I sent the last newsletter out at the end of September, and the intervening six+ weeks have been a whirlwind. At times full of quiet, dogged determination, as Josh and I holed up in our tiny co-working space and grind, and at times loud and full of human interaction. We're nearly ready to ship our first iteration of the new Sublime product. The core engine is built, and it works! We're now able to write a new detection in seconds and run it instantly. That's pretty cool. We'll ship this to a first cohort of 10 early access users and we can't wait to see what they do with it.
Here's some of what we were up to these past six weeks:
Shipped a first draft of our docs to some early access customers and got a lot of great feedback that we've since incorporated.
Attended our first ever NYSEC meetup. Highly recommended for NYC area security folks. It's very informal and the people are incredibly welcoming. There's a good mix of industry veterans and total newbies.
Attended Zero Day Con and had a number of solid investor meetings in DC. We also caught a day of BSidesDC while in town.
I became a godfather!
We met with three Fortune 500 companies that were incredibly excited to get their hands on Sublime. We're so fortunate to be working on something that people want. I hope to start sharing more of this feedback publicly soon, probably via Twitter.
Interviewed at YC and didn't get in. We did a fair number of opportunistic investor meetings in SF as well. Very thankful for these, and we've learned a lot along the way.
Now, we're settled back in Brooklyn, which mostly means we get to work with a monitor again vs just a laptop screen. Pretty big deal. Also it's extremely cold here.
I hope this newsletter inspires and challenges you. Cheers.
"What nobody tells you about documentation" by Daniele Procida. We're about to ship something pretty exciting at Sublime, and it entails releasing documentation for the first time. Neither of us know much about documentation, so Josh and I spent some time learning how to do this really well. This was the best treatise on the subject that we found. Recommended reading for any founder, PM, or marketer working with docs.
Stewart Brand writes (in 1990) about his experience in the immediate aftermath of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Lessons in authority, community, and human connection.
Awesome humans
Mantej Rajpal started Roma New York, androgynous streetwear with Punjabi style. He also works in security at Flatiron Health.
I caught up with Franco Capurro Soler while in LA and met Henry Stevenson as well. Franco and I were roommates in grad school, and we started two companies together. He's like a brother to me. He's doing some monumental work in Mexico to finance and promote green energy projects, particularly commercial solar.
Jeffrey Cuartero interned for me many years ago at One Key Ventures. He's just started a new role at Intuit as Senior Program Manager.
What I'm listening to
The Quiet Earth by Thomas Barrandon. This entire album is absolutely incredible. Sort of synthwave, sort of outer space.
Pay Phone by Fantom '87. Also synthwave + outer space. Something you'd listen to at a sunrise set at Burning Man: Mars.
Another Try by Dan Edmonds. Smooth and cozy indie.
Stay Forever by Lost Son. Lo-fi love song. It's amazing how music can say so much with so few words.
A Google Calendar for all space launches. There are a lot now. SpaceX launches are particularly well-produced and fun to watch, in part because the booster rockets come back to earth and land.
Founders
Here's an incredibly helpful calculator for dilution and returns. I can only imagine how many founders have tried to build one of these in a spreadsheet.
I'm using Dark Reader for Chrome and it's finally given me dark mode on all those websites that don't already support it. Helpful for those of us that spend a lot of time looking at their monitor and want to reduce eye strain as much as possible.