just saw a homeless dude feed his pet raccoon some shawarma on the TTC

what I learned from 3 months of buildspace school

Oct 21, 2023

It’s been about 3 weeks since I finished up at buildspace school. It’s kind of a space where ~30 people (who are somewhat related to tech/startups/media) work really hard on making their dreams come true. No lie, it was the best 3-month period of my life.

I’ve been theorizing for a couple years on what I’d need to be consistently happy and fulfilled. I got all of it in those 3 months:

Happiness Criteria #1: Work on something I care about → I was making videos to inspire young people with tech.

Happiness Criteria #2: Be physically active → We played basketball every other day.

Happiness Criteria #3: Being around people I love → If you know, you know. These were just some of the greatest people I could’ve wished for.

Now that I’m back in Toronto, I still have bits of those things that make me happy, but it’s just not quite the same. I’m always somewhere in the middle in my hometown — between medium-happy and mildly sad.

From buildspace, I took away some really important lessons that I’m figuring out how to continue implementing in my normal life:

1. Be around people that miss you when you’re gone

One of the greatest things about buildspace is that whenever I didn’t come to the office by a certain time, I’d always get 1-2 texts that we’re like, “yooo where you at?” or, “you coming in today?”.

I’ve never had that happen to me — not in school when I was sick, not from my friends at work when I decided to stay home, never. Closest is a manager checking in for work reasons, but I’d never had anyone ask about me just because they missed being around me.

And the feeling was mutual. I felt like shit any of the few days I didn’t go to school. Even now that I’m back in Toronto, I still get texts from my friends in SF being like,

“yooo when are you coming back?”

(The answer is December 11th my friends, I can’t stay away for too long.)

I got my first tech internship job at 16. One of my mentors, who helped me get the job, told me to write everyone ‘thank you cards’ at the end of it so I’d leave a lasting impression and deepen those connections. I never did it for anyone other than the few people who really helped me, because for everyone else, it didn’t feel sincere. It felt fake.

Yet in the last week of buildspace school, I wrote everyone a card, and it didn’t feel fake at all.1 I just care about those people so damn much.

I think a lot (and write a little) about friendships. And I’ll spend some time trying to recreate what I found at buildspace — after all, good friends create big happiness. But I used to think my happiness would come from having more, “better” friends. Recently, I’m in a great spot, where it feels like I’m finally around my people, both in and out of buildspace.

And I’m realizing big happiness is more about being good to the people I’m lucky enough to be around, not running around to chase an arbitrary group of “better people”.

2. People are more inclined to help when you’re trying to help yourself

A while back, I heard a parable along the lines of:

If your car runs out of gas and you stand there asking people who pass by for a tow, no one will help. But if you get out and push, suddenly everyones willing to help.

It never clicked until I was at buildspace. Any time anyone came with something like, “no one’s buying my product” the response was always something like, “have you tried selling it?”

But if someone said, “I’ve tried google ads, posting on tiktok, and messaging people on twitter, but barely anyone’s converting” then the conversation got more strategic and helpful — they’d get help that was a layer deeper.

Even I got much more help for my videos after I’d already made 2. I had better questions to ask and showed that I was taking this seriously. If I asked for help without making any videos, all my questions would be google-able. Why would an expert discuss thumbnail design with me when I haven’t even proven I can press the upload button?

3. Having fun is enough of a driver to continue doing something

Farza, the founder of buildspace, is kind of like the GOAT for inspiring young founder/indie-hacker types. We went on a walk once where I was stressing about if I wanted to do this YouTube thing for life and what was next for me. I was thinking about if I should do something bigger for the world, something that makes more reliable money, gives me higher status, etc. And I said that this YouTube thing was “just fun”. He stops me and he’s like:

“What’s the problem with doing something that’s fun? I’m always skeptical of people who say they want to do something for life — how can they even know that right now?”

I had no good answer. And honestly, doing anything else that was less fun for me, I would just quit sooner or later anyway. I’ve always based my decisions on where I’d learn the most and where I’d have the most fun. His point was that we’re all going to die — why not just be happy?

He also gave weekly lectures on topics related to building startups, but often talked about just getting your life right as someone who’s chosen to go on their own path.

One thing he said that stuck with me was:

“My mom always asked me about what I was doing, if I was going to continue being a founder, when I would get a job, etc. And I used to not know how to answer. I was also pretty uncertain about what my future would look like. After a while, I just started telling her, ‘I’m not done yet. I still have some time on this project left in me, I’m not done yet mama.’”

I also have a Pakistani mom like Farza, and I also often get questions like that. Everyday now, I do a quick check-in with myself:

Am I still having fun?

And if not:

Am I done yet?

So far, the answer is no — I still have much more left in me.

What’s new with me:

Working on a video that’s loosely about “what’s the dumbest/simplest poker strategy that works?”
- making poker bots is fun! (And hard, probably gonna be the toughest video I’ve made)
I’ve definitely made less progress on this video than I would’ve in sf, but hey, even lions go all out to hunt then chill, rest up and stalk their prey → kinda where I’m at right now. I’ve been putting a lot more thought into the process of this video than before: more scripting, more rewrites, more thought put into intro and framing, so maybe it’ll work out quality-wise
I feel like I’m doing what people would call self care now I.e. stuff that makes me happy that I neglected to go all in on making videos:
- I’m rock climbing again - already back to like 70% of how good I was before, not bad for a 4 month break
- Hanging out with lots of friends, I have a nice long 1on1 every day now, feels like I’ve been gone forever and I really did miss lots of people in Toronto
- Reading books again, just finished When Breath Becomes Air and Man’s Search for Meaning
  - both so good, both autobiographical, both explore meaning and existence which is kind of the wave I’e been on for a while i.e. “what do I do with my life?”
  - on that same thread I just started the Elon musk biography 😎
never been much into art, but really liked staring at these pieces at the AGO recently

I spent like 4 hours writing, and stayed late to leave the cards on everyone’s desks so I could avoid emotions. During basketball that day, I wasn’t playing well cause my hand hurt from all the writing. My buddy gave me shit for it, and then the next day after he got his card and saw that he had a full page, he presumably realized I did that for everyone. We didn’t even discuss the card, he just said “I see why your hand hurt during basketball”.