The last time I published here was about 2 years ago in February 2023. I was still at Hopin.

I had just gotten back from paternity leave. My third daughter was born. At Hopin, I was given the freedom to choose what I wanted to work on at the company. The options were Session, StreamYard Business, Events, or “Project C” which was later named Superwave.

RingCentral had not yet acquired the Events platform. It happened 5 months later.

Fast forward one year, and I received a Whatsapp video call at IHOP that changed everything.

That April (so earlier this year), I left Hopin. The company had transformed into a US-based Top Corp holding company for StreamYard (and Streamable and Superwave). A month later, it sold to Bending Spoons.

As an aside - I learned so much about PR from my time at Hopin. I worked with execs to manage a meteoric rise as a public darling ZIRP Unicorn to the retributive pandemic poster-child downfall. A wild, wild up and down ride.

I took zero days off before starting the next company.

photo of the singulate cofounders — My cofounders and I on our way to SaaStock in Dublin, Ireland

I wrote about how Singulate started here.

It’s the end of 2024. We’re 6 months in. We validated our AI innovation and market demand. Our product velocity is extremely fast. We have a great narrative. Our momentum is strong. Investors are very interested. Our timing couldn’t be better. None of our competitors is thinking about this problem like we are. Our moat is already forming.

I describe the journey so far as going really well but never well enough. This is true for many things in life.

If you want to read more about Singulate, I just posted a detailed end of year update about what we’ve built, what we’ve learned, and what’s planned for 2025.

Looking ahead to 2025

Singulate is definitely the biggest news this year in my life. It’s really caused me to rethink my life. It’s already extremely busy, yet we’ve only just started. It’s going to get 10x busier once we start scaling and go to market.

To prepare for this, I did some simplification of how I think about my life’s priorities. I ended up making a visual for it:

It’s not a perfect diagram but the big rocks are aligned and connected. Faith (or worldview) answers the existential questions about life that shape my work and family. Health (em)powers my work and family. Friends are a subset of family to me. Hobbies are purely a function for improving my work. Reading is a hobby that improves my work. Travel is a hobby that improves health and work. Community is a healthy way to stay grounded and serve. A lot of our giving happens through friends and family.

How I use this:

When life gets really, really stressful, the yellow row is the first to be deprioritized. Then the green, then the blue. Fortunately, I’ve never been stressed to the point where I need to deprioritize the blue. And questioning the red would mean something is seriously, deeply wrong in my life, to the point where I’m putting my work and family at risk.
I ask myself, are these uses of my time supporting the boxes they’re connected to? If not, I’m not fully optimizing my time and I need to make some changes.
More practically, I see my life simplifying in 2025 to just the top 3 boxes. This will be necessary to compete and steward the opportunity with Singulate well. I’m expecting it to be similar to the Hopin hypergrowth days, although it won’t be quite like that from a business POV. But personally, I’m in the CEO seat this time around and I have 2 more kids than back then, so I’m expecting the intensity to be even more 🚀

My family and I at Falling Branch Brewery in Bel Air

2024 was a great year in other respects, too. Here are some of the highlights:

We went to a Ravens vs. Eagles NFL game.

Entrepreneurship Handbook rebranded and crossed 300k followers

A few other accomplishments I’m proud of:

Lost 20 pounds.
Trademarked Party Qs and manufactured a physical product (coming soon).
Became church members and hosted a community group.
Implemented weekly family spiritual routine (Sunday Sabbath meal and Saturday Breakfast Bible story).

Overall, I’m very grateful for where we’re at in life. While some days I struggle with “feeling stuck” - especially in a town like Bel Air - I’m quick to remember I’m blessed beyond measure.

Time to make the most of it in 2025!

A somber, personal prediction for next year:

I will turn 35.

As a middle-aged startup founder and father of 3, I will either surprise myself by how healthy and systematized I become or I will be surprised by how much pain I can tolerate before I level up.

Either way, this year will be an epic year. It will contain a lot of Growth and I’m HERE FOR IT.