[Open Source CEO by Bill Kerr](../)- Posts
- Brand Expansion =
We've reached a point to take a breath and think of what should come next. 🎳 #
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Although I speak about my team at Athyna a lot in this newsletter, I probably don’t speak about them enough. The message below was posted on social media without any prompting by a talent who went through a process with us recently. Incredible stuff.
We might not be the most impressive company in the world, but we are growing fast and profitably, building cool stuff, with a great brand. It is all underpinned by one thing, though: culture. Everything is so much easier when you have 92% engagement scores on average. Culture eats strategy for breakfast; all day, every day.
BUILDING IN PUBLIC 🔎
It’s now been a full three years since we shipped our first edition of Open Source CEO. The crazy thing is that it feels like just yesterday I was fanboying my favorite writers, the Packy McCormicks and Lenny Rachitskys, wondering if the world would like what I wanted to create.
Well, it’s safe to say, the Jury is in. The people have voted with their computer mice (yes, that’s the plural), a whole lot of technology, and meme-addicted weirdos like me love our product. And to you, dear reader, I send you my deepest gratitude.
My goal for today is to share some ideas and updates on expanding the Open Source CEO brand and to gauge your feedback on each. This newsletter is my side hustle alongside my main hustle at Athyna, but as we are growing up—we have a team of four dedicated to the brand today—I think it would be doing us a disservice to play it safe. Let’s dive in.
One of my first ideas with Open Source was to create bespoke travel experiences: for example, five days touring San Francisco, visiting Anthropic, Google, hardware startups, and deep tech builders. This idea is an amalgamation of my previous startup, AdventureFit, where we took people all around the world on adventure holidays.
Holidays built by founders, for founders; that type of thing. Not only would it be a great experience, but it would also be an awesome way to learn, network, and get inspired. No breakout sessions, no whiteboards, just a pure techno-optimist holiday.
Rate this idea for me... | #
One of the two ideas closest to launch would be to take what we do with words and do it with video. It could be any number of formats, Vox-style video essays, man-on-the-street pieces, polished documentaries, a video podcast, or shorts from our interviews.
My man-on-the-street test last year. Two of the channels I’m leaning towards stylistically are Good Work and Mr. Beat. Good Work is great, as it’s part interview, part presentation, while Mr. Beat is usually a 20-30-minute talk on one interesting topic. What’s important is that both of these lean heavily into what I’d call ‘shit editing.’ Editing that’s deliberately rough, but really works as a pattern interrupt.
Another content type I really like is the polished documentary-style videos. Two channels that are doing this well today are S3 and Sachin and Adam. I really like this content, and it’s something that would be commercially valuable from both a networking and revenue perspective (if we were to sell it, as we do our writing).
The easiest for us to convert into video is either turning our interviews into a podcast or, at the very least, a firehose of shorts, ala TBPN. Although podcasting stresses me out, the shorts idea is quite likely in the very near term.
Rate this idea for me... | #
This one is easy. We want people wearing our kit in the world. The thing is how to do it. I don’t think a newsletter like Open Source CEO needs a store. That would be dumb. What I am interested in, though, is custom swag sends, maybe as part of a giveaway. Or a swag subscription that sends one per quarter.
Hear me out on the subscription: No one needs a swag subscription. But what if we had super fun, unique swag that only gets made once, and we ship it to our closest supporters? I support my favorite creators in that way. See me wearing my tie-dyed Channel 5 tracksuit pants below.
Rate this idea for me... | #
The other thing closest to release would be a daily tech news version of the newsletter. I’ve sat on this idea for a very long time, but am yet to pull the trigger. I honestly think over time, the likes of the NY Times, WSJ, and Washington Post will continue to struggle. And I think more and more people will want their news delivered with two things: data and memes.
You can think of it like the Bay Area Times, mixed with your friendly neighborhood meme dealer. If we were ever to do this, we’d include a daily poll to gauge the audience's feelings on whatever is top of mind at the time.
If that sounds quite specific, it’s because it is: I find the weekly wrap-up email from |
Rate this idea for me... | #
Two ideas here. My buddy Michael Batko recently built and sold a running community called Startup Striders, and it gave me some great inspiration. I have the idea to build a set of WhatsApp communities titled ‘Founders who…’
As an example, 22-year-old French basketball phenom Victor Wembenyama |
As the world goes more and more online, the latter half of the 2020s will see a big push back to IRL events. I can feel it myself; I love remote work and believe it’s great for the world, but I am also craving being around people. With this in mind, I love the idea of tech trivia nights. Getting 50 people together at a bar/pub and having some fun.
Another idea is to get people together for sporting events. My partner loves padel, so we went and played with a group from our gym, and it was a riot. Super fun, over in two hours, and a great way to get some like-minded people together, for some light-hearted fun. Hiring a few fractional or part-time events folks to manage these events in key readers' hubs like San Fran, London, Melbourne, and Buenos Aires would be all it takes.
Rate this idea for me... | #
I’ve been banking a set of pixelated tech scenes over the last few months. My plan is to put on an eight-hour loop with some tunes from Suno, to turn into great deep work playlists (kinda like this). Not only that, I want to stream while I work, allowing the Open Source community to join me.
Bezos 1RM. | Elon space hurtling. |
I imagine this would turn into cowork sessions with other founders we work with in this newsletter: James Hawkins from Posthog, Christina from Vanta, etc. I’ve not seen anyone do anything like this. Regarding accountability, I really value the Focusmate accountability sessions I join, so I like this as an idea.
Rate this idea for me... | #
Building a brand is like building a house. You need a solid foundation, then you lay each brick on the ones that came before. Three years in, the foundation is poured. The frame is up. Now I'm staring at a pile of bricks (six of them, give or take) and trying to figure out which wall to build next.
Coming soon?
Lucky for me, I've had some great mentors over time who have helped me read the blueprints more times than I can count. But the honest answer is that half the time I still don't know what goes where, which is why I'm asking you today. Vote above, hit reply with what I missed, and tell me what to build first. The brand expansion is . You get to pick the next room.
How Athyna Makes Remote, Work- January, 2024We Raised $2.5M To Build Athyna AI- May, 2024If You Ain’t AI First, You’re Last- November, 2025Building Athyna Intelligence- January, 2026
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