Simplify your life. Optimize.
The question that transformed everything.
Hello everyone, are you all well? Life has been fun?
I hope life is good and sweet and you are fighting the good battles.
Quick one: my last two newsletters have really taken off and they have both been PR in my short career as a writer. Thanks for the love.
So what's the story today?
1. The happy hour that changed everything with Maex Ament and Bruno Cani in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil;
2. The best from the internet - oh boy, I've got some really good stuff;
3. And I'm back with “Startup of the Week” session and this one's special - they're changing the way small retail shops sell and their clients are experiencing a 20% increase in sales! This is a game changer for small local shops!
This one is very close to my heart and I am going to keep it for the long haul.
❤️ From my heart to your heart:
If you are an entrepreneur and you are going through hell right now, a very difficult time, it seems like everything is falling apart and you won't be able to make it - I send you my love and support. If you want to chat, send me an email - daniel@weheartimpact.com - and I will give you my support and hopefully help you navigate through the rough waters.
But whatever you do; DON'T QUIT. You have it in you.
Fight until you don't have a single ounce of energy left in your body.
You will always bounce back from a loss, but you can never undo giving up.
❤️❤️ From my heart to your heart 2:
"Life is a form of self storytelling. We're continually retelling ourselves our life story, but very few people think of themselves as authors of their story, not mere subjects. People with extraordinary high-agency realize this early in life and start maximizing the interestingness of their life story.
Having a fascinating life story is not just an exercise in vanity -- it has a real impact on your success in life. You'll have an easier time attracting friends as well as life and business partners. It'll also make it much easier to sell yourself or your products. It has a kind of compounding halo effect
So next time you're faced with a tough decision, consider the path that makes a more interesting story. If it turned out to be the wrong decision to have made, you'd at least be fun at dinner parties.” - Amjad Masad
The question that changed it all.
Maex and I flew from São Paulo to Rio de Janeiro and we had several meetings during the day, but in my mind I was looking forward to meeting a great friend whom I had never met in person. Isn't it funny how in the digital world you can develop great relationships even though you have never met the person or only met them briefly?
For me, that person is Bruno Cani.
We were introduced by a mutual friend, the great Cleber Guedes, founder of the amazing social program “Programadores do Amanhã”. Cleber, keep up the good work, brother!
I remember meeting Bruno for the first time - online, of course - and being blown away by the sharpness of his thinking and his extraordinary ability to communicate complex things in a very clear way. I would add that he is a great storyteller - he keeps you waiting to see how the story develops and you just stick with it.
Bruno's track record is equally impressive, with experience in VCs, operation and later running his own start-up in the education sector. Today, he is the principal of VélezReyes+ - a non-profit organization founded by David Velez, co-founder of Nubank.
Since that first connection, Bruno and I have chatted a lot and we have even recorded an unpublished podcast about the Brazilian education system, which I promised to get out very soon. I think it's the kind of content that should go out and influence people.
So later that Friday, Maex and I went to Jobi to meet Bruno and chat about the Brazilian ecosystem and life in general. If you have ever been to Jobi, one of Leblon's most iconic bars, you know you are in for a good time, fuelled by lots of "Chopps"; the Brazilian draft beer.
I think I ordered my first Chopp before I could sit in my own seat. ahahha
👆🏽🍺 Bruno and I enjoying the Chopp carioca at Jobi!
During our 2-3 hours of great conversion - and lots of Chopps - Bruno dropped three bombs. But I only want to go into one of them:
“What are you optimizing for?”
At first, I didn’t know how to answer - I think I wasn’t sure what was he asking! It seemed like such a simple question, but it lingered. It echoed in my mind for days. It forced me to pause and examine the choices I’ve been making—how I spend my time, where I direct my energy, and even how I define success.
It’s easy to go through life on autopilot—chasing goals, checking boxes, doing what’s expected. But when I sat with that question, I realized I had never really articulated my why in those terms. What am I optimizing for? Peace? Growth? Impact? Time with my kids? Freedom? Validation?
This question has quietly reshaped how I approach everything—work, family, health, ambition. It’s helped me make better decisions and say “no” more often. It’s become a compass.
I realized that I’ve been optimizing for freedom.
Not freedom in the cliché sense of doing whatever I want whenever I want—but the kind of freedom that allows me to explore what I’m curious about. To wake up and follow energy rather than obligation. To spend slow, meaningful mornings with my kids. To say yes to the work that excites me and no to the noise.
It didn’t happen overnight. It’s the result of dozens of hard choices over the years—often swimming against the current, saying no to safety nets, resisting the temptation of more in favor of enough. It meant building a life and a career that didn’t always make sense to others, but felt deeply aligned to me.
And the beautiful thing about asking “What am I optimizing for?” is that it makes decision-making so much clearer. When you know your north star, you stop being pulled in every direction. You can let go of comparison. You can build with intention.
It also made me realize how often we don’t know what we’re optimizing for. Many people I know are optimizing for status, or security, or excitement—or maybe just survival. And there’s no judgment in that. But the power comes from naming it. Owning it. And then aligning your life around it.
I gave the context that I had never met Bruno in person and I was looking forward to it and I think the universe was preparing me for it... Since that day I keep asking myself: What are you optimizing for? I've changed how I spend my time and how I connect with everything that's really important to me today.
So here’s the question again: What are you optimizing for?
And if your current path doesn’t reflect that answer… what needs to change?
It changed my mind model and my level of self-awareness about like. I feel more in control of the choices I make. I hope it helps you in some way.
The two other bits that Bruno shared with us:
Bruno asked Maex - co-founder of Earth, a venture capital firm in the climate tech space, and possibly the most amazing angel investing track record alongside Fabrice Grinda with over 170 investments!!!! - "What's your thinking model to make investment decisions" - Oh boy! Tough! Great question!
