Hey Reader,
I'm just going to get right to it and let you know I'm hitting pause on Fishy Fridays and shifting my focus to two new projects. Details below if you want to know more.
Confident Angler has been one of my favorite things I've ever built, and I didn't want to just quietly disappear. You deserve a real update about what's happening.
I may come back down the road. I still have a couple videos almost done that I plan to share when they're ready. And, OF COURSE, I'm going to keep fishing.
Hopefully I'll see you on the river.
That's the big update. Thank you for all the support this past year. It's meant so much to me.
| Did you like this week's issue? |
|
|
|
|
If you wanted a bit more of the longer story, here you go.
I started Confident Angler at a time where I just desperately needed more time on the water. After nearly two decades of sprinting hard as a marketing exec, I was so burned out. This project gave me an outlet to connect with people who love fly fishing and a chance to get serious reps in as a content creator.
I've learned so much. And the numbers still kinda blow my mind too.
- Published hundreds of short videos
- 19 long-form YouTube videos
- 78 weekly newsletters
- 4,772 Instagram followers
- 541 YouTube subscribers
- 418 of you reading this weekly newsletter
It's also been really hard. Earning a living in this industry is... difficult. That's just the reality.
But there's a story in John 21 that kept coming back as encouragement to me all last year.
The chapter opens with Peter and the disciples fishing all night, catching nothing. We all know how that feels. Then Jesus shows up and tells them to cast on the other side of their boat. A silly thing to say to men who literally fished for a living. A carpenter telling fishermen how to fish. Hilarious.
But they listened.
They hauled in so many fish they could barely pull the net in. But Peter didn't care about the fish. He jumped out of the boat and swam to shore. What mattered most was the relationship. Being faithful to the work. Trusting when it was time to make a change.
That story became real to me. I just kept fishing through the night. Kept showing up, kept creating, kept waiting.
The word to cast on the other side didn't come until the start of this year. It wasn't overt either. Just a subtle, growing sense of renewal, confidence, and joy again.
I'm not so burned out anymore and I'm really enjoying my work again. I'm building two exciting projects:
βConvena (launching soon). You are one of the very first people to even hear about it. You ask a question, a council of the world's best AI models all weigh in and challenge each other, and a chairman synthesizes it into one clear recommendation. Your own board of advisors. And the answers are WAY better than what you get from any one AI model.
Oh, and this part you'll appreciate: every session removes 5x its carbon footprint and funds river restoration through Trout Unlimited. I built an AI product, then learned what it costs the streams I fish. So I made it give back more than it takes.
β
Check it out at convena.aiβ
AI Memory Engine. Every AI conversation starts from zero. It doesn't know who you are or what you decided last week. I've built a system that fixes that. A context layer that stays current and makes every AI interaction a continuation instead of a cold start.
And you own it. You're not locked into any single AI company. You just swap out whatever AI model you want to use as the "brain" of the system. It's so powerful. You can learn more about it by following me on LinkedIn.
Anyway, that's all for now. Hopefully I'll see you out on the river sometime.
β
THANK YOU for all the support. I appreciate you.
Tight lines,
Derrick Hicks
Founder, Confident Angler