"I've Seen This Before, It Didn't Work" Startups

Old ideas are new again. That's a good thing.

In the last couple of years, I’ve noticed a lot of old startup ideas that previously failed (usually multiple times) coming back again.

To some, it’s like a startup zombie apocalypse. Dead companies that sound great but never work finding a way to come back from the dead once again.

Micropayments for content? 🧟‍♂️

Group investment accounts? 🧟‍♂️

Purely digital influencers and content creators? 🧟‍♂️

I think it’s great.

Most “good” ideas take hold eventually, they just need the right mix of timing, technology, and team to make them happen.

As Marc Andreessen said, “there’s no such thing as bad ideas, just bad timing”

Recently we’ve seen two pretty significant shifts in technology — first with crypto (I’m still a believer) and now with generative AI — that are recreating what is possible.

Moreover, we’ve seen a demographic shift as boomers age out, millennials enter their mid-life crisis / disposable income years, and Gen Z (a cohort that makes millennials look like luddites) takes the mantle of the young and cool.

So there are tons of ‘good’ ideas that didn’t work before but can work today. Midjourney looks a lot like the 100 digital design startups that failed over the last 10 years. New tech (Gen AI) + new distribution (discord) = new opportunities.

Nevertheless, whether it’s fundraising, recruiting, or sales, a founder will inevitably run into skeptics who will dismissively say “I’ve seen this before, it didn’t work.”

Don’t ignore them, but don’t let their baggage stop you.

Below is something I wrote on this back in 2018 that I think is even more relevant today. I figure it is worth sharing it again for founders running into the ‘I’ve seen this before, it didn’t work” problem today.

If you’re a founder you’ve probably heard someone say “oh, I’ve seen this idea before - it didn’t work” or “isn’t this just like that other thing that person/company X tried?”

As a founder, I heard this dozens of times. It’s likely to come from investors, but you hear it from other founders, potential employees, advisors, customers, even family members.

Like it or not, pattern matching is strong.

I get contacted from a new company every 3 months working on a idea that's similar to Frank (our old startup and, notably, not the one being sued by JPM 🙃). And our idea was similar to the original Lending Club and Prosper idea - but with a unique twist, of course :)

Each generation of founders comes back to a few ideas that were tried by a previous cohort. Micropayments to users to sell their data is a one I’ve seen in various eras. Computer based designers is another. In the end, Chewy sounds a lot like Pets.com.

So here’s the thing if you’re a founder hearing “someone tried this before”: this isn’t a reason to be discouraged.

Successful companies often look like previously unsuccessful ones, but with a few differences that are only obvious in retrospect.

Choose whichever cliche you like best - past is prologue? back to the future? - but it’s undeniable that the future often starts off looking pretty similar to the past.

In fact, because consumers favour things they know, this can be a feature, not a bug.

While hearing ‘someone tried this before’ doesn’t mean your startup is doomed, it does mean you need to do your homework. And that is much easier said than done.

In this discovery phase, you to need to answer three questions:

(1) has this been tried unsuccessfully before?

(2) why did that company fail?

(3) am I really different?

These sound trivial, but if you're answering them honestly they’re actually very hard. In fact, each one is harder than the last.

1. Has this been tried unsuccessfully before?

‘Has this been done before’ is hard because most startups fail quietly. It’s not like there is some central repository of failed startup ideas.

The ones we tend to hear about in the press are either the huge successes (Airbnb) or the notorious failures (Theranos). 99% of startups end up in the middle.

And once a few years have passed, people have shifted in and out of the ecosystem so community memory erodes. “Who was doing that? Shoot I forget what exactly they did. Ahh nevermind”

Best thing you can do is find nodes - investors, advisors, recruiters - that see a lot of things and might remember. Extra points for finding people who have been around a long time or from different cohorts.

It’s really a grind game though. Ask everyone you meet: “have you seen anything like this before?” The trick is to ask it *honestly*. It’s discovery not promotion. It’s “Have you seen this?” Not “have you seen THIS!”

2. Why did that company fail?

“Why did they fail” is even harder to get answers to.

Ask 3 co-founders why their start-up failed and you’ll probably get 3 different answers.

It’s like a Rorschach test for the founder mind. One might say they went after the wrong market. Another might say the product had a fundamental flaw. Another might focus on execution mistakes.

