Stoa Digest #17: Welcome, welcome, welcome!

4 cohorts in, 1 year later.

Oct 04, 2021

Warning: This mail might get cut short in your inboxes, so come find us on Substack at:
The Digest

Fellow Feature

From the desk of Mr. Rengarajan Gunasekaran

A letter to all our freshly oriented Cohort 4 fellows:

I first came across this quote in an Irish Pub.

“There are no strangers here; Only friends you haven’t yet met”

Phew!

It prompted me to become good friends with my server that day, who proceeded to learn my habits better than most else.

Many of you might have such relationships with your chaiwala, hair stylist, grocery store owner, baker, sweeper, street corner smoke shop, etc.

Networking with professionals is no different.

You have discord at your disposal.
Drop a hello, feel free to involve yourself in discussions, start a thread.
If you don't know how to start a thread, ping Nicaia, or check out Community Buzz further down for some tips.
Know the legacy of +43 from past editions of the Digest. .
Will +71 trump +43? We can have that discussion on the cafe.
Long day at work? We will summon the God to host us a round of Mafia.
Have a great idea? We can have a teardown of that too.
Worried about stage fright? Chill, we have the Amphi.
By the way, if you know the Gen Z lingo, do a session.

It is okay to not know things. Being vulnerable is one of the best ways to learn new concepts. Jump on the stage and go with the flow. You will be a toastmaster by the end of your session.

Being an early adopter has its own advantages. You get to see various journeys and the roles you play in shaping up a business. You might come across a lot of new words, concepts soon. The learning doesn't stop with the live sessions.
For instance, KG asked out loud what does ‘OP’ mean at our post-Graduation hangout.
You will not just be surprised by the turnout but also by the diversity. From seasoned specialists to budding generalists, we have them all.

While it all might feel overwhelming, with the FOMO setting in when you miss some event, breathe in, take a sip & calm yourself.
If you miss a class, you have the recordings to view.

One step at a time.

The coach Kabir Khans are waiting to help sharpen your focus;
drone-achar-ya's to hone your skills.
For the fully functional or occasional fitness freak in you, we have Stoa Ka Dangal. Hop on to Meditation server to find your chi.
Pondering over your YC application? we have Rishpay to your rescue.
To inspire the Bob the builder in you, there’s Unolink and Number to Whatsapp

Like every class there will be first and last benchers, reverse your roles for a change. You have a wholesome bunch of people to help and cheer you all the way.

This is one school, where you will not be the worst batch (I don't even know if this joke makes any sense to some of you folks.)

When you need help or are looking to explore an area of interest,

All you must do is, ASK!

I asked Nix, if I can write this week's newsletter

and she said yes!

Cognitive overload, C4? Ready to explode?

Welcome to the gig, bruv!

Until we get on a 1-1 soon, Sayonara New Friends!

Signing Off,
Bob
Cohort 2

From The Team:

Hey folks,

We’ve had cohort 4 join the ranks of our Discord community in the last week, which means the “overwhelm” potential is currently way up high in the sky.

Something we’d like to urge you to be able to distinguish is, what conversations can be had in the public eye, and which need to be slotted into DMs.

If you’re having trouble with this, an easy way to judge this is simply:

“Will what I'm saying garner benefit or a reaction from more people than just this one lone person I’m sending it to?”

As always & forever, Shelton & Nicaia are pretty bullish on Threads, now more than ever before - so please if you see someone hanging outside of a thread, invite them in!

Some conversations will attract the attention of more than one person alone - and this will mean it is well-worth having a thread about.

Another small piece to remember is, there’s a lot of conversations that fellows in the community will be able to help you with, and provide input, context and/or insight into - so don’t only exist on your own cohort’s respective channels, because that’s your comfort zone.

Make yourself just the tiniest bit uncomfortable, and you’ll watch your connections & life experience 10x, with ease.

Birthday Parttaaayy! 🥳 🎂

7th - Tanay Shah, Vichar Shroff, Ajay Shokeen

8th - Utkrasht Srivastava

9th - Rishabh Jain

Community Buzz 🐝

BIG WINS:

Rahul Deshpande, our first ever meme lord has moved to greener pastures and joined Raise Financials as Senior Associate- Customer Experience and Community Management.

In the last week, one of our Alum from Cohort 1 Amit Chhabra launched one of the best solutions we didn’t know we needed.
You know how you always have to save your Delivery man’s number to send him your location, so you can feed your starving self?
Or anyone’s on WhatsApp, to send them a message? Even if it is a single time?
*painful*
WELL, NOT ANYMORE!
Amit built out a service that lets you message someone without having to save their number.
We’re excited to introduce to you:

Number to WhatsApp!!

Please do support him on Product Hunt & spread the word, if you end up using it.
The Discord’s been on a high ever since C2 graduated, and C4 had Orientation.
There are many fellows following in one certain Omnipresent Master’s footsteps.
If you’re intending on travelling to another city, there potentially is already a Meetup Group for it, so just check beforehand on the #Meetups channel.
Mr. Omnipresence: a title truly up for grabs at this point.

Here’s a few of the meet-ups from this past week

Best Discord messages this week:

Fellows Rocket🚀Shipping🚢 Content

Writing as a Weapon (WaaW) ✍🏼⚔️

So, as some of you already know a few of the fellows from Cohort 4 have been around for a while now, but in the last month, they’ve also been ‘Writing as a Weapon’.

This week is their last week of ‘Writing as a Weapon’, one of the Bonus Courses we ran for those who joined earlier, and you get to read some of their work below:

Tweeple 🐦

Blogs ✍🏼

For Stoans by Stoans

Watchtime 🎥

Meme Wars 🥲

This week’s shiny new winner of Best Meme goes to …………

Mr. Abhishek Panday

with Rishabh Sonker playing a storytelling meme-game, so you get TWO memes for the win of one!

Stoa Digest