2024 In Review
Building startups & personal development
How 2024 Began
In January I flew to Southern Morocco and spent 80+ hours per week programming!
For 3 months straight, I sat overlooking the beach in Morocco and programmed everyday— with breaks for surfing on the weekend.
After releasing Rivin's MVP and getting first customers, I flew to Croatia and lived in Bosnia & Herzegovina for 3 months.
Those 3 months were spent refining Rivin's product and closing more customers.
In those 3 months we also raised our Pre-Seed investment from Jason Calacanis.
From there, I moved to Serbia for 3 months, where I continued speaking to customers and iterating on Rivin's product.
I ended my travels with a week in Budapest, and after 9 months of traveling I returned to the USA in October!
It was crazy not seeing my family for 9 months.
Since returning in October I have been visiting family and friends around California and working on Rivin!
In short— in 2024 Rivin's initial product was released, Pre-Seed investment was raised from Jcal, Rivin's product was refined, and customers have been providing feedback to iterate on.
Professionally, 2024 was a successful year.
My 2024 Schedule
Monday through Friday
8:30 am — wakeup + walk to work
9 am to 9 pm — programming (w/ 1 hour lunch + reading break 2x/week)
9pm to 10pm — walk to the gym and workout
10 to 10:30pm — shower + call friends while cooking/ordering dinner
10:30 to 11:30pm — eat + read
Saturday
8:30 am — wakeup + walk to work
9 am to 1 pm — programming
1 to 3 pm — reading in the park
3 pm to 5 pm — program in a cafe
5 pm to 11:30 pm — free time (usually hangout with friends/family, program, or hiking/swimming)
Sunday
8:30 am — wakeup
8:45 am to 10 am — work from home
10 am to 12 pm — lunch at a restaurant with friends or hiking/swimming
12 pm to 10:00 pm — free time
10:00pm to 11:30pm — work from home
How I Spent My Time
This year I invested:
3,285 hours into sleep
630 hours into working out (walking, lifting, swimming, surfing, rock climbing)
547 hours into reading
401 hours into chores (cleaning, shopping, cooking, eating, showering)
278 hours into solitary self reflection
91 hours into social activities
Reflecting On How I Invested My Time
This year I worked more than I slept and my social activities hit an all time low.
Reflecting, I see this was unsustainable and frankly— unhealthy.
2025 will focus on increasing social time with friends and family.
I will:
Move 200 hours from chores and invest these hours into social time; by ordering groceries online, ordering delivery more, investing in cleaning robots, and having a weekly cleaning service.
Move 156 hours from programming to social time by taking weekday lunch breaks with friends.
Move 200 hours from reading to social time.
Reduce solitary time to 100 hours and invest these hours in social time.
This would 9x my social time and result in 2 hours and 15 minutes per day with friends.
Reading
Books have always been my healthy escape from the world!
This year I read about 20,000 pages across 56 books— I love books!
Learning About Myself
Strengths
To those who don't know me well— I appear indecisive.
This is true both personally and professionally.
Take 2023-2024, for instance, when I tested 15 different startup ideas.
Some might view this as a lack of commitment, asking, "Does this guy have conviction?"
But there's a method to my apparent indecision. I believe in deeply exploring life's major decisions—far more thoroughly than most people do.
I try moving in a few directions, look at data, and self reflect for a long time— without taking action.
I'll spend weeks or months just thinking.
Then, one day, I'll calmly stand up and go all in—betting every single chip I possess into the pot on one single critical decision with full confidence.
This pattern often surprises people who haven't known me long enough to witness the full cycle of how I make decisions.
I take a long time with big decisions, but once convinced, I commit totally.
This approach unsettles many, yet it's precisely what most people value most about me.
What I’m Working On In 2025
Deepening Technical Expertise. In 2024 I became a great programmer, but technical architecture has always both fascinated me, and intimidated me.
I’ve never worked in a large organization so I have a blind spot when it comes to scalable systems design— it’s something I need to dedicate a few weeks to really learn and understand.
Optimizing Health. Between 2023 and July 2024 I lost 50 pounds over 12 months(195lbs → 145lbs), and only recently began reprioritizing my health. I’m in good health is now! But in 2025 I want to prioritize my diet and get my health into great condition.
Working on my people skills. I have great family and friends. But truthfully, I've always been an inconsistent communicator. I have a poor habit of falling out of touch due to delayed responses to texts and calls. It’s something I’m working on.
What’s in store for 2025?
Moving back to San Francisco— I’ve enjoyed traveling the world for four years, but all of my traveling has confirmed that San Francisco is the place I need to be. Queue “Don’t Assume What You Don’t Know“ by Grace VanderWaal.
Scaling Sales For Rivin.ai— Rivin is now at an exciting time where the product is refined and beautiful with our V3 release. Now it’s a question of nailing down distribution(sales).
In order to successfully raise a the next Seed funding round:
NRR must be 100%+
Rivin must break $XXk per month in subscription revenue
If there is a reasonable path forward to scaling sales and the “sales math” for Rivin is known, a large multi-million Series A round is possible in 2025.
2nd Job?— I’ve only ever worked for myself. Every dollar I’ve ever made since 18 years old has been earned from paying customers for products I’ve built with my own hands.
But as I’ve become older, people have found out about technical talents and many friends have offered me roles in their startups.
Being a founder is financially lucrative, but taking a 2nd job and working like a dog to clear $500k+ per year in cash is really tempting.
This would set me up to afford my dream family home in my dream neighborhood in San Francisco within 3-4 years— which is insane to think about.
I love being a founder.
But even the most stubborn founders would work for someone else as a 2nd job if the pay, problem, and team(most importantly) were great enough.
In Conclusion
2024 was a crazy year.
But overall, 2024 was a great year both professionally and personally.
If I could rewind time, I would change nothing from 2024— and I'm proud of that.
