My co-founders and I have tried lots of things at Graphite—some ideas stick, some fade away. One ritual that has stood the test of time is maintaining a “Friends & Family” email list.
Under the hood, it’s a simple Google Group named “fnf@graphite.dev.” It can’t receive—only send emails—and we consistently add anyone who cares about us as individuals to the list.
I love it. Anywhere from once a month to once a quarter, Merrill, Tomas, and I write an email update. We’re honest—we share our wins, our misses, graphs of our progress, and fun photos of us hard at work. We talk about our ambitious future goals and then get to proudly report a year later that we actually hit our targets.
Remembering to send an update to the list takes meaningful energy—about a full workday by one of the founders each quarter (usually Merrill). At a startup where time is precious, it’s meaningfully expensive. But it’s time well spent.
Folks underestimate how much their network is unconditionally rooting for their success. Our friends want to follow along in our adventure; they want to know the twists and turns in our journey, and they write the nicest messages in response to our updates. Nothing is more motivating than us founders sending out an update and getting a torrent of positivity and encouragement from hundreds of our closest relationships. It gives us the fuel to keep pushing quarter to quarter.