Hello, world!
An introduction/primer + reasons to write this blog
Over the years I've found that if I learnt something earlier, it would really help me now. It's a trite thing to say and think as everyone is smarter in hindsight. Still, it's true.
I've also seen myself forgetting things quickly. Since school, I've rushed through books and courses – why bother doing it slowly if I can get it in no time and still get A or B? As most natural crammers, I did not know the benefits of spaced repetition and active recall. To be honest, I still did not implement it.
The best learning methods for me are reading and recaps. I'm not a visual or aural learner and never tried much kinesthetic learning. Things I wrote down retained for decades, but remembering melodies of new music takes playing it on repeat 10+ times. Same with movies or charts – it's just a vague blurbs in my memory.
As I started my career, I figured I have to keep learning to progress and did it the usual way. Needless to say much of these hours were wasted, but the things I was able to practice (e.g. on product management, data analytics and business strategy) stayed.
So, I decided to do this blog – not for the personal brand reasons (though job offers are welcome), but to recap things I learn. After all, my neuroplasticity is only getting worse and only deliberate actions would help. And God do I want to learn much more than I know now.
My interests are diverse, not to say scattered and incoherent, and topics here might range from cooking to physics with behavioural psychology, SEO optimization, teaching my dog or Python in between. I am amazed by polymaths and know-it-alls and want to know it all. Of course, it costs me some depth, but I've accepted that Nobel, Fields, Pulitzer or likes are unlikely.
So, I'm Vlad, 29, born and bred in Russia, spent first 6 years of my career on building marketplace products (fashion classifieds and same-day delivery in LATAM/India/SEA), then failed a startup (we crowdsourced addresses and coordinates of 0.5M buildings in Metro Manila and sold that data to logistics companies via API) and now working on my second one.
I am also scared shitless to write publicly, so that’s also an exercise in handling that stress and writing better.