The Month of May

Environment: Oceanside in Kailua-Kona, HI

Back for Round 2, which hopefully means I'm sticking with it. My first post was a kind of past/present recap on my pursuit of entrepreneurship/self-employment, and this will include some of the same. I also want these to be a reflection for me on the other things I'm pursuing in life, and this will contain an explanation of these as a result. It'll likely end up being a jumbled mess, but that's often how it feels like life is going for me, and I enjoy it. I'll make an effort to sort these out into cohesive categories with their own header after the fact, but no promises.

Throw with the Pros

I'll start with the familiar stuff. In my last post I mentioned implementing a new payment/purchase system, and I've since pushed out another update (my 10th since releasing the app) focused on quality of life improvements.

The biggest complaint I've gotten since releasing Throw with the Pros is that the tutorial is confusing and/or hard to get through. I'd made other minor changes to the tutorial previously, but this latest update included a full rework of the tutorial to be much shorter and simpler to navigate. I also made a number of unlock-able features, both through the free progression system and the subscription, visible from the first app launch. I think a lot of new users thought the app was much more basic than it is simply because they didn't know most of the features existed, and I previously had them hidden until unlocked. My hope is that these two big changes, along with other minor improvements in this update, will help with user retention and enjoyment after the initial download.

I've also officially kicked off the Throw with the Pros Ambassador team with four (4) members for the inaugural year. All ambassadors have their own code in the app, and it will be up to them to distribute that code to potential users. I know I need to improve at selling/marketing on my own, but I'm hoping they can help me out in the meantime. I'll run the team through the end of 2025 and will evaluate then whether or not it's worth continuing.

I still have plans to host my first public event round using Throw with the Pros (likely in June), and I sponsored my first tournament on behalf of Throw with the Pros about a month ago in Salt Lake City. This was a women's only event, and my sponsorship included discount codes in all of the player packs along with a donation to the pro purse in exchange for the ability to put up a couple of signs I had made on one of the holes. It's hard to say how impactful that marketing strategy is, but it is something I enjoy doing regardless.

C1x

I built a disc golf stats app in 2023 called C1x, only for iOS/watchOS and using Swift. Similar to Throw with the Pros, I think the fundamental idea for the app is good, but needs to be remade to truly be a finished product. I've started building this remake in Flutter, and have a growing list of beta testers to provide feedback on the app. The general idea of C1x is to greatly simplify scorekeeping for players while providing in depth statistics on their game.

I have a number of views working in the app currently, and will be trying to incorporate testing and feedback much earlier in the development process as opposed to my approach with Throw with the Pros.

I've also recently set up social accounts and a landing page for C1x which can all be accessed from the "projects" page on this site. C1x will be launched on both iOS and Android with companion watch apps to follow, and I expect a beta version to be ready within the next couple of months.

My plan is to livestream all development of C1x on the C1x YouTube channel I've created, which can be found with the tag @c1x_discgolf or using the link on the "projects" page. I'm eight streams in at the time of writing, and the app is coming along pretty quickly.

Pro Disc Golf

I've competed in a couple events since my last post, including the DGPT Kansas City Wide Open. My form, both throwing and putting, have largely been in shambles this year, and it showed at that event. I shot myself into dead last after the first round, clear of second-to-last by seven (7) strokes, but managed to shoot a couple of decent rounds to at least finish well above last. I think it was the hardest course that I have ever played, and I did manage to still shoot one 1000-rated round despite the condition my form was in.

I got on JomezPro briefly (no thanks to my own performance), and learned a lot about Pro Tour-caliber disc golf. I did improve my mental game quite a bit, and managed to stay in pretty high spirits throughout the tournament despite my play. I've since been breaking down my throwing and putting form in the field (my first fieldwork sessions of the year), and I'm gearing up for my next DGPT event this year in the Northwest Disc Golf Championships. The goal is to take a higher level of disc golf to Portland than I did to Kansas City.

06-08 Update: Portland went better than Kansas City. I still had a pretty slow first round, but came back with my first under par during the second day at Milo McIver and followed it up with a decent round at Glendovere. This performance felt closer to what I think my current skill level is, and gave me a great sense of what areas of my game need work in order to become more competitive at events of this caliber. Portland was also beautiful, the courses were incredible, Estacada is a great place to stay, and I can't wait to go back next year.

I've continued incorporating fieldwork sessions and form studies of some of the top pros into my weekly practice, and am definitely starting to see some improvements. It's ridiculous how much worse my form in Portland looked on camera than I pictured it looking in my head. I guess that's a positive; bad form means there's room for improvement.

It's now disc golf season in Utah, with some of the bigger events kicking off over the next couple of months. The goal is to win every event I play; a tall ask but by no means unachievable.

TwtP Expansion

I've continued to pitch Throw with the Pros to disc golf companies and companies in other individual sports. I've gotten a handful of responses, all generally positive but ending with something along the lines of, "Not interested, but we wish you the best." I've gotten one offer for a meeting which I'm currently preparing for, and I'll likely provide an update here before this post is published.

06-08 Update: Meeting went well, exploring expansion options and ways to continue growing the app.

Guitar Songbook

I mentioned the start of this project in my first post, and currently have a handful of songs in the book with drafts of a few others ready to add. This will be an ongoing project, hopefully for a number of years, and I've been trying to improve at the guitar alongside adding songs to the book. I slightly regret not bringing it to Hawaii, especially as I sit here by myself on the beach, but it would've been tough to pack. Hopefully I'll have a dozen or so songs in the book by the next post.

Physics

My degree is in mechanical engineering, but I had originally wanted to study theoretical physics. I shifted to engineering physics when I thought about the limited job opportunities in theoretical physics, and ten shifted again to mechanical engineering when I realized engineering physics wasn't much better. I don't necessarily regret that decision, but have continued to be fascinated with components of physics, specifically around relativity and astrophysics.

I recently decided to pursue this a bit in my free time, and am a couple of lectures into an open-source style course from MIT. It's essentially a series of lectures and problem sets from a past course actually taught at MIT, and I decided to start with a course from the mid-2000s on special relativity. The material made available from MIT is not a complete picture of the lectures, and I'm not buying textbooks for a college course I'm taking 20 years after the fact, so I'll instead be supplementing the lectures with my own research via the internet. I'm about to dive in to the first problem set, and will likely spend 2-3 hours per week on this moving forward.

If this course goes well, I'll move next to a similarly structured course at MIT on quantum mechanics, followed by a graduate-level MIT course on general relativity. I have the material downloaded and ready to go, but we'll see how in over my head I am with special relativity.

06-08 Update: Physics at MIT is hard.

Substack

06-08 Update: Since starting to write this blog post, I've come to the realization that writing is really good for me. My brain is typically running 100 miles an hour in 20 different directions, and writing gives me a chance to empty it. I've created a Substack account (https://dylantheory.substack.com) and am planning to post regularly to this. Major project updates will remain here as monthly (hopefully) posts, while Substack will contain more exploratory content focused around my journey towards entrepreneurship, disc golf improvement, or whatever I happen to be thinking that day.

For those unfamiliar, Substack is a platform where writers can post content. It has a other functions as well, but writing is what I'll be using it for. I'll be adding links to this website in the near future for easier access to my page. Subscribing would mean a lot!

Cheers,

Dylan