Almanac

Note: This interview was recorded in front of a live audience in early March and so the audio quality is a little patchier than usual. 

This week's guest is Devan Hughes, the co-founder and CEO of Buymie-  a company on a mission is to bridge the gap between convenience and online shopping, allowing customers to order from their favourite local stores and have the goods hand-delivered to their door in as little as one hour. Personally, I love any product that reduces friction in my day to day life and Buymie certainly does this. 

This episode is a topical one as e-commerce has been one of the few industries to flourish during the pandemic rather than be stymied by it- growing by 300%. Buymie has been no different and is on track to grow its revenue by 500% this year after recently announcing $9 million in fresh funding to expand into the UK. Buymie certainly has a bright future, but in this podcast we delve into its more gritty beginnings.

Despite his current success, Devan's path has been far from straightforward. Indeed, Devan- as we delve into in great detail in this conversation- had 5 epic failures before starting Buymie. Including everything from importing golf carts from Asia to starting a  biometric payments company.

But it was this meandering path that allowed Devan to see what others couldn't and take an orthogonal approach in founding Buymie. Rather ingeniously, he applied the principles he picked up while working in the commodities industry to pioneer a new approach in grocery delivery.

This week I was fortunate enough to sit down with Mr. Gary Fox and pick his mind for an hour in what turned out to be an incredibly entertaining conversation. Gary is a seasoned entrepreneur and host of the Entrepreneur Experiment- one of Ireland's leading business podcasts. Gary is a million-ideas-a-minute kind of guy and so this episode was an absolute blast and is full of valuable insights. In this wide-ranging conversation, we touch on everything from Nassim Taleb's 'Skin in The Game' concept to subscription podcasting.

This week I was honored to be joined by Chris Lauder, founder of The Dublin Academy of Education. 

I owe a great deal to Chris and his company personally, as they helped me to realise my potential in the leaving certificate last year. 

The same can be said for the thousands of students who have been through the school's doors since its inception. 

In this wide-ranging conversation, Chris and I delve into the origins of The Academy and how it grew to be what it is today, among other things. 

Selected Links

It would be hard to talk about the internet without mentioning the burgeoning creator class.

Anyone can now build audiences at scale, create a personal monopoly and turn their passions into livelihoods, whether that’s playing video games or producing video content. This has huge implications for entrepreneurship and what we’ll think of as a “job” in the future. This week's guest is at the forefront of this shift. Thomas Arnold, at the ripe age of 23, has amassed a loyal following of over 50,000 followers across a variety of platforms and is the CEO of a fast-growing video production startup- Fearless Media. His energy and ambition is infectious and I walked away from this conversation feeling energised and read to take on the world.

I hope you enjoy listening to this podcast as much as I did recording it

It would be hard to talk about the internet without mentioning the burgeoning creator class. 

Anyone can now build audiences at scale, create a personal monopoly and turn their passions into livelihoods, whether that’s playing video games or producing video content. This has huge implications for entrepreneurship and what we’ll think of as a “job” in the future.

This week's guest is at the forefront of this shift. Thomas Arnold, at the ripe age of 23, has amassed a loyal following of over 50,000 followers across a variety of platforms and is the CEO of a fast-growing video production startup- Fearless Media. His energy and ambition is infectious and I walked away from this conversation feeling energised and read to take on the world. 

I hope you enjoy listening to this podcast as much as I did recording it

This week I'm really excited to be joined by Nilesh Trivedi who's building Learn Awesome. Scaling one-on-one tutoring is seen by many experts and researchers as the silver bullet for human cognitive development, and by extension solving a host of economic and social issues for society. But how do you make one program to fit any human mind? The solution has to be adaptive, both in terms of subject matter expertise and feedback —i.e. it has to interact with the learner in a personalized way, keep them motivated, and remove mental and psychological blocks to learning. That's what Nilesh, with Learn Awesome, has set out to do. If you've read Neal Stevenson's, 'The Diamond Age', you can think of Learn Awesome as a young lady's illustrated primer. If you haven't, think of it as a personalised tool to make the best use of the internet's abundant educational resources. Learn Awesome solves many of the problems with current online learning platforms such as Coursera and Udacity and so I was really excited to sit down with Nilesh to learn more. 

Selected Links

Timestamps

@00.45 Nilesh's Background

@04:01 Building humanities universal learning map

@09:26 The need for curation in online learning

@11:18 3 steps to building an infectious online community

@12:47 Nilesh's vision for the future

@17:19 Don't prematurely optimise

@18:46 Credentialing in the 21st century

@22:53 The unbundling of the university

@24:53 Opportunities for startups

@29:11 The low hanging fruit in learning

@33:48 Why tutors are more important than we think

@36:19 The aims of education

@37:00 Advice for the ambitious 19-year-old that wants to do something big but doesn't know where to start.

Mr. Gary Fox is a seasoned entrepreneur and host of the Entrepreneur Experiment- one of Ireland's leading business podcasts. 

Gary is a million-ideas-a-minute kind of guy and so this episode was an absolute blast and is full of insightful ideas. In this wide-ranging conversation, we touch on everything from Nassim Taleb's 'Skin in The Game' concept to subscription podcasting. 

Selected Links:

Show Notes:

@06:20 Gary's Background

@11:19 The dichotomy between what school incentivises Vs real life

@13:46 Curation

@16:15 Gary's first start-up

@21:33 Failure is a teacher

@23:19 Learning by doing

@25:06 Avoiding the lure of safe corporate jobs

@27:38 Building HostButlers

@28:27 The Entrepreneur Experiment

@29:59 The importance of being a good communicator

@33:40 The future is here, it's just not evenly distributed yet

@35:37 The lack of skin in the game for tenured lecturers

@37:34 The internet broadens the scope of potential careers

@39:44 The Leaving Cert

@40:46 Consistency is king

@42:50 Income Share Agreements

@45:02 Opportunities helping people to reskill for their 'second act'

@50:21 The impending podcast revolution

This episode is slightly different. Instead of being joined by an educator or entrepreneur, we're joined by a voracious learner. 

It's often said that man should aim for three things: health, wealth and wisdom. Well Yusef has mastered just about all of these areas. He's a qualified doctor, runs a profitable online business, and can squat almost 3 times his body weight. 

In this wide-ranging conversation, we discuss how to find and pursue a career you love, how Yusef juggled being a full-time medical student and running two businesses at the same time, and how he structures his days and ways for maximum output- among other things.  

Show Notes

01:01 - Yusef's Background

02:19 - How to find your path 

09:08 - Scott Adams' skill stack 

10:32 - The 4 currencies 

11:07 - Prestige 

11:54 - Diminishing returns 

13:15 - What are you optimizing for?

14:42 - Outsourcing 

15:52 - Tiago Forte's productivity pyramid 

18:52 - Timeboxing 

20:13 - How Yusef structures his days and weeks for maximum output 

20:16 - Lectures

22:33 - Productive by necessity 

24:08 - Entrepreneurship 

27:00 - Productivity software

28:03 - Quick-fire round 

28:46 - Learning to code: is it worth it?

30:06 - Most Gifted books 

This week I sat down with Ray Batra of Shift_Up Learning Gym to talk about what he’s learned from 10 years in Edtech, and his vision for the college of the future. I really enjoyed this interview with Ray, whose breadth of experience in education is unparalleled and has given him a unique perspective on the space.

Show notes and a full transcript of this episode can be found here.