Essays and quotes by Hunter Macy, Founder & CEO of Rendezvu.
If you have an idea, just start building. A few months ago, I started working on a new project with the idea that the current system for finding, connecting and booking an adventure guide was outdated or inauthentic and needed something new and improved. Trying to book a guide in Jackson, WY felt…
If I could go back five months and give myself one piece of advice, it'd be this: talk to more users! It sounds simple, almost too simple. But it's easy to forget when you're deep in the weeds, designing, building, and just trying to make progress. What I've learned is everything starts to click…
Imagine someone walked up to you during one of these moments in time: 1994: "Hey, there's this thing called the World Wide Web…we should learn how to build our own websites. Seems like this is a really important technology" 2006: Amazon just launched AWS. It lets you rent server space instead of…
Having fun is such an important part of the process as a startup founder. I've learned that by watching other teams closely, studying how they learn, grow, and ultimately give people what they want, that the journey is just as critical as the destination. It’s easy to hit low lows when users are…
66 days. That's how long I've been running every single day. I've been training in endurance sports for less than a year, and this new streak isn't because I'm preparing for a race (even though I am). It's not about chasing a medal. It's about proving something to myself: consistency matters.…
How do you make the most of one life? This is a question I’ve returned to, as I’m sure many others have, in their lives. How do you make sure that when you’re eighty years old, you can look back and say you didn’t waste a second? At least that’s the goal right? To just want to live it all over…
The hardest part about feedback isn't hearing it, it's putting your work out there in the first place. Once you realize that, everything changes. You build and release faster. You stop worrying about people criticizing your work and start learning from it instead. And you realize that feedback…
Do you think your social media feed can predict your success in life? Think about it: how many hours are spent scrolling. How much of that time builds you up? How much of it is just noise? I can confidently say that I’ve gone through periods of time in my life where the feed on my Instagram has…
There was a quote I heard recently that stuck with me: “Embarrassment is an underexplored emotion. So go out there and make a fool of yourself.” I can't help but smile when I hear that. Because it's true: embarrassment has followed me around in almost everything I've tried to do. For a long time, I…
People have called me stubborn multiple times. I don’t want to say it’s a theme but it’s happened a few times so it got me thinking, am I stubborn? Paul Graham once wrote about “the right kind of stubborn,” and I’ve been thinking about what that means for me as a founder. I figured I’d write my own…
One of the most valuable resources I’ve used over the last nine months isn’t a book, a video, or a mentor. It’s the Y Combinator application. I talk to a few people every month about entrepreneurship (not that I’m an expert, but I love talking about it), and I always recommend they fill out the YC…
The reason I write is because of you, Paul. I was a late bloomer in reading. I still struggle to read quickly, but I can confidently say that your essays have changed my life for the better. I want to walk through a few essays that’ve had the biggest impact on me, and share in hopes that more…
You asked for it. You got it. Everyone said this would be a hard and lonely journey, and I believed them, but I didn't understand it. Not until I was in the thick of it. Right now. There are highs that make you feel unstoppable, moments when everything clicks, when the effort feels worth it.…
We’re living in a time when the bottlenecks to building have disappeared. The ability to move quickly, create for users in new ways, and succeed with different skill sets has never been greater. The skills that matter today are not the same as they were five years ago. I’d like to say I feel bad…
Solo travel changes you. Not because of where you go, but because of who you become when there’s no one else around to tell you who you are. When you’re out there alone, halfway up a mountain, sitting in a quiet café, or waking up in a tent a thousand miles from home, you start to meet yourself for…
The best networking is to build something you care about and ask people for advice. That's it. That's the whole strategy. And it works for two reasons that have nothing to do with tactics. 1. People genuinely like helping Most people don't want to hand out favors. But if they see you building…