Bruno said that every time he met someone interesting for the first time, he asked them: Who are the three people you think I should connect with to further explore this topic and can you do an intro with them? POW!!! This is insanely clever and it landed him a 1:1 with Chamath Palihapitiya. (Very impressive Bruno!!!)
Best from the Internet - check it out!
Hacking Facebook (Meta) Ads and Selling More and Cheaper!
Read it here.Introducing Icon, the world’s first AI CMO (Chief Marketing Officer): it can plan, create, & run 1000s of winning ads end-to-end.
Read it here.Google just released the ultimate Prompt Engineering guide 🤯📚
Whether you're technical or not, this is an essential read for anyone building with LLMs and AI.
Read it here.This 20-minute exercise from Stanford could change your life.
It’s called The Odyssey Plan.
It reveals 3 possible futures—and forces you to confront what you really want.
Read it here."Startup cofounders must split equity equally" OR "splitting equally sets the company up for failure".
Lots of strident opinions on this question but what does the data say?
Here are the findings from 9,000+ US founding teams using Carta, all incorporated in the past 2 years.
Read it here.PSA to Tech Founders + VCs:
The Creative Director Is the Most Underrated Hire in Tech.
Read it here.Founders - don't get caught off guard by the "option pool shuffle" during your next VC fundraise.
3 founders. 20+ AI agents. $10M ARR per employee target. Let’s dive in, here is the complete AI agent stack that's helping Getswan CEO, Amos Bar-Joseph to get to $30M without a single hire.
Read it here.Prof G delivers!
America is blinking. The day after April Fool’s Day, President Trump “liberated” the United States from an eight-decade run as the world’s economic superpower, raising the cost of capital for the federal government, American companies, and consumers. If this sounds like stupidity, i.e., hurting others while also hurting yourself, trust your instincts. But don’t trust America. A blackout drunk is behind the wheel of the U.S. economy.
Read it here.Want to become a GTM Engineer? Here are my 8 recommendations:
1. Start building
Pick a small thing to hack on, on the nights and weekends that’s useful for your company. Examples: a data point you want enriched in your CRM, an updated inbound lead flow, an account tiering, a way to generate cold outbound messages with AI, enriching a list of a tradeshow.
Read it here.How to build AI Agents
The CFO never looked up from his phone.
Until I changed two words in my pitch.
Budget approved in 120 seconds.
Read it here.Bessemer’s AI agent autonomy scale—a new way to understand use case maturity
As we move rapidly toward an agent-driven workforce, we’re proposing a clear definition of an “agent” as well as a framework to measure progress.
Read it here.“I joined 37signals five and a half years ago. I don’t think this is the right company for most people or that most people are a good fit for it. At the same time, I know this can be a dream job when there’s alignment on both sides. Here’s the whole deal from my very personal point of view.”
Read it here.[Must read] from Oaktree Capital.
In my February memo 2024 in Review, which went only to clients, I said the word to describe the Trump administration was “uncertainty.” President Trump’s thinking seems less predictable than that of most presidents, largely because it doesn’t necessarily hew to a consistent ideology, and it’s very much subject to being applied and revised tactically. It should be noted, however, that Trump has complained about how the U.S. is treated in world trade and argued in support of tariffs since at least 1987. Having said that, and even though we knew he was going to hike tariffs, no one anticipated the magnitude of the increases. Clearly the markets hadn’t.
Read it here.There are three modes for solving problems. You can own the solution, using vendor’s tools to do so. You can outsource the solution to another party. Or, you can do something in between, operate alongside someone else to solve it together.
Fabrice Grinda is back and you should follow him!
”What drives the world’s top founders to succeed—against all odds?Petter Made asked me to draw from over 1,200 startup investments, and decades of entrepreneurial experience, to unpack the essential traits that define exceptional founders—ranging from obsessive curiosity and eloquence to extreme resilience.”
Read it here.Sam Parr: My friend sold his startup for $1b and only cleared $3m (pre-tax).
-Me: What?!? How???
Sam: He raised $400m of VC from Seed to Series E and had 4 co-founders. 1.2% total founder ownership after employee options.
Read it here.
[From NFX] Every few years, there’s a new discussion about where all the best companies get built – the US, Europe, remotely…forget all of it.
What matters isn’t the country or city—it’s the network. Your startup isn’t just a product, it’s a node in a system. And where you place that node has compounding effects.
🚀 Startup of the Week
RediRedi
In the last 25 years, the world has seen the rise of Amazon, Zalando and many other digital retail platforms. Not to mention the biggest retailers in the world going digital and dominating the same.
18% of Walmart - the largest retailer in the world - comes from its e-commerce. In 2023, its online sales will exceed $100 billion.
Later, we saw platforms such as Brazil's VTEX and Shopify helping merchants build their online presence. Mercado Livre in LatAm was an important platform for anyone who wanted to sell things online.
But we still have the local shops, the mom and pop stores that make up so much of our economy and impact our lives. With all the technological advances, they are still struggling to get online and generate new revenue, support their customers, and grow their business.
That's where RediRedi comes in. RediRedi allows any small retailer - think small, like the local shopkeeper - to go online, build a digital catalogue and connect with their customers. The platform acts as a business partner and connects with the shop owner, bringing insights, tips and a very powerful communication tool to help the shop strive.
RediRedi has 170,000 shops in its portfolio and it's main market is Brazil and Mexico.
The three founders behind the company had a successful exit with their previous company, Zero Paper - sold to Intuit, and later worked at Santander HQ building innovation and new products.
Website: https://rediredi.com/global/
Hecho con amor en Madrid.
Thanks to Bruno and so many great friends for teaching me so much along the way.
Daniel Silva