They’re all probably right in some form or another. You need to continue to push and prod to get to the second and third layer

To borrow a legal term: ask them to connect the dots between the proximate and the cause in fact of their company not working. Keep asking why. Keep going down the ladder of inference. The more specific the answer, the more likely you’re at something real.

Keep in mind you’re talking to someone about something they may have spent years on and is -- for better or worse -- a part of their identity. Be empathetic as you dig. It’s part investigative journalist, part therapist and part pastor.

3. Am I really different?

“Is my startup really that different?” is the hardest question to answer because it’s the most personal to you. Whether you believe it or not you’re probably already emotionally invested in the answer. You’ll really really want it to be “of course we're is different”.

In a lot of cases the answer is yes. A small product change can open up a set of users that never existed before. A unique go-to-market can make all the difference. Even a new competitor can help users and investors understand your category.

But you can also get tricked. You can be different in a way that doesn’t actually change the outcome.

At Frank we made the experience of social lending way better, but we never solved the customer acquisition problem that took down our predecessors. Better product didn’t change that, so our potential was limited.

You need to be super self-aware at this point. You’ll want to weave a narrative that makes all the pieces fall into place. It’s the natural thing to do, and if you’ve started fundraising you might already have a nicely packaged story.

Superhuman self-awareness can be one way to manage this ... or you can try to set up a process that forces you to find real facts that could only be true if the answer to "am I really different" is YES!

Find the evidence that means your unique twist will help you succeed where others have failed. Give yourself a time limit to find that evidence. If you can't find them, then make them your initial OKRs. Work to prove that in the initial phase of your company.

So when someone says “someone tried this before, it didn’t work,” you know exactly what to say.

What Matters Today

Where the smartest and most talented people are focused right now

A long time ago I realized that the ultimate advantage for startups was to be building something that “mattered.”

If starting a successful startup is like beating the ultimate boss in a video game, then building something that “matters” is like having the ultimate cheat code.

As an illustration, just look at two of the more important essays in crypto: “Why Decentralization Matters” and “Why Bitcoin Matters” by my old colleagues at a16z. So much of the energy that both helped crypto get started and keeps it alive during frigid winters that would starve many nascent industries is the sense that crypto really matters. It matters more than just as a way to get rich and retire early. It matters in the big picture.

It is part of my thesis around product-zeitgeist fit. When you’re building something that matters to smart, talented people, you have a ton of unfair advantages from users willing to look past janky products, to talented people really wanting to work with you, to media and investors showering you with (yet-to-be-earned) attention.

But what matters is neither consistent nor constant. In fact, it’s constantly changing. It’s very, well, zeitgeisty. What mattered to me as a 24-year-old is a bit different from what matters to me today. To say nothing of what matters to a different 24-year-old today. By definition, not everyone agrees on what matters and sometimes people even disagree with themselves on it.

Whether your framework for innovation is Product Zeitgeist Fit, Finding Good Quests or Aliens, Jedis and Cults, figuring out what matters to you and others is both really important and constantly evolving.

When I first published this idea in 2019 I pointed to three industries — crypto, ISAs, and clean meat — that had benefited from riding the zeitgeist. And I pointed out a few more consumer ideas on the precipice of mattering: privacy-oriented products, subscription products substituting for ad-based ones, and better social networks. These tend to move in fits and starts, but I would argue that all three connected on some level and have produced interesting projects/companies in their wake.

But four years later, I come back to the question of what matters to the most talented people on the planet? How has that zeitgeist shifted and where are the tailwinds today?

Things feel both the same and different. Lots of things that mattered 4 years old still feel important today (i.e., decentralization), but we have emergent ideas too.

So what matters today? This is my very unscientific sense of where talented people are focused right now.

Honorable Mention: AI

Obviously, this matters a lot, but I don’t want to spend much time on it here. It’s a wild new technology that is catnip for creative entrepreneurs who can imagine the multitude of important, previously unsolvable problems they can now take on. But it’s still early and somewhat unclear if there is a connective tissue driving it forward. Is it more of a singular movement, or is it more of a base technology shift (like cloud computing) that enables new, previously blocked movements to form? I don’t know. More likely the latter (with a sprinkle of political hysteria on top). Either way, it will be a critically important shift and it would be malpractice not to flag it; but, I will let the hot-take thought leaders weigh in on AI right now since I don’t have any idea where it takes us, who it matters to yet or why.

