Six months. That’s how long it took from the day we had an inbound lead land in our inbox (the best kind) to a fully executed contract this week. In the interim there was an RFP, many emails, lots of back-and-forth, and—from day one, really—a sense of calm confidence at TPF HQ. We felt like the work would come in, it was just a matter of when. We hit it off well with the client, had a good rapport. Everyone was on the same page. The hope was we would kick off Q1, once all the details were ironed out.
I’ve talked about this in our Small Biz 101 newsletter many times over, but so much of running your own small shop is talking to people—and waiting. Oftentimes Noah will say, “you could tell me they’ll give us a ton of work and you could tell me we’ll never hear from them again and neither would surprise me.” But, this time around, we felt like hey yeah this project is gonna happen we just don’t know when.
Anyway, about three months into this another client told Noah that at tech companies “Q1 really means Q2.” Our contract kicks off April 1.
Onto the links.
An Article
“Inside the Frenzied World of Rare Watches and the Rich People Who Love Them”
Friend of the Newsletter and erstwhile Three Point Four Media contributor Julian Sancton has a new feature in Vanity Fair. It’s got everything you want in a Vanity Fair story: rich people spending lots of money on insane things. Need I say more?
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A Book
The Overstory, Richard Powers
Everyone told me I had to read this book. I thoroughly enjoyed the parts where Powers writes masterfully about generations of families. I was very invested in the characters. But it was extremely difficult for me to get through the overwritten stoner talk about chestnut trees. I gave up after 100 pages and started reading the first Elena Ferrante book.
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A Coffee Shop
HiVolt, 1829 Sophie Wright Pl. New Orleans
I always end up at this lovely coffee shop in the Garden District when I’m in New Orleans. Highly recommend.
Pros: They have this incredible drink with two shots of espresso, Mexican Coke, and a tiny squirt of vanilla simple syrup. Great seating outdoors on a quiet side street. Ample seating indoors. No wi-fi, so you can just chill.
Cons: The only con is I don’t live in New Orleans. We need a HiVolt in Ann Arbor.
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A Run
Whenever I whine about running or not being as fast as I’d like Noah says “you should just run harder.” He’s not wrong and I subscribe to some tenets of his running philosophy, but you need to take the easy days easy and the hard days hard. One thing all the old heads I ski and run with tell me is to keep up the interval work as you age. It’s the only thing that will keep you sharp and fit. Gotta rev the engine once a week. As you can tell from the hilarious heart rate chart above, I’ve been following the Noah Davis School of Just Run Harder.
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I hope Duke loses tonight. Noah will be back in two weeks.