Proud padre

I haven't opened a docs page in months. Claude reads them for me.

Turns out I'm not the outlier. Across the 20,000+ company docs running on Mintlify, agents now account for more than two-thirds of all traffic. 

Customers ask agents first, and agents answer with whatever your docs told them. Behind every agent is a person deciding whether to buy from you. Make sure your docs give the right answer.

Mintlify's Agent Score shows where your docs stand: run it for your docs and get a report with actionable improvement steps. A quarter of the last YC batch runs their docs on Mintlify (and companies like Anthropic, Perplexity, and Polymarket). 

If you're an early-stage startup → Mintlify covers your first six months of Pro (and covers twelve if you're in the current YC batch) 👀. 

I'm a dad!

Well, more of a padre. Let me explain…

Health and wellness is a real passion of mine. I've been doing daily workouts since middle school, and I try to spend the majority of my time outside of work doing some sort of activity: surf, yoga, tennis, hiking, etc.

As I wrote about last week, I began to really prioritize my mental health last year as well: meditate daily, cut coffee, don't touch my phone in the morning or before bed, breathwork on the weekends… you get it.

I was introduced to contrast therapy a few years ago and now look for every excuse to do it. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I start my morning with a swim, cold plunge, and sauna sesh before locking in at work.

All in all — these habits have genuinely changed my life. I'm working more than ever before, but feel more in control and less stressed than ever.

Earlier this year, a couple of friends and I invested in and launched a new wellness project in Medellín. And while I'm not involved in the day-to-day operations, it's been such a fun and fulfilling passion project.

Watching another business operate up close in the zero-to-one stage has inspired a lot of my recent work at beehiiv, and made me a much better operator. I'll get to all of that in a minute, but first let me introduce you to…

MADRE: a social wellness club in Medellín, home to the largest sauna in all of Latin America.

The idea for some sort of social wellness club centered around contrast therapy came a few years ago while I was in Costa Rica with my buddy Tonner (co-founder of Rare Days). We landed on the name MADRE, I bought the domain, and added it to my collection of ideas that go nowhere.

But there was something so visual and aesthetic about the concept that, unlike most of my other ideas, we decided to immediately hire a designer to build out a brand identity. A few weeks and a few thousand dollars later, we had a beautiful creative expression of what this thing could be.

Those files collected dust on my laptop for months. It was a fun creative outlet while I had a little extra time over the winter holidays, but I couldn't take it any further. beehiiv consumes 99% of my waking hours, so I tossed MADRE to the side as some future project that could be fun to explore someday.

That was until one of my closest friends in Medellín, Mateo, took an interest in the project. He was shutting down his previous business and looking for his next thing. I told him I would put in some cash and round up a few of my health-conscious founder friends to help fund the project if he wanted to run with it.

Again, for a while this project felt like it wasn’t going anywhere. Every few months I'd get a message from Mateo about a spot he'd found, only for it to fall through.

He had been sourcing locations for almost a year when, this past March, he found arguably the best spot in the city. It's in the heart of El Poblado (the wealthiest and most prominent neighborhood in the city), but tucked away on this quiet side street surrounded by boutique hotels and restaurants.

And so for the past several months Mateo has been leading the construction project, hiring a local team, and bringing this little creative vision of mine to life.

There's not much I can contribute to a physical business remotely. We did the branding years ago, and I don't know shit about construction. But I volunteered to build the website because I feel like I've been a total imposter sitting on the sidelines watching this whole AI hype cycle around vibe coding.

I run a 130-person team at beehiiv, and we have a mature product. There aren't many greenfield opportunities for me to build something from the ground up and scratch that creative itch of mine. But the best way to learn how to use Claude Code and the latest AI tools is to just get your hands dirty and dive in head first.

This was the perfect excuse to do exactly that. I spent a few weekends in April and May tinkering around to build this, and I'd consider it one of the most liberating and transformative experiences I've had in my career: no designers, no engineers, just a whole lot of curiosity and a vision of what I wanted this brand to become.

The end result is something I'm super proud of. You can explore it for yourself here (let me know if you find any bugs).

Prior to that, I had never truly vibe-coded anything. Learning how to actually use these AI tools totally changed how I approach problems back at beehiiv.

