Happy 2023 y’all! It’s your monthly blast of things on Ben’s mind in the world of product, business, and life. Let’s dive in!

Learning how to make friends!

At the end of last year, I reached out to my dozens of followers because I’m trying to find friends. Just kidding, but I was looking for some friends in the world of entrepreneurship. A peer group that I was craving and that I felt others were craving as well!

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Turns out, other people were looking for entrepreneurship friends just like me! On January 12th of this year, we had our very first peer group meeting and I absolutely loved it! It was so refreshing to meet with like-minded folks and discuss some of the biggest challenges that were top of mind for us. The meeting was 90 minutes in groups of 5. I walked away with a google doc filled with notes, new connections and intros, and a new community that I can reach out to any day of the week.

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The next peer group meeting is April 5th, 2020, 12:30–2:00 pm PST. What will we be covering?

• 12:30 — Introductions and business updates
• 12:45 — Advertising. What’s working? What’s not working?
• 1:15 — Making your first sales hire and organizing a sales function. Where are folks finding success here?
• 1:50 — Concluding thoughts and follow on actions

Want to join? I’d love to expand the community! Email me and I’ll send you an invite 🙌

My 2022 stock pick of the year 🚜

I spend a lot of my time working on my personal finances so I thought I’d share some more of that in future letters including this one. At the end of 2021, I listened to my favorite country artist Kenney Chesney and realized my love for tractors and decided to change up my portfolio.

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Not exactly how it happened, but I did wind up placing a substantial investment (for myself) in John Deere (Ticker: DE). It was my move of the year with the stock up 22% since the time I bought it. Why do I like this stock besides the fact Kenney Chesney drives one?

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1. Tech was just starting to get abused. Having a tech-heavy portfolio I decided it may be a good idea to diversify. This led me into more value stocks.
2. Cashflow! DE pays a small dividend which I always love. I have to get my beer money somewhere!
3. 10-year hold. I’m looking for more and more companies that I can hold for a very long time. I’m pretty sure our need for food is only going to increase so I felt comfortable here.
4. You think the Tesla Model S is cool? You should see what the new generation of Deere tractors can do. The farmer doesn’t even need to leave their house anymore! I think this is important because my generation sure as hell ain’t going to take over farming. Someone has to do it and Deere is counting on that being their autonomous tractors.

So there ya have it! I’ll keep everyone apprised of exciting finance updates and hopefully, it gives you ideas. Keep in mind folks that none of this is professional advice. Deere’s stock price could be harvested any day.

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Notes To Self

Like I said in my last letter, 4 years ago when I started working on WeHero, I started writing down “notes to self”. My notes to self are thoughts and learnings that I have that I’d like to save for future reference. I now have hundreds of these notes. To put them to better use, I’m going to share a few of these in the newsletters. Maybe someone out there will find the notes to be helpful during their life journey as well!

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This Edition Of Product Hacks Is Brought To You By:

Me! No cool sponsors this week for the dozens of readers. So you all get our hero, Mr. Elon Musk, because his products go to space and that’s where our logo is from.

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About The Writer:

Ben Sampson is a product nerd and current co-founder at WeHero. He has built 4 companies in the past 10 years, and worked as a consultant for 4 years helping some of the largest companies in the world like Bloomberg, Dun & Bradstreet, etc. make some of the best products in company history.

Yes, I wrote this in 2nd person because it just sounds sooo much cooler! See you all on Twitter or LinkedIn.

Disclaimer: I don’t pay an editor to review my writing. If I made a typo you can publicly humiliate me on Twitter or LinkedIn. If you find any of my writing too direct or unprofessional, god made an <unsubscribe button>.

It actually wasn’t a god. Just some guy named Jared Dunn.