Author: Julie

Categories
Startups

Day 970 and Be Your Publicist

My day job is as an early stage venture investor. Like most people who do angel investing and pre-seed startup investing, I learned my trade on the job as an operator. I founded and sold some startups. I helped my friends with their startups. We invested in each other. Because startups are primarily about teamwork you tend to hone a specific skill. My super power was getting attention.

That means now one of the ways I support my portfolio of startups is with public relations. I’ve gotten enough personal press over the years I’ve learned a lot about the dark arts. I’ve also had the privilege of being trained some of the best in the business. I’ve picked up skills.

I hope I can help outliers building the next generation of weird companies move past the ‘media is the enemy” phase of public relations.

I’m going to offer up some of my specialty skills outside of my own portfolio. I can’t invest in everyone I’d like to think I can help anyone in the ecosystem who wants to tell a big story about what they are building. I will help you craft a story that can be broadcast far and wide, no matter how outside-the-norm you are.

If your dream is to have a cover story in a prestige periodical, a Wall Street Journal stipple for your expert commentary, or reframe how a story in your space is covered, I can help you plot the course to get there. 

Over the years I’ve done things like

  • Put a VC making her comeback on the cover of a national magazine
  • Secure the keynote slot of the biggest conference in a founder’s industry
  • Guided numerous CEOs through extensive press tours, with coverage blanketing their spaces

I’m not a traditional agency, I’m someone who understands your journey. From financial journalism to trade & specialty coverage to personality driven lifestyle pieces, I can take you from Bloomberg and Vogue to private Discords and influencer group chats. 

During our work together I can help you,

  • Craft your narrative and position 
  • Understand how reporters think and their incentive structures
  • Secure top tier, feature coverage in the places that matter
  • Provide crisis communications support
  • Find an agency (if that’s right for you)

I work on a retainer basis starting at $5,000/month – giving you access to me as your partner through whatever projects or objectives you have.

Consider me your diplomat to the 4th estate. I’m an effective accelerationist capitalist that speaks fluent woke. Reporters know and like me as their savvy crypto libertarian friend that lives on a Montana homestead. 

I’m well known for my doomer optimism, YIMBY advocacy for the Montana Miracle housing reform, my digital futurism and, somewhat weirdly, my years in luxury fashion & brands.

Want to dive right into a conversation about a problem you’re having?

Book time with me on Intro and we can solve it

Ready work with me?

Email me at julie.fredrickson@gmail.com

Categories
Homesteading

Day 969 and Hot Chicks

I know it’s a little bit odd to be getting chickens in August, but as of today our homestead is now home to eight egg laying hens.

Our new hens (in their well fortified chicken run) settling in at our hone.

Some of our friends are moving and needed a local home for their laying hens. Another one of our friends was giving up their old chicken coop so we figured it was a sign from the universe that it was time for us to become chicken people.

Unboxing chickens

My husband has spent the last two weekends repainting the coop, installing predator fencing, and otherwise preparing for the arrival of the chickens. Having not done the work of raising them up ourselves the pressure is on to make sure they are well protected.

A little red henhouse

You can’t just take on a friend’s chickens without feeling just a bit more responsibility than you otherwise would had you raised them up from chicks ourselves. We can’t let a literal fox into the henhouse.

This is alas real possibility as a red fox roams our pastures. We’ve got a very tasty infestation of prairie dogs that are suitably stupid enough for an even moderately clever fox. Hopefully the 18 inch predator apron is suitably troublesome to keep our all but the most enterprising. We’d rather the prairie dogs remain the easy snack and our hens too much effort.

The funniest bit of all of this is that I am slightly intolerant to eggs. I can manage eggs in a baked good I find omelettes, quiches and even mayonnaise to a quick path to nausea. Even the smell of eggs being scrambled makes me a bit sick to my stomach.

But I’ve got a fantasy that industrial eggs are the problem and I could come to tolerate eggs from chickens living the good life roaming around our lovely Montana land. And if not we will give them to our neighbors. If we can find one that doesn’t have their own chickens.

Categories
Politics

Day 968 and Precautionary

Do you recall learning Hippocratic Oath at some point in your schooling?

First do no harm

That turns out to not even be in the original oath but one of the many varied additions over the ages. The more often repeated phrase is translated as follows. “I will abstain from all intentional wrong-doing and harm.”

The document dictated standards like keeping professions secrets and avoiding using poisons knowingly for suicide or abortions. But somehow in popular imagination “do no harm” has really stuck.

Now we are stuck with the precautionary principle as it’s heir. The principle suggests there is a social responsibility to protect “the public” from harm when there may be a plausible risk even in theory. Big ups to Hans Jonas’s imperatives on responsibility for giving us the ethical frameworks for technological skepticism.

We apply the precautionary principle in many fields from medicine to the military. It suggests precautionary protections should be relaxed only if there is evidence that no harm will result. It’s for your own good!” It’s included as a statutory in some areas of law. Progress can’t be too fast lest someone get hurt

But before you give too much credit caution, it’s important realize the cost of inaction can be high.

