Going Slow

Team Roc8 is expanding. Swapnil shares his playbook of going all-in on writing and that we should keep things clear instead of clever. We discuss the end of an era with Heroku sunsetting its free tier. Mukul talks about the activities he joined in Phuket.

Swapnil is internalizing that putting others ahead of yourself is not a sustainable strategy. Mukul released the mobile app of Appointo and currently exploring different types of dives. We have a discussion on knowledge workers.

We discuss our travel routines and things we consider while traveling. We also discuss SaaS acquisitions and share our thoughts from the buyer’s as well as seller’s point of view.

Mukul is iterating by applying learnings from his last trip and staying in one place in Phuket for 2 months. We touch on the socializing aspect of traveling solo as introverts. We then go into a rant on our passport strength and brain drain and late independence. One good thing that we now have is the luxury of retries. We end with a thought experiment and try to reach the core of what we really like doing. If you had more hours in a day, what will you do? Say you hit your goals. What next? What will you do the next day?

We start with patting ourselves on our back for getting back on track. Staying consistent is hard and satisfying like a dopamine hit. We touch on how our college friends are at different paths with different priorities. We then discuss a website howisfelix.today where a software developer has been documenting all key life metrics for over 3 years now. We are amazed by his commitment to drawing insights from it. We then discuss consistency in the creative domain and that anything long-term competes with Netflix time. One thing that has worked for Swapnil is to do it in a group and set a deadline. Towards the end, we talk about art and how it needs a considerable time investment to start enjoying the process of creation.

It's placement season at Roc8. We talk about how people are not well-equipped to deal with rejection and ways to solve this at scale. Mukul is looking forward to trying out more new things in business and in life. We discuss ideas around hosting retreats in Udaipur.

Roc8 team had their first offsite which was pending for a long time and hosted a fun public meetup on a 90s nostalgia theme with games like pen fight. Mukul is going to a 3-day F1 racing event. He also met people who have been traveling for more than 5 years now and for whom it doesn't hold the charm much. We discuss cities where we can settle in and whether buying a house upfront makes sense for us. Being a nomad also means having to make new friends at our age. One way to do that is renting out a co-living space where you get like-minded people around you. Another way is to find interest groups around you where you meet up regularly. We also touch on what would we do if money was out of the equation. We end with avoiding treadmills while setting goals.

We discuss the traditional notion while traveling that you have to do something every day, but do you really need to? How about if you rent out a place for a month or so? You can relax the way you want to. If you can't get to your normal lifestyle on a vacation (say Bangalore life on wheels), are you really location-independent? Running behind a checklist of to-do items on a vacation can also feel like work. We then talk about creating wealth vs multiplying wealth and our conditioning that makes us feel guilty while spending money on experiences. We also touch on innovation being driven by new players and that going slow is a feature for big companies. We end with a rant that everyone is selling on Twitter and you shouldn't idolize anyone. Nobody is perfect in all areas of life.

Mukul talks about his Airbnb experiences which is a good way to get a local authentic taste of the city. Placement season has started at Roc8, wherein companies are coming to talk about their culture. Retention is a big problem in the tech industry, especially after remote work as switching costs have reduced. We also talk about both of our copycats and how our brand is the eventual moat whereas features become a commodity over time. We're engineered to feel guilty when having too much fun. We connect it back to solo trips as the life stories you hear while meeting new people really broadens your perspective. There are no wrong choices, only experiences through which you find your deal-breakers and move away from them.

Mukul moved to Lisbon and is figuring out a balance between work and travel. We talk about how being a solo traveler is analogous to life without a job. Then we move to challenges while working in different time zones. We end with a rant on bad incentives in companies.