dave's departure

hi,

i’m guessing every time you open up these emails you expect to read something along the lines of:

> check out this new feature! > look at all these great numbers! > hey ma! nfl players, artists and top ceo’s are all using blok!

all the good stuff, straight to your inbox.

but the reality is building blok is not all highlights.

there’s many lowlights along the way and today i’m going to share one of them with you:

our head of content just quit.

the same guy that was consistently bringing us millions of monthly impressions every month, making those sick edits you’ve probably seen, is no longer with the team.

before i tell you why and where he’s going, let me tell you the story of how he joined us... cause i’m feeling nostalgic :’).

⊙

it all started with a cold email from him back in april:

in short, he was like: i saw your project, i vibe with it and here’s a free video i made for you to post.

kinda cool, but the video was meh and i didn’t have the time to onboard a random stranger into the team. so i ignored the message and moved on with my day (sorry dave!).

a week later, he sends me an even longer email.

i won’t post screenshots, BUT, this time around, he included an attachment:

dave designed and printed a blok on his own!!

oh wow, now we’re talking.

i reply, we schedule a call and decide to do a 2-week trial.

he was obviously a great fit so he started working with us thereafter.

whilst at blok, dave created more than 100 videos, generated millions of impressions and printed many thousands in sales.

above all, he brought fresh energy to every meeting and a contagious ambition that permeated the team.

so... why did he leave?

he said he wasn’t as motivated as he once was and wanted to move on to work on other stuff, including developing his personal ig page.

(in hindsight, this was definitely my fault as a leader. i took many learnings from this experience.)

and that’s it, that’s the origin story!

⊙

as i said up top, it’s not always highlights here at blok. there’s some tough stuff along the way but i try my best to take the learnings from both the good and the bad.

oh, go give dave a follow on ig before he’s famous.

till next time, dani

p.s. here’s a sick kobe edit dave did that got over 585,000 views — click to watch.