As Mercatus Center’s Adam Thierer put it, “Where there is uncertainty about future risks, the precautionary principle defaults to play‐it‐safe mode by disallowing trial‐and‐error progress, or at least making it far more difficult.”

The inclination to play things safe can have incredibly high costs for people who need progress. Much the current debate around artificial intelligence is centered on doomsday scenarios. Safety and alignment researchers bring up terrifying scenarios as justification for taking things slow.

But we shouldn’t be too quick to dismiss what AI can do to make life better. You want to tell someone with a painful chronic illness it’s better to wait on medical progress because of some theoretical harm? They already live with an all too real harm that we should be just as eager to to fix with powerful new tools like AI.

Fuck Safetyism

I’d rather we adopt a more ambitious attitude towards problem solving. Fuck your safetyism.

We need to put a complete moratorium on the precautionary principle until we’re sure that it doesn’t have any negative consequences

Categories
Community Startups

Day 967 and Good Moods

Everyone in my social circle was in a terrific mood yesterday. A small company that was widely supported by angels in my ecosystem was acquired by a larger startup that we all like. Happy investors that we were, Alex and I read the cap table over dinner and celebrated each co-investor that we liked.

It was a jubilant moment across my group chats in a darker wider climate for startups. The federal reserve’s inflation fight has meant tighter dollars. And that means less funding for early stage companies at lower valuations.

The focus has been good for the industry. A reminder that we can’t spend our way to innovation. We’ve relied on bigger companies, weaker talent, and unsustainable growth policies while the cash spigot was on.

I enjoyed the win. I’m happy for the founder and the team who will be going to such a great company. I’m happy a lot of investors got a win. But I know that the good mood will have to sustain us through some rough patches. So it’s good we are all banding together and the wins are shared.

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 966 and Permission

I’ve been running a risk analysis on something personal. I think it’s worth considering the consequences of any decision. Especially when you take on some amount of risk.

We live in a time of safety. Some of us run the numbers and assume we will be the worst case scenario. Some of us presume the best case scenario.

Reality is never so black and a white. A risk for one person is good sense for another. We all have different values.

You shouldn’t be looking for permission from life. You will never get it. But you have to decide what risk parameters make sense for you. Maybe you like to play things a little faster. Maybe you like to play it safe.

I do think it’s worth evaluating how much you value what everyone tells you and what you think might work without accounting all the risks. Maybe some things are just worth it.

Categories
Biohacking Emotional Work

Day 965 and Bounce Back

I had a really shitty day yesterday. I was attuned to the haunted corners in myself and others. I was in an astonishing amount of pain. I got into a fight with a family member over a misunderstanding.

I found myself in a state of reactivity. It’s a huge challenge to manage nervous system regulation for me when I tip from the pain scale from my typical 4-5 to the impossible ignore 7-8 range.

I have become quite used to living with pain that would be distracting for others. I monitor biometrics like my heart rate variability to keep track of how stressed my body is from the pain.

I’ve found it important to learn how to bounce back from unexpected pain. It’s important to stop stress and reactivity in its tracks. If you let stress hijack your nervous system you can do yourself a lot of damage.

I took care of myself last night. I did what I needed to get my nervous system under control and the pain manageable. And it worked.

I turned myself around today. I lifted weights, I meditated, I took my supplements, and I tackled my work load with pleasure. I can feel the fatigue sweeping back in as the day winds up. But I can rest easy knowing I set myself up to bounce back again tomorrow. Budget for the body you have and not the fantasy one which you don’t have.

Categories
Culture Emotional Work

Day 964 and Haunted America

I’ve been getting the sense that more and more of my social circle is uneasy about our cultural moment.

The personal battles being waged are numerous and deadly. The losses feel as if they are mounting even for those of that look objectively successful to the outside.

Health challenges and illnesses are debilitating and expensive. The past traumas of dysfunctional families weigh on the more functional among us. Families struggle to cope with addiction, depression, and suicide. Violence eats around the edges in too many cases.

I see more people pulling back into perceived safety as they look to escape the wounded and the traumatized. We’ve got enough troubles in our own family so why take on problems that aren’t our own?

The ghosts of bad decisions and long troubled histories linger. The weight is heavy and I see people stumbling.

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 963 and Chronic Stress

I don’t think of myself as living a particularly stressful life. I’m one of the luckiest people I know. I love and am loved by my family. I own a homestead in Montana. I work with brilliant people.

My one burden in life is my health. I don’t want to undersell how much it affects my life (my ankylosis needs careful management) but I simply treat it as a fact of life. There is no reason to be upset about reality.

As social fabric tears and lives get worse under stress, it’s easy to become a victim to the things in our lives that trouble us. We can compare our gifts to others but one man’s troubles is another man’s perfect life.

I see the stress that is affect everyone I encounter. The fears range from existential to quotidian. Everything from the challenge of finding a doctor to the collapse in fertility rates can be a sign of the times.