I found this poem on instagram. I think the more people that read it the better. Enjoy! “ I'm 80 years old, and somehow.. I woke up in my 32 year old body. Just for one day. I wake up to little hands tugging at the blankets. "Mommy, wake up!" they shout. I blink, and I sit up slowly. My babies.…
People ask me about competitors all the time. “Isn’t this just like [INSERT COMPANY]?” The answer is yes if I want the conversation to end quickly. No if I actually want to explain what we’re doing. Most people don’t realize that a startup isn’t just an idea. It’s a chain of ideas that compound…
I’m pretty open with most people about the fact that I don’t fully know what I’m doing. Honestly, I don’t think any first-time founder does. Every stage of building a company is a fresh set of problems you’ve never seen before. There’s no playbook, no map, no one to hold your hand. But over the…
I started working on Rendezvu full time a year ago. When I look back, it feels like a year of rebuilding myself from scratch. That is why I quit my job in the first place. I did not know what I wanted to build and I did not have a clean vision for a company, but I knew one thing with absolute…
When I started building Rendezvu, people kept asking me the same question: Aren’t you worried about competition? Honestly? No. Not because competition doesn’t matter…it does. But because worrying about them is a great way to lose sight of the one thing a startup actually needs at the beginning:…
Lately I’ve been trying to get better at something simple and surprisingly difficult: making the ask. Not just in work, but everywhere. Asking for help. Asking for the meeting. Asking someone to be a mentor. Asking for the funding. Most people don’t struggle because they ask for too much. They…
Building anything is hard especially the first time. There’s no clear signal telling you what deserves your attention today. What to focus on. What to spend money on. How to spend your time. When to move on. Who to hire. Who not to hire. Every decision matters, and every decision compounds. Some…
There’s a quote by Paul Graham that I keep at the very top of my to-do list: “Don't ignore your dreams; don't work too much; say what you think; cultivate friendships; be happy.” It’s what he keeps at the top of his to-do list too. Not “build a unicorn.” Not “maximize revenue.” Not “outcompete…
AI is not replacing jobs in the way the media makes it sound. Yes. Some roles will fade. Some tasks will disappear. That has always been true with every major technological shift. But what I see happening is different. I have built my company solo because of AI. There is no version of reality where…
Something happened during the Super Bowl that didn’t get much attention because everyone was busy arguing about Bad Bunny. MAHA ran an ad encouraging people to eat healthier. That might sound small. It isn’t. It made me genuinely hopeful. Not because one ad magically fixes anything, but because it…
Most people think the bet is on the idea. They assume success is primarily about picking the right market, at the right time, with the right product. They ask whether an idea is big enough, defensible enough, differentiated enough. Those questions matter, but it’s not the real bet. The real bet is…
Life isn't about finding yourself, it's about creating yourself.
— George Bernard Shaw
"There's nothing more supreme than confidence. Confidence breeds success and success breeds confidence. Applied properly you are unconquerable."
— Mike Tyson
"If you're aiming towards greatness, you don't get there by what other people think."
— Rick Rubin
"Fear is for people that don't get out much."
— Rich Steves
"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow mindedness."
— Mark Twain
"If my wealth goes away it takes nothing but itself."
— Louis L'Amour
"Management of the status quo may be the riskiest course of all."
— Henry Kissinger
"Don't be afraid. Do hard things."
— Graham Weaver
"Verbosity gets in the way of meaning."
— Michael Lewis
"Brave may not live forever, but the cautious do not live at all."
— Richard Branson
"The master of life's art, Sees no boundaries apart, Between work and play, Labor or a leisurely day. Mind and body intertwined, Information, recreation aligned. Love and faith, a seamless fusion, Guided by a clear vision. He hardly knows what's at hand, Work or play—it's all so grand. For in his pursuit, excellence rings, And to him, he's simply doing all things."
— James A. Michener
"We don't have this whole brand strategy laid out where we know what Duolingo will look like in five years. We have a really ambitious mission, and we are highly oriented towards taking action through experimentation and learning from that."
— Bob Meese
Make no little plans for they have no power to stir one's blood.
— Daniel Burnham
Stamina trumps intellect
— Jeetu Patel