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1) Pseudonymity

In 2023, pseudonymity really matters. Pseudonymity is freedom. Pseudonymity is creativity. Pseudonymity is innovation. Pseudonymity is progress.

Given how dysfunctional/politicized most things on the internet end up these days, pseudonymity is a lifeline for people trying new, interesting, and/or seemingly unpopular things.

Pseudonymity lets you choose your you.

Honestly, is there anything that matters more?

I was recently discussing starting a new company with a friend. I said that if I did it, I would probably be a pseudonymous founder. It’s the only way to try something new and risky without putting your personal and professional future in the crosshairs of those who cheer for failure. Given that most startups fail - some in humiliating and embarrassing ways — that seems like quite the risk we’re asking founders to take.

In an era before the wayback machine and the “forever internet”, people could try new things, experiment with different ideas, and if it didn’t work out they could try something else. That’s simply not true today. Many want to judge people by their worst moments. They want to banish people who challenge conventional wisdom (even if they’re actually right). They want to pillory those that try but fail. Pseudonymity solves that. That’s why I see so many important people working on pseudonymity.

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2) Fun Doomerism

The boomers might have all the money, climate change might be boiling the planet, and maybe we’re not all going to make it, but, hey, at least we can have a party.

The idea that we all need a little bit more fun (especially with all the pessimism in the world today) is one that has mattered for a while and it seems to be picking up steam.

In 2019 I posited that improving social networks felt like a honey pot for talented people looking for important problems. One pandemic later, the pull feels even stronger.

While there was a burst of activity in social in 2020, most of it ended up being overly oriented to COVID times and slowly died off as things returned to normal. But with social networks increasingly becoming media-oriented, many people still working/studying from home, and the world teetering on recession, the problem feels even more important than it did in 2019.

The world is pretty serious right now, but there is hope. Maybe it’s gallows humor, but a kind of “fun doomerism” has emerged as an intriguing force.

People need something fun and light these days. Better yet, they need something fun with friends. This feels important to people right now.

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3) Fuck FAANG

It has been interesting to watch people's glee at Bing/ChatGPT encroaching on Google’s search monopoly. Normally I would just chalk it up to people cheering for the underdog, but, in this case, the underdog is a $1.8T company that started in 1975 and was the target of one of the most famous antitrust cases in history.

This isn’t cheering for the little guy or even a random permutation of techlash. And while it shares a thread with decentralization and web3, it’s more specific: it’s a desire to take down a few specific companies that have dominated consumer tech for the last 10-15 years.

Maybe it’s boredom. Maybe it’s frustration. Maybe people just want to see some institutions burn.

I think the ultimate driver is that these companies appear to have forgotten about their user. In some cases, they’ve become twisted around short-sighted financial metrics and shareholders. In other cases, the companies have become shells that just serve the shifting desires and political priorities of their owners and employees. Others seem to change at the whim of regulators. In all instances though, I sense that customers think they have fallen to the bottom of the pecking order. And they’re (rightly) pissed off about it.

To be honest I don’t know exactly what drives it. Whatever it is there is a definite sense that the technology world needs some change at the top. People seem motivated to make that happen.

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4) Help People Make Money

In 2011 I helped a friend get his first job. He was very smart but had never worked for a real company before and his interviewing style was a little too casual. I spent a few hours coaching him on some standard interview questions. He nailed the interview, got the job, and has been crushing it ever since. He paid off his student debt, bought a house, and is leading a wonderful life. I don’t think I’ve ever felt a higher impact from a few hours of my time. He is forever grateful and I feel so lucky that I was able to help him. It is the most concrete example I’ve ever felt of why helping people make money matters.

There is a lot of bravado in Silicon Valley about changing the world, but sometimes the most impactful thing you can do is change one person’s economic outlook. It might seem boring at a macro level, but helping people make money seems to always matter at a personal level.

Now I can’t help but see talented founders and teams motivated by this same idea.

And in economic downturns, it always seems to rise in importance.

From creator platforms like Substack helping writers make money doing what they love, to vertical jobs platforms like Incredible Health helping nurses find new opportunities, helping people become more financially stable might not be sexy, but it matters a lot these days.

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5) The Individual Economy

Brands used to matter. Brands represented quality and reliability so consumers became loyal to them. But brands got lazy. They stopped delivering on their value proposition. People still want quality but now they look for individuals, not brands. It’s Mr. Beast, not McDonalds.