I work to regulate my nervous system to accommodate whatever reality is in front of me. Sometimes that will include stress lot of my control. But I can work to control my response to it.

The better I get at this process of regulating myself I open up to the world. Taking on the agency you have available to you is a powerful social signal. I connect with others more readily as I show others that I can take care of myself.

Categories
Finance Startups

Day 962 and Milestones

I’ve noticed an distinct uptick in pre-seed & seed startup founders looking to raise smaller rounds. If you think this post is about you, don’t fret I’m into the double digits with examples just this past month. Smaller rounds on reasonably capped SAFE notes are on everyone’s mind.

My account on Twitter AlmostMedia

While not everyone I’ve spoken to has fully thought through what it means to raise less, the market is a muse. And she is always worth listening too. Founders are hearing that raising a round must tied to product milestones. That it is good to raise what is needed to show proof that your idea has demand. In some cases the milestones are proof that your technology or product can be made at all.

When I first got started as a founder a million to 1.5m raise capped at 6m was considered a big and well funded seed round. It was more typical that the pre-seed and angel rounds were done in the half million range and capped at 3m or so if you were dealing with sophisticated angels. The industry was smaller.

It’s fascinating to see that we’ve stepped back to valuations and round sizes from ten to fifteen years ago. The markets have indeed shifted.

But what really got my attention is the undercurrent of planning and go to market strategy work being demanded again. We’d lost some of those expectations during the fervor of the zero percent interest years. Capital has a cost. We’d forgotten that.

Gary Tan summed it up best in response to my original Tweet.

Founders should raise whatever they think is right for their stage and what they want to prove. The pro for less is more discipline. The con is you run out of money and you die.
The rest is overoptimization about dilution which is not the high order bit.

If you are a founder in this market you must know what you want to do, how much it will cost and how long it will take you to get to the first step of milestones that proves you’ve got something of value. Everything else is noise.

Categories
Aesthetics Culture

Day 961 and Repeating 2003

Greetings, citizens
We are living
In the age
In which the pursuit of all values
Other than
Money success fame glamour
Has either been discredited
Or destroyed
Money success fame glamour
For we are living in the age of the thing

Felix da Housecat for the 2003 film “Party Animal”

I wasn’t a club kid in the Iraq War era. I had not yet rebelled. Like all class jumpers I was safely ensconced at a private university where I studied great books. I was however a club kid in the era of indie sleeze which arrived at an even more bleak sociopolitical nadir.

The Global Financial Crisis imploded expectations for how middle class millennials might pay off loans for expensive educations while we redeployed our working class to Afghanistan. But we’d elected Obama so like our politics were a little weird. Yes, we can’t? It’s was a dissonant age.

The remnant aesthetics from that era are somewhat shameful (as is all true youth culture) and yet here we are repeating them as the twenty year cycles of cultural remixing arrive to demand their due from my youth. 2003 is reappearing in 2023.

Logan Paul cannot marry a slut just as Britney Spears should never have given it up to Justin Timberlake. Elite social mores are not for the Bourgeoisie to emulate.

Perhaps we should call this tendency for aesthetic return the “‘70s Show’ Show” effect as the nostalgia for our youth by the middle aged is always more consumer friendly than the culture was at its birth.

I get to enjoy feeling like I was cool when I was 22 and Zoomers pick over our wardrobes at theme parties. It’s a fair trade.

I encourage you to revisit an artifact from the 2003 called Party Monster to explore this aesthetics original form. It stars Chloe Sevigny, Seth Green (remember him) and McCauley Caulkin. The music video for the big hit from the soundtrack is titled “Money, Success, Fame, Glamour”. I quoted it at the top.

With lyrics that rooted so deeply in modernist materialism I’m tempted to yell “Eat your heart out Walter Benjamin!” The Marxist continental philosopher was a sexy club kid. Consider the engraving on tombstone in Portugal where he died fleeing the Nazis.

There is no document of culture which is not at the same time a document of barbarism

Theses on the Philosophy of History

Benjamin was a great historian of German romanticism and it’s impact on fascist political aestheticism. So consider that history and ponder it’s relationship to the 2003 era counter cultural artifact.

The “Money, Success, Fame, Glamour” lyrics are materialism distilled and reflective of the nihilism of the Bush era. Forever wars and inflationary spending on empire was harder to smooth over with propaganda as the internet fought back. But in the aughts we still hadn’t quite realized we’d never be rid of our elites after the shocks of reactionary terrorism.

Maybe in our twenties we thought eventually we might take over and do things differently. I’m turning forty this year, and well, Joe Biden is president.

So here we are revisiting the past that won’t leave. RuPaul has a remix challenge of Party Monster soundtrack’s hits released this year and it’s worth seeing how ugly the refinements are compared to the original.

The most you can hope for now is that some millennial will turn your influencer work into a Netflix comedy in which you show off your cultural savvy by going to a queer club party themed 2003 in Bushwick. No the Kim Cattrall vehicle Glamorous is not very good.