The CEO of Digital Turbine likes to quote one of his football coaches who used to say, “Potential is French for ‘ain’t done sh**.’” — from Greenhaven Road Capital1 Letter
Now some of you may be wondering, what is a Digital Turbine? Who is the CEO? Why would Haroon open up his newsletter with THAT line in particular? Also what’s with the gradient?
All valid questions! Welcome to the May 2021 newsletter of Curioso — a blog by Haroon Dean that explores everything from his most tame to unhinged thoughts on a variety of issues that you, dear reader, could care less about.
Why did you take a hiatus?
A question nobody asked. Truth be told, I got really self-conscious about the style of my writing. I got self-conscious about what I was writing about; am I adding value? Is this stuff worth writing? What do even have to offer the internet? In reaction to the self-consciousness, I had a couple friends read over what was supposed to be the Jan 2021 newsletter. I got so psyched out that I never published it, and here we are 5 months later. Sure, the Jan 2021 had the potential to be well-written. But it was never realized because I psyched myself out. I made this exercise of writing to you, my readers, way more serious than it needed to be. This newsletter, above all else, is dedicated to fast shipping with typos so that I can be heard. I may sometimes have something important to say, and other times I may not. But the point is that I am repeatedly putting something out.
Since I’ve been gone
… I learned a couple things about myself. For one, I’m REALLY into gradients. I don’t know what’s gotten into me, but they really scratch an itch I didn’t know I had? Second, I’m susceptible to fomo investing. Big surprise? No not really. But I finally have some skin in the game, and I’m not terribly exposed for a newbie so I’m really thankful for much smarter friends that myself. Third, Israel’s extrajudicial expulsions of indigenous Palestinians in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem has culminated to what is now an onslaught by the IOF2 killing dozens of Palestinians. I don’t think I’ve taken a political stance on my newsletter before, but there’s a first for everything: #FreePalestine.
What have I been working on?
You may remember Coffee Rounds. Well I got to experience my idea live by joining Clubhouse in late December 2020. Ever since then, I’ve been able to connect with a lot of really cool people that I now call my friends. In the height of my Clubhouse trip, I worked together with my buddy Tim Carambat to build Host Notes, event pages for your Clubhouse rooms. Clubhouse has since created it’s own event tracking service + it’s dying, so we decided to close up shop but continue ideating & working together. Stay tuned for what we have next.
Somewhat important but really tangential is that I’ve began working as an engineer at another startup, but this time it is backed by a certain tree themed VC firm that people seem to respect. I’ve been really preoccupied with work there, but I’m starting to get breaths of fresh air where I can explore my other interests and hopefully write about them here to share with you all.
Inspiring
I found this mini documentary to be really cool. I’m a nerd for wrestling so I hope you find some benefit from it as well.
That’s all I have for today folks, stay tuned for more!
Special thanks to YF for sharing with me the Greenhaven capital letter.
Greenhaven capital letter, https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5498841ce4b0311b8ddc012b/t/608e8f0f46f5e937c7bb2777/1619955471876/Greenhaven+Road+Letter+%282021+Q1%29.pdf
IDF? Who are we kidding? I-Offense-F