And while the creator economy got a ton of press, this is doubly true in services and non-creative categories. People want a great stylist, not a great salon. They want a great lawyer, not a great law firm. They want a great writer, not a great publisher. They want a great carpenter, real estate agent, or gardener, not a great ‘agency’.

As the value of these service brands has declined, many of the best providers have chosen to go independent. More work flexibility might be the carrot, but a better economic value proposition is the real draw. And many talented people are trying to make that transition smoother by building out the tools and technology to make it easier. This trend also gets a huge bump from AI as better tools lead to more efficiency, which means that industries that previously couldn’t leverage the solopreneur model now can.

It is helping people break free of a system that has largely outlived its relevance. It is “arm the rebels,” writ large. And it seems to matter to a lot of talented people right now.

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6) Decentralization (Still) Matters

The past couple of years have brought implosions galore in crypto. Thousands of people who thought they might make a quick buck have fled for the exits. The mercenary employees and VCs lured by hyped-up token prices and immediate liquidity have ‘pivoted to AI’. The regulators have started to thrash. Nevertheless, the number of people to whom decentralization matters is much higher today than it was in 2019.

Maybe it’s the fact that FTX blew up but Uniswap didn’t. Maybe it’s that Silicon Valley Bank blew up but bitcoin didn’t. Maybe they just can’t unsee what they’ve realized about how centralized institutions operate.

Whatever it is, decentralization and user-owned networks still matter to a lot of the most talented founders I meet.

If you’re a founder working on an idea that really matters to the world please find me online.

How to do a reference call

That doesn't suck.

As a founder & investor I've done >1000 reference calls. They can be *the* most valuable data for hiring & investing. I can hire/invest based just on references (no interview/pitch needed 😎). But the reality is most "references" are a waste of time. Total garbage.

Here are the 4 most important principles for making a good reference call:

1) Understand the context
2) Backdoor references > frontdoor ones
3) Get very specific
4) Build trust and leave open space

Understand the Context

First, the context of a reference matters. A lot. Even knowing this you'll still probably under calibrate for it.

Beyond the obvious context (Facebook != a startup), different orgs need & value different things. Some are hyper political, some are hyper meritocratic. Some value getting along, some value sharp elbows. Some managers are incompetent and negative feedback is basically a badge of honor. Some references are just friends who happen to work together.

The point is you can't just passively collect information on a candidate. You need to put in real work to figure out the context so you know how to calibrate what you hear.

You need to understand the referrer is & how they relate to the candidate. Not just basics like their role and tenure. It's what's under the surface: What's their relationship? Has it evolved? What do they rely on candidate for? How much time do they spend together?

You need to suss out what parts to trust and why they're willing to take the time to do a reference call. Best Case: Want to invest in their company so trying to help
Worst Case(s): Doing a friend a favor or have an axe to grind.

You also need to understand what kind of organization they were at. Don't just ask them to describe the culture, probe for it: Who does well there? Who left? Do you know any of them? What are they good/bad at? Would you want to work with them?

You're looking for how close the organization's ideal is to what you're looking for. Supposed negatives can be huge positives depending on how well you suss out the context.

For example: a number of founders I've invested in were "terrible at getting buy-in" or "difficult to manage"... but at highly political companies. Turns out bad career politicking = strong entrepreneurial instincts when you switch the context.

The superficial negative is often a huge positive if you understand context. And vice versa

Backdoor references > frontdoor references

Second, 1 'backdoor' reference - found and set up by you, not the candidate/founder - can be worth a million 'frontdoor' ones.

Frontdoor references are usually meh. The backdoor ones are where the insight lives.

Caveat 1: You have to give people a heads up you're going to do backdoor references and get their consent. I also ask if there's anyone they don't want contacted. Often there is sensitivity around their current employer (understandable) but most are ok with everyone else.

Caveat 2: Back door references are *usually* better than front door ones. But they can also be the worst if there's context you don’t understand (did they not get along? were they competitive for the same promotion?)

It definitely ups the ante on getting the context right. And if you're putting a lot of weight on one particular reference, referencing the referencer takes time but can be worth it

Get very specific

Third, don't let a referrer get away with broad statements ("she was awesome", "he struggled"). They're not helpful and they say more about the organization's values than the individual's skills/mindset.

