The Middle Class Mindset is the Opposite of Lifestyle Design
> [T]he middle class in recent history has been defined by its ability to both earn and spend money in very predictable ways. —Venkatesh Rao Whether you call it the middle class mindset or a financial script, the point is the same. Those who adhere to it are following
Is Smart Luggage Already Over?
In the last three weeks, two of the early smart luggage brands, Bluesmart and Raden, have shut down. What does this mean for the rest of the new luggage startups? Following an announcement late last year, many major airlines banned smart luggage with non-removable batteries [https://www.theverge.com/2017/
How to Pay Remote Employees
Running a remote company in the US requires using terrible government websites and filling out onerous paperwork. Tortuga [https://www.tortugabackpacks.com] has seven US-based employees across four states. Four of those employees have moved between states while working for Tortuga. In total, we've registered with seven state-level
Made at the Same Factory As...
The clothing company Everlane has a world map of the factories [https://www.everlane.com/factories] on their website. That level of transparency is commendable. I've noticed a recent trend, particularly among bag and luggage companies, of a pseudo-transparency noting not which factories they work with, but their
Metrics That Don't Matter
> [Company] raises $X, now valued at $Y That's probably the most common headline for startup coverage. That coverage focuses on the wrong numbers. Startup founders and employees have already chosen to play the VC game. That's their call. Good luck. I worry about bootstrapped founders
The 4-Hour Workweek: 10 Years Later
Last week, a writer who was doing a story on direct-to-consumer brands [https://www.fredperrotta.com/v-commerce/] raising venture capital, asked why Tortuga [http://www.tortugabackpacks.com] didn't raise any money. In 2009 and 2010 when Jeremy and I were starting the company, I was living in San
Working Remotely Means "Your" Schedule, Not “No” Schedule
If you think that working remotely means lying in bed [https://open.buffer.com/work-bed/] in sweatpants, you also probably think that it means starting late and quitting early. For colocated employees, a work from home (WFH) day is like a vacation. Everyone at the office knows that you'
5 Habits to Break Before Working Remotely
Before you can learn to work remotely, you must unlearn habits from your previous, colocated jobs. My company, Tortuga [http://www.tortugabackpacks.com], is remote. We advocate for working remotely [https://onyourterms.com/why-we-work-remotely-19d9bd2077b0] but know that the transition from colocated to remote [https://onyourterms.com/transitioning-to-remote-work-at-tortuga-d15160e7a17f] isn't
The Sound and Fury of Startup Marketing
Ben Thompson of Stratechery, my favorite tech writer, recently covered the success of Stitch Fix [https://stratechery.com/2017/stitch-fix-and-the-senate/]. > I am in fact deeply impressed by Stitch Fix: it seems quite clear that early on [CEO Katrina] Lake realized that the company was not an aggregator, which meant