back in the USA

Howdy, I’ve been back in the good ol USA for a week. I’ve got my “lab” set up in the garage so I can work on my van on top of my “day job.”

I got that big ol van, a ‘22 Ford Transit 350 with 6k miles. Like new. 22’ long, ‘tall. Going to build it out, live in it, travel the US, work from it.

I still haven’t figured out a name. One route is to give it an Indonesian name like Istana, Rumah Ryan, Bakso, or Bule Goblak (Palace, Ryan’s House, Meatball, Stupid Foreigner). A more classic route for me is to give it a name like you’d give to a milking cow (Rosie, Henrietta, Gertie, Aggie, Hilda, Bertha).

I’m aiming to complete by build by end of Aug. Now that I have my vehicle, I can match its interior dimensions to drawings I have in my notebook.

I draw it out in AutoCAD. Then, I can figure out where the framing goes to support that and the appliances I’m getting. That allows me to do the math behind electricity needs (putting in solar) and plan the wiring layout. Then, I know where I need to put holes in the body.

Only once my holes are in and wires are roughed in can I insulate and then frame. I’ve only cleaned it out so far, removing 300+ pop rivets from interior cladding that was there before.

For work, I’ve got two companies I’m doing growth partner work with. More than point-and-shoot cold email, I’m getting in sales calls with them, coaching them, hooking them up with talent in my network, and helping them find that identity + clarity in what their sales process actually is.

I’ve reviving DamnGoodLeads. I believe I can make a business out of niche and contextual lead lists. I can set a cadence (say, weekly) for launching new lead lists. I believe in this idea for four reasons:

• There’s demand. We’ve sold these lists piecemeal.

• SEO for longterm, cold email for always. Both are straightforward for it.

• I can “use all parts of the buffalo” while I figure it out. If I scrape every substack, I can sell that. Then I can parse out every sponsor from the emails I’m receiving, and sell that. How? By emailing every substack I’ve scraped. Maybe even build a newsletter ranking service from that data.

• Other people sell this. It’s too small and complex for ZoomInfo and Apollo. Their apathy is my opportunity.

That’s all for now! Love, Ryan.