Henrik Substack #6 - A frameworks for living, Conversational Commerce and my favorite gadgets
Welcome to my inklings—random things I stumble upon in the pursuit of “interestingness.” Grab a coffee and dive in! I’ll send these whenever I’ve gathered enough thoughts worth sharing.
Text in green are hyperlinks to more information or the original source
The 8+1 Framework: A System for Purposeful Living: Over the years, I've developed a framework that helps me manage my various activities like creating companies, teaching, investing, and still trying to maintain a happy, healthy family life. It's built around eight key areas: Transact (making money), Invest (activities that compound over time), Assist (helping others), Learn (constant improvement), Health (body and mind), Family (being present), Relationships (maintaining connections), and Ego/Self-Kindness (creating joy). The "+1" is a weekly/daily review to ensure each area gets appropriate attention. The beauty is in its simplicity - every activity fits into one or more boxes, helping me decide what to take on and what to skip. For example,” walking to work” hits both Health and Self-Kindness boxes, while teaching entrepreneurship fills Learn and Assist. A friend suggested I share this, and if you're curious about implementing it yourself, I'd love to hear how it works for you. (Thanks to Dan Shipper from Every for initially writing about this in Super Organizers). Link to more about the framework.
Learning to Think in Products. I heard someone talking about replacing Figma with Replit, jumping straight from idea to prototype. I am super fascinated about this shift: thinking in products rather than “just” wireframes. Tools like Replit make it easier to experiment with functional prototypes, sharpening your ability to envision and test how a product will actually work. Been pondering about how to become better at thinking in products (and teaching that skill to my teams). Maybe it just means asking: “What’s the smallest, testable version of this idea?” It’s a skill that builds both speed and clarity. Paul Graham's post on this shift is worth reading
Here are a few podcast episode recommendations for you. First, I really find my friend Gabe Whale super interesting. I love his approach to business building and his incredible appetite for experimentation and creativity. Listen to him on Invest Like The Best. Another very impressive person is Brice Challamel. Not sure if you remember seeing the video about how Moderna embraced AI? Brice is one of the driving forces behind getting his organization to gain this first-mover advantage. He has one of the most insightful approaches I have seen so far. Here is a conversation with him.
A few AI tools that I started to use more: Ideogram is great for making graphics with text. They have an iPhone app. It’s very addictive. Gamma is currently the best “make me a deck” generic service. If you are looking to make a pitch deck, I might be biased, but Audos is still the best at that. Lastly, Particle is my new AI based News Source of choice.
Tracking your child’s sleep. Like many parents, I’ve spent more time than I’d like to admit worrying about whether my kid is sleeping enough, sleeping too lightly, or just plain not sleeping. Enter Withings Sleep, a mat-based sleep tracker that slips under the mattress and provides real-time data on sleep cycles, heart rate, and breathing disturbances.
Also been experimenting with using ChatGPT to track what I eat and analyze my weight trends. I use a custom GPT for tracking food intake, calories, and macros (here’s the customGPT tool) and combine that with weight data from my Withings scale. Together, they generate a detailed review of my eating habits, weight loss/gain patterns, and tailored recommendations for improvement. It’s like having a personal nutritionist + data analyst rolled into one. The insights are surprisingly actionable, like tweaking meal timing or adjusting protein intake for better results. (I use Claude.ai for the analysis)
Sometimes, simple products just hit differently. The Casper Glow Light is one of those. It’s an elegant, portable night light designed for better sleep and quiet, cozy evenings. The intuitive design—tap to dim, flip to turn off—feels like a masterclass in minimalism and function. It’s not flashy, just genuinely useful. Some other new non-obvious gadgets I got recently: New Oura Ring, Meta Ray-ban, Instagram 360 Camera, Elgato teleprompter for keeping eye-contact when doing podcasts.
I am starting an experiment with conversational commerce through an Instagram test called How Dogs Dream. The concept is simple: I run ads asking if people are curious about their dog’s dreams. An AI chatbot then starts a conversation to learn more about their dog. If BARK has a relevant product, it suggests it—if not, I leave it at that. It’s a no-pressure experiment to see how AI-led interactions can add value to BARK (lowering cac) while exploring a fascinating topic. You can try the bot yourself here. Curious to hear your thoughts!
Are you also overwhelmed by your book reading list? Here’s a hack: I’ve started buying books I want to read but don’t have time for as text files and uploading them to NotebookLM. It can generate audio conversations that summarize the main ideas. The deep dives it produces are surprisingly solid at picking up the key points of the book. Perfect for “reading” on the go!
Tell me what works and what doesn’t—drop me a line! Reply to this newsletter, chat with me on Substack, or find me on LinkedIn.
I also publish a podcast about AI, make dogs and their people happy, and help 10,000 entrepreneurs launch companies. If you find something useful in this inkling, please share the newsletter!