Ask for specific examples:

They're an “exceptional leader”? Great - What is an example in which they showed that? Help me understand the specifics.

They're "one of the best you've worked with"? Great - how would you compare them to this other person I know you worked with? How would you stack rank them?

They were "fine"? Interesting - why just fine? what does fine mean to you? why specifically made them fine rather than great?

The details will make the feedback actually useful. And if they can't offer details then be skeptical. Very skeptical.

Build trust and leave open space

Fourth -- and this is probably the most important -- you need to build trust and create the space for honesty, even if they're trying to avoid it.

Start by introducing yourself and why you're calling. You'd be amazed at how few people do this.

Set the expectations on confidentiality right off the top: Who will it be shared with? For what purposes? You need to be totally honest, but the narrower the better.

If you leave things unclear or undefined, people will probably assume the worst. Being very clear off the top can help put people at ease.

Ask the same question multiple times in different ways. See how consistent their answers are.

Awkward silences are your friend. Allow them to exist. Some of the most insightful comments come when people are just trying to fill dead air.

Asking for “weaknesses” is useless and it's is usually a prepared hodgepodge of poorly veiled strengths. Seems like everyone works too hard and cares too much!!

Create hypotheticals so it feels less personal:
- "let's assume they quit after 6 months, why do think it would be?
- "if you could design the perfect team to compliment them, what would it look like?"

It's not about being sneaky or tricky, it's about changing the framing from a gotcha reference call to a more honest discussion of what is the right situation for them.

Lastly, follow up with the referrer. Let them know how things turned out regardless. It's basic manners but you'd be amazed how often you that makes them willing to help you again.

Good references are easy alpha

I can't stress enough how valuable references can be.

We all have very resource-intensive hiring and investing processes, but we underutilize the most valuable data available: gamefilm.

There's so much alpha being wasted ... Why?

- Maybe it's arrogance: "I can read someone really well in an interview." (spolier: they couldn't)
- Maybe it's not getting to the right people.
- Maybe it's just not knowing what to ask.

Whatever it is, everyone -- candidates, companies, founders and investors -- are worse off when we make decisions with incomplete information.¹

1. Also published as a tweetstorm on June 10, 2022

The ____ Economy

And why it's never going away!

Ever notice how there is always a new “The ____ Economy” trending?

It started with the “Information Economy” in the 90’s. Since then, every couple of years there is a refresh. Just in the last 10 years we’ve seen The Attention Economy, The Sharing Economy, The On-Demand Economy, The Crypto Economy, The Creator Economy, and The Ownership Economy all become real categories.

Right now people are pushing hard on The Community Economy, The Circular Economy, The Climate Economy, and The Curator Economy. And that’s just the C’s!

If this isn’t a trope then I don’t know what is. 

But while the instinct might be to roll your eyes at the lack of creativity in tech/VC marketing, there is a lesson in its incredible longevity. It’s worth understanding why this turn of phrase persists and what it means for both founders and investors.

Let’s look at both parts: the “_____” and the “Economy”.

It’s the Economy, Stupid

We start with the inevitable endpoint: an economy.

I learned a lot of interesting lessons during my time at Andreessen Horowitz. Like all good lessons, the most important ones were sitting in plain sight. My favorite was at the tail end of a meeting with a new childcare marketplace (think Airbnb for daycare) as the founder was showing the earnings bump that people got by switching to this solo-preneur model. Jeff Jordan – who’s been involved in everything from eBay to OpenTable to Airbnb – said off the cuff “the secret to everything I’ve done, and it’s not a secret, is economic empowerment. It is building things that help people make money.”

Nearly every big platform hits escape velocity by helping people make more money. So if a platform can’t (eventually) see itself operate as the central node in its own economy helping people make money, then there could be a disappointment in its future. In the end, maybe the most relevant question for founders and investors is simply whether something has “The _____ Economy” potential.

In the end, maybe the most relevant question for founders and investors is simply whether something has “The _____ Economy” potential.

The confusing thing is that these platforms don’t always always start out that way. Some companies raise a lot of money and have a functioning, if massively subsidized, economy from day 1. Uber — with billions in VC funding helping to offer drivers guarantees right from the start — is the classic example here. Current day creator funds attached to large creator platforms are another example. Many crypto projects are doing it these days by raising money from their communities to help subsidize projects and attract users. But in the grand scheme of things this model is risky in that it obscures the true state of the “economy.” It is also limited in that not many founders/platforms have millions (if not billions) at their disposal to subsidize an economy from day 1.

