There are perks to having a philosopher on your team. My co-founder Bill Jaworski is a philosopher. It’s fun to work with him because he’ll say something super insightful, off the cuff, and then I won’t be able to stop thinking about it. Last week, he drew this spellbinding analogy between writing a great book and building the Parthenon: “The Parthenon is supposed to look perfectly symmetrical, the same in all dimensions. But as you approach the Parthenon, the two outer columns are not framed...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
An Uber driver with a New York accent who called himself an “Iranian Jew” picked me up from an airport this week. I rarely feel strong emotions when talking to Uber drivers. But this conversation was different. I wrote down what I could remember. “I used to own a deli. I owned it for 17 years and I loved it. Making bagels. Making chicken salad. And it was a great business, because I had a captive audience. My deli was in an office building, so we were the best option for breakfast and lunch...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
I've never made a Bucket List before. It seemed too daunting. But this weekend, it occurred to me that I already have a Bucket List in my mind. It doesn't reach every possible corner of existence—but it does cover my big-picture hopes for Altamira Studio. I wanted to share this with you. If you make one for yourself, I'd love to see it. Here's my Bucket List -- goals within the realm of writing & publishing. 1) Achieve a level of product-market fit that's as good as the one in the Simon &...
3 months ago • 1 min read
This past week I spent 3 days deeply immersed in a book intensive with my team and an author who’s working with us. By trade, the author is a well-respected executive coach. The work on his book was exciting and powerful. But something else happened. The author had said to me in advance: “Ellen, just a heads up, when we're in Austin together, I'm gonna push you on your business. I think you could be a lot more successful." I had said, "I would love that, because I've been flying by the seat...
4 months ago • 1 min read
Someone asked me: "What joy is worth suffering for in life?" Here's what I wrote back: Perhaps one answer is the joy of seeing a wish come true. It's doubly joyful if it’s the wish of someone you love, and you knew they wished it, and you got to see their wish come true. Other answers… The joy of seeing things come full circle. Ayn Rand wrote the 1,000+ page novel The Fountainhead partly as a tribute to Frank Lloyd Wright, whom she admired and respected as a heroic figure of her time. He...
5 months ago • 1 min read
The legendary Wall Street investor Jim O'Shaughnessy honored me tremendously by hosting me on Episode 220 of his podcast, Infinite Loops. It was a high-energy conversation with the tagline 'Make Art, Not Noise,' and it's now hosted on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. If you end up listening, let me know! Thanks, Ellen
6 months ago • 1 min read
A milestone flew past me in a whirlwind of experimental entrepreneurship: the first $1M in total revenue. This company is the 3rd one I’ve started, but the first to make it this far. It took 3.5 years with my team of 3 full-time people. ~1,000 customers made this possible. Tremendous gratitude to each of you! ❤️🔥 I found a few hours to reflect. Here are 21 lessons from making $1M (also in thread format here): Become the go-to guy for something. Economic turbulence doesn’t change the amount of...
6 months ago • 2 min read
I keep meeting lifelong readers who can’t find anything they want to read. They walk eagerly into bookstores, only to walk out empty-handed in disappointment, having filtered out everything on the shelves. Maybe they see a compelling title, so they pick up a book. But when they flip it open, they’re quickly disappointed: they see obvious fluff, dumbed-down writing, shoddy research, bad typesetting, and often cheap binding. If you’re a reader and this rings a bell, I’m here to tell you: you’re...
9 months ago • 1 min read
BIG NEWS! A groundbreaking new book, ASK ARISTOTLE, will ship in 3 weeks! This book is Aristotle's escape from the Ivory Tower. It's a refreshingly un-schoolish introduction to one of history's most legendary thinkers, Here's a photo of the demo copies—just a few tweaks needed before we ship. This book inspired me to write a publisher's note that I'm really proud of. At that link (and also here) there's a video of me reading it. If you pre-order the paperback, a copy of my note will be...
10 months ago • 1 min read