Hi all,
Before we dive in. Will you be at SXSW? If you’re there Monday March 16th, join us for the GOOD DRINKS AUSTIN!
Unsurprisingly, we are doing things a bit differently. Nothing says Austin like a pontoon boat and a dip in the lake. The folx at Boatsetter, the Airbnb of boats and home of all your boat booking needs, have hooked us up with Big Flo and a captain.
Picture yourself sliding down into a brisk and refreshing lake from a slide. Sipping on bevs with fun people. And getting out of the fray for just a bit.
3-6pm, Monday March 16th. And bring your suits!
RSVP!
And now back to business.
We’re back with another edition of GOOD SIGNS — a monthly round-up of 4 letters, looking at what’s bubbling up.
These aren’t trends (yet!). These are signals, patterns, counter-trends. Stuff that’s emerging, continuing, sticking out, or simply what we’re finding interesting in the last month.
Enjoy! And let us know what you think in the comments.
Skip to the bits you fancy
1.
03:00 — ADDICTION HAS A NEW FRONTIER // Building has replaced bingeing. Claude Code has ushered in a new class of obsessive makers. And I’m very much among them. We unpack it in a LOT more detail on the pod. Truly, this one deserves its own letter and pod soon.
Places it’s showing up:
“I replaced Netflix with Claude Code,” says Nikunj Kothari. “I lie in bed thinking about what I can spin up before I fall asleep... I still take aimless walks. The agents come with me now.” And he’s one of thousands. Soon to be millions.
Nothing released Essential Apps. Fully custom app built on your phone’s home screen in 5 minutes.
Alphas are swapping influencer dreams for fast-built entrepreneurship. A YC-backed 19-year-old raised $1.2M to build autonomous cattle-herding drones. Dreams are changing shape.
Pendulum swing → When everyone can build, the question isn’t what you made. It’s whether it matters. And even outside of digital/tech, too many brands are still phoning it in. Take ChatGPT’s swag box. A company that has reshaped civilization shouldn’t be mailing logo pins and basketballs across the country for attention. Speed and access are now limitless. Taste and mattering are not.
2.
19:15 — ENTERING MEDICI 2.0 // We’ve grown tired of brands siphoning off culture. We want them to invest. Some are getting it. Patronage is becoming more popular.
Places it’s showing up:
Starbucks is providing financial support to emerging designers.
Kotn opened a creative residence and private hotel in Shoreditch. Creatives stay for free. Patronage looks good on them.
Aritzia acquired Fred Segal, including the iconic Melrose lease. Their framing: stewarding a beloved brand into a new generation.
Pendulum swing → Logo-ing without labor is going strong. Everyone is taking shortcuts from Carl’s Jr. to Gucci to the Olympics.
3.
29:35 — BIOHACKING IS GETTING BOO-ED // This one lived in our pendulum swings for a year. It just graduated. The backlash isn’t brewing anymore. It arrived. And loud.
Places it’s showing up:
Scream circles and somatic release classes are going viral on TikTok. Fun is having a bigger moment on Substack than ever.
Diet Coke is owning its fridge cigarette moment. They refuse to apologize for being Big Soda.
Gen Zs are taking sleepcations.
Here’s the link to the Soft Biohacking article by @Nadia that I mention.
Pendulum swing → Bryan Johnson opened 3 spots in his $1M/year longevity protocol. 1,500+ people applied in the first 30 hours. The optimization industrial complex is not going anywhere. Both things are true at once. Sometimes in the same person.
4.
34:30 — IT’S ALL CONNECTED, TRULY // The line between your digital and physical world has dissolved. Not blurring. Gone. Finally.
Places it’s showing up:
Spotify and Bookshop.org launched Page Match. Scan a page from a physical book to sync your exact spot in the audiobook.
Alibaba’s Qwen skipped Chinese New Year red envelopes and bought everyone a free boba, customized and paid for through the LLM.
Apple is reportedly working on a camera pendant that acts as the eyes and ears of your iPhone, capturing ambient context to make Siri proactive. We are not going to be looking at screens much longer.
Pendulum swing → Pure Steel‘s new coffee maker is 100% plastic-free, down to the internal piping. As the digital layer seeps into everything, the physical objects we choose are getting the same level of deliberate treatment as supplements and food have had. It’s not “clean,” it’s “pure.”
5.
45:00 — CARETAKER GENERATION NEEDS HELP // There’s a wave of caretakers joining the world soon. And it will be one of the biggest areas of growth. Start paying attention to this.
Places it’s showing up:
Luffu, from the founders of FitBit, tracks health stats for the whole family. Not your metrics. Everyone’s. Built specifically for the emerging caretaker generation.
Solace Health is scaling human-centered healthcare navigation.
Sekra, backed by Travis Kalanick and Equinox’s Harvey Spevak, is building wellness apartments with sleep-optimizing circadian lighting and values-based applicant screenings. Optimizing for the community. Not just self.
Pendulum swing → The self-health era is not slowing. We pay $557B out-of-pocket annually for health now. We want to be in control. Authorship is becoming a demand, not a preference.
Letters referenced in this episode:
That’s all, folx.
-Chris
If you read this and liked it, that little heart is there for that. The algo and I appreciate it.
PS. If you prefer Apple, Spotify, or YouTube, you can listen there too.
