2024 in Review
A look back at the year that was
Bora Bora, Tahiti
Not every year is milestones and fireworks, but 2024 felt big — both in the obvious ways and in some subtle shifts in how I see the world.
January to March: Distill Finds Its Footing
I spent all of 2023 exploring ideas with Russ and not feeling ready to pull the trigger on fundraising, but at the end of last year, we had a feeling we were on to something. I finished building the first working prototype of Distill in early January — by March, we’d took on some initial funding from many of our favorite investors and operators. Looking back at our pitch deck from January, we've been pretty faithful to who we're building for and why.
April & May: Team Building and Re-building
Initially, we tried hiring international contractors for engineering and design, but quickly realized that we just weren't able to operate at our best in that mode. In order to free us up to build the best company and product possible, we needed to lean on a familiar playbook - attract an excellent team who we could trust to execute. Through a combination of our network, Hacker News, and an amazing recruiting partner, we had a team of 6 engineers by June.
One of my lessons from Tandem was to invest in culture to get the best out of people. We've taken that to heart at Distill by trying to only hire people who thrive in the early-stage environment, and creating processes to help them do their best work. For example, we decided as a team to deploy merged pull-requests to production automatically, which has been a huge win for team speed and reducing integration risk.
June & July: Having a Good Summer
Over the summer, our family took two very different trips. In June, we went to Austria, staying in a tiny alpine town and taking in the scenery and local activities. The kids loved the local water parks, and we loved seeing a different part of Europe than before. In July, it was Bora Bora to celebrate our 10th anniversary. Doing the island luxury resort thing was also a new experience for us. Both were amazing in their own way, and helped add some variety to a mostly work-focused year.
At Distill, we spent much of these months transitioning the project from a solo prototype to a codebase that the team could collaborate on, on top of real infrastructure and a CI pipeline. I also helped my parents buy a house in our neighborhood, which felt like a full-circle moment.
August & September: Kindergarten
E started kindergarten in August, which was a milestone and a big transition for our family. For her, of course, but also for us. The first month was rough — I barely felt human waking up so early. After a few weeks (and some tears), we found our rhythm, and E discovered that she loves school. It's been one of the best experiences of parenting for us to see her thrive and get to know a new side of her in an academic environment.
By September, our team at Distill started to gel and I was done onboarding our initial team. We added a few more engineers and our first non-technical hire, and our product was starting to actually work reliably at building profiles.
October - December
I turned 40. That’s the kind of number that makes you pause, whether you want to or not. We took a family trip, and it rained.
In other news, we had our first team offsite for Distill, which was so much fun, and we started getting positive feedback from real users using Distill for real things. At home, the kids started playing nicely together for what felt like the first time ever during the Thanksgiving break.
Personal Growth
This year I've been working with both a fitness coach and an ADHD coach. This level of personal investment would have felt extravagant in the past, but I've found as life has gotten more complex, it's become more important to take care of myself. Working with the ADHD coach in particular has taught me a number of new tools for taming both the overly optimistic and overly critical lenses I see the world through.
Perhaps relatedly, for most of my life, money came with a built-in sense of scarcity — wanting more money was undergirded by a fear of having enough to take care of my family. This year, something shifted. Maybe it’s reaching a certain age, or a certain amount of stability, but I find myself asking instead: How can we use what we have to make life fuller and the world around us better?
Favorite Things
My favorite book this past year was Siblings Without Rivalry - as our daughters get older and start to play together, it was a wonderful invitation to think about the sibling and family dynamics we are creating. This book had a ton of detail and stories on helping our girls learn how to get along and be friends without relying on us to mediate their conflicts.
My album for 2024 was Kraftwerk’s Man-Machine. It’s both nostalgic and forward-looking, with main themes including a shift to urban life and our growing relationship with machines. When we live among machines that are becoming more human-like, will we in-turn become more machine-like? Seems like that's been happening for a while now, our brains programmed by the algorithms that run our lives.
Closing Thoughts
2024 was a challenging year that pushed me to my limits. Being pushed to improve is the main reason I love being a startup founder - to be the best version of myself possible. Taking the time to look back, it's been an incredible year of growth and building. This is not the kind of thing that shows up on social media, but it feels thrilling to lay the foundations for the next 5 - 10 years for myself, our family, and the company. I'm grateful for my wife, the kiddos, and all of Distill for their patience and support on this journey.
I'm looking forward to 2025. Let's go!