Hey Reader,

It started with ribs.

Not a business epiphany. Not a deep conversation about values. Just me, in a Vegas dive bar, eating baby backs and debating which type of rib has the most fat with two strangers from Seattle who’d never been to Vegas before.

(Answer: it’s the baby backs. I said so. They agreed.)

That’s how I met Kim and Kent. Late 60s, charming in a way that made me immediately trust them with both a car and a casserole. So when Kent told me, completely casually, that he now delivers speedboats across the US “because I like them,” I nearly dropped my margarita.

No backstory. No rebrand. No master plan. He just… liked boats. So he found a way to spend his time around boats. He drives them to new owners. Gets paid for it. The last one was for a UFC fighter.

We ended up bar-hopping and ziplining eleven stories above Fremont Street in full Superman harnesses. But the actual what am I doing with my life moment? That happened back at the bar.

Because if Kent can just decide to become a boat guy, why are so many of us still trying to force our businesses into someone else’s version of “legit”?

I mean, what would I even type into Indeed?

“Solves weird backend problems using Airtable and the sheer will to not drop any balls”?
“Helps creative people make sense of their offer suite, even if it’s currently sketched on a napkin and possibly haunted”
"Accidentally made someone cry with a colour-coded capacity tracker”?

None of it sounds like a real job. But it is.

Most of us are running businesses that don’t make sense on paper. We made it up. We learned as we went. We patched it together and built systems around our own mess.

But that doesn’t mean it’s not real. And it definitely doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong.

You don’t need a “cleaner niche” or a more Pinterest-friendly client journey map.

You need a system that bends around the way you think. That tracks what you’re already doing, instead of asking you to change how your brain works. That makes the chaos legible, so you can keep building without burning out.

That’s what Dream Dashboards is for.

Not to make your business aesthetic. Not to box you into a funnel. But to help you actually see the thing you built and find a way to run it that doesn’t involve daily existential dread every time you open a spreadsheet.

Kim and Kent didn’t overthink it. They booked the trip. Ordered the ribs. Became boat people.

And somehow, that made more sense than half the business advice I’ve ever read online.

So now I’m asking you:

What’s your speedboat job?

The thing that doesn’t sound real, but is. The business you made from scratch. The spreadsheet you’re kind of scared to open. The work that only makes sense once people see it in action.

Hit reply and tell me. I want to hear how weird and brilliant your brain is. (Kent would too.)

Speak soon

Zx