Hesiod, 8th century BCE
"Everything that can be invented has been invented." —Charles Duell, US Patent Office, 1899
"By 1985, air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half." —Life magazine, 1970
"Exhaustion of natural resources and social decay will bring an end to modern civilization within 100 years." —Club of Rome, 1972
"We have about five more years at the outside to do something." —Kenneth Watt, 1970
"World civilization will collapse by the year 2000 and there is nothing we can do about it." —Arnold Toynbee
"If we don't act now, by the year 2000 mankind will have destroyed the earth." —Senator Gaylord Nelson, 1970
"Youth were never more savagely saucy. The ancient are scorned, the honorable contemned, the magistrate not dreaded." —Thomas Barnes, 1624
"The free access which many young people have to romances and novels has poisoned the mind and corrupted the morals of many a promising youth." —Reverend Hitchcock, 1790
"The civilization of the twentieth century will be destroyed in an apocalypse of fire and blood more terrible than anything yet known." —René Guénon, 1927
"Young people have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint." —Peter the Hermit, 1274
"The population of the earth will be exterminated within a century by deadly rays from the sun." —Garrett Serviss, 1910
"We live in a decaying age. Young people no longer respect their parents. They frequently inhabit taverns and have no self-control." —Ancient Egyptian tomb inscription
"In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now." —Paul Ehrlich
Don’t get me wrong. Things are bad. But they’ve always been bad. And they’re much better than they used to be by almost every measure.
Unfortunately, it seems that it’s our job—at least those in my age group and up—to bemoan the next generation and state of the world. The kids are probably alright, and humans will probably still exist in 500 years.
That’s all for now…
-Andrew
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