The other path is to start with incentives other than money, then eventually transition to an economic model. Lots of consumer platforms — everything from Instagram to Youtube to Twitch — didn’t start out as ways for people to make money. They were initially about fun, status, connection and/or fame. They initially started as social networks, but as each grew their users realized they could build income off of them, which changed the trajectory of the companies. Early Airbnb hosts were city guides as much as hoteliers, but eventually it became about the economy. Most social networks became “creator economy” platforms over time. This is happening in many crypto communities right now: at start it’s about access, status and community, but over time it slowly shifts to floor prices, ATHs and economic potential.

Regardless of where you start, it seems that all successful roads eventually lead to economic empowerment. 

But if everything ends up as a tool for helping people make money, then why do some take off and some don’t? That brings us to the second part of the phrase.

What the “_____”?

The second part to a big category is the “blank”. This part is more ephemeral. It’s more emotional. It’s more “Next Big Thing”-ish. It’s about what is in the current zeitgeist and how can that be built on in an authentic way.

It’s worth clarifying upfront that this isn’t about the value proposition of a particular product - all products still need to solve a real and specific problem. This isn’t even about the value prop of the category - that’s what the ‘economy’ part is for.

The “____” is the rallying cry. This is the part that makes people aspire to join the movement when the economy is still nascent.

The “____” is the rallying cry. This is the part that makes people aspire to join the movement when the economy is still nascent.

• At the start of the aughts, heavily mission driven companies and ‘tech for good’ was a common attitude. People wanted to see that a startup wasn’t just going to make them rich but also make the world a better place. How many cheesy recruiting pitches ended with some mediocre version of “Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life or come with me and change the world?” From that vibe came the sharing economy. What better idea than “sharing” things I had sitting around to build a more sustainable future (and if I made money then that’s even better.) The sharing inspired … until the economy paid the bills.

• As the decade went on, building things that could amaze friends with style and simplicity took hold. Building something ‘friction-less’ became the trend. The ‘on-demand’ economy exploded and came to encapsulate everything from Instacart to Doordash. Eventually the economy trumped the ‘on-demand’ piece and now they’re most frequently talked about as in the context of jobs and employment. “On-demand” was the start, until the economy took over..  

• Then the “creator economy” hit. Who didn’t want to become a creator? Not only was there the potential for fame and connection to a community, but it promised the creative freedom that most people want from their life. Now it’s a career path.

• Vitalik famously said “even a billion dollars of capital cannot compete with a project having a soul.” At the start of the crypto economy there was no economy.  The crypto portion - and correspondingly, why decentralization matters - served to capture the vibe before the crypto ‘economy’ was making people financially independent.

This isn’t to say that everyone survives. For every successful “The _____ Economy” there are dozens that fail to take off. Sometimes failure lies in the execution or value proposition of the specific startup. But it can also be because the “____” fails to inspire and motivate people before the economic incentives arrive.

The Next _____ Economy

For better or worse, “The ____ Economy” isn’t going anywhere. It isn’t going anywhere because in its structure is the playbook for building an enormous and successful platform.

It represents the short term and the long term for any platform. It represents two of the more important questions people can ask themselves when they’re evaluating an idea:

• Are you building something that (at least initially) is fun/cool/interesting enough to inspire and motivate people?

• Are you building something that can sustain a real economy and help people make money?

I guess the question left is: what’s the next “The ____ Economy”?

Hello again!

This thing still work? I realize I’ve been pretty quiet on this Substack thing, but I promise I’ve got a good excuse. She’s currently 17.4 pounds and goes by Edith. We had her in December and I’ve been laying low and mostly hanging out with her since then.

Well I’m officially back and very excited to be writing again. Got a lot of fun stuff rolling around in my head that I can’t wait to get onto paper.

D’Arcy Coolican @DCoolican

Coming back from pat leave and going to start writing again. Publicly committing here to one article a week for next 4 weeks to get back in habit. Been noodling for months on these - going to have some bangers

First post coming tomorrow. LFG!

P.S. I’ve been writing for years. You can find all my previous posts at darcycoolican.com/writing

P.P.S. If you subscribed 2 years ago and forget who I am I won’t be hurt if you unsubscribe.

P.P.P.S. Please forward to others that might be interested