Since then, I've built a customer support agent that gathers data and context so our support team can answer tickets more quickly and confidently. I've built a dashboard to proactively monitor and detect fraud in the beehiiv Ad Network. I've vibe-coded tons of pages for the marketing site to test new positioning and designs.

In fact, my default for any problem now is to build a prototype for the team to evaluate more thoroughly. And I've become a much better resource for our internal AI initiatives as someone with a few projects under my belt.

Another unexpected source of inspiration: using competitors' products. Well, technically I wouldn't consider Resend, Customer.io, or Klaviyo a competitor of beehiiv… but they all offer email services for different purposes. Of course, we'll use beehiiv for newsletters.

But when I was building the MADRE website, I had to sync it with Resend for transactional emails, and explored both Customer.io and Klaviyo for marketing campaigns. I learned a lot, and each of them inspired me in a different way: configuring your DNS settings on Resend was delightful, and both Customer.io and Klaviyo had a really streamlined onboarding.

I immediately pinged the product team and shared these insights. Our DNS setup and onboarding were both in need of some TLC, and I thought we could use these companies for inspiration. (Both projects are underway as we speak.)

The truth is — I have my head so far up my ass in my day-to-day at beehiiv. I sit too close to it, and it's the only thing I ever think about. Even if just for those few weekends, I gave myself permission to be curious and tinker on something new, which provided such a fresh perspective.

And the result? A new support agent, better fraud detection, a newly-optimized onboarding flow, a delightful DNS experience for users, tons of prototypes, and a whole lot more coming soon.

The natural question I always get: where do I find the time to do all of this?

To shoot it straight — I don't watch TV (I don't even own one), I haven't watched a movie in years, and besides my morning run to the gym, I don't leave my apartment during the week. Outside of my recent trip to Europe, I can't remember the last weekend I didn't spend working.

While most people have hobbies (or a girlfriend), I spend my time building.

I don't say any of that to flex or indulge in hustle culture. I've just made some very intentional tradeoffs in my life to pursue these things. But I love to build; this shit gives me so much fulfillment and energy.

Sure, I could see The Odyssey this Saturday night. Or I could spend a few hours on a little passion project that could one day become the largest wellness brand in all of Latin America.

Speaking of weekends, I spent the past few down in Medellín doing whatever I could to help get the place ready for launch. It hasn't been easy, and it's far from perfect. (We imported custom-built cold plunges from China, and they're still stuck at port after the earthquake.)

But imperfection is part of the brand. Notice how the MADRE logo isn't perfectly circular — it’s an intentional choice to call attention to the imperfections of life and what makes us all unique.

And so when I said we were going to have a launch party on August 22nd, come hell or high water, that meant accepting all of the imperfections that came along with it (and there were plenty). But this past Saturday, a few friends DJ'd the event, and about a hundred people dropped by to see this beautiful space we created.

As for what's next, MADRE opens its doors to the public this Friday. Meanwhile, I'm back in LA, where my role is mostly being a supportive investor, reposting content on Instagram, and cheering on the local team from afar.

If you want to get involved, there are a few ways to do that:

Otherwise, if you live in Medellín or plan to visit, it'd mean the world to me if you book a session (or get a membership!) and drop by to support the business.

And for those who aren't fortunate enough to experience it in person: the least you can do is shoot MADRE a follow on Instagram. The content is really next level (shoutout our designer Antonia).

I'm a proud padre.

If you enjoyed this post or know someone who may find it useful, please share it with them and encourage them to subscribe: mail.bigdeskenergy.com/p/proud-padre

In honor of being in Medellín the past few weeks, here’s a pretty rad home office that has a much better view than mine.

Think you can generate a better office? Reply with your submissions 📨.

Some of my favorite content I found on the internet this week…

Turn on, tune in, drop out. Click on any of the tracks below to get in a groove — each selected from the full Big Desk Energy playlist.

Share this newsletter with your friends, or use it as a pickup line.

👉 Your current referral count: {{ rp_num_referrals }} 👈

Or share your personal link with others: {{rp_refer_url_no_params}}

Enjoyed this newsletter? Forward it to a friend and have them signup here.

Until next Tuesday 🕺🏽

📥 Want to advertise in Big Desk Energy? Learn More