Last updated 7 Jan 2024.
My current favorite starting point for introducing people to my thinking and worldview is a blogpost titled The Library Ethos, which I think captures the core essence of my personality and my vision. After that, check out We Were Voyagers and Are you serious? on my Substack, Voltaic Verses.
My mission is to build the greatest social graph of friendly, ambitious nerds that the world has ever seen.
I was a lonely, isolated misfit of a nerd growing up, and I taught myself how to make friends. I got pretty good at it.
Over the years, some of the warmest, smartest and kindest people I’ve ever met have confided in me that they feel lonely and disconnected. This blew my mind, and it continues to blow my mind. And I want to help fix it. I want to help solve The Losev Problem.
I believe that this mission is achievable not because I’m better than all my predecessors who attempted it (Erasmus, Mersenne, Gertrude Stein, McLuhan, many others), but because I have access to technology that my predecessors did not.
Here is a work-in-progress google doc of my ongoing plan to build the global nerd network I’m talking about.
At present, I think the most critical thing I could do in service of the mission is to find and connect with individual switchboard operators. If you feel that you fit the bill, or you know someone who does, let’s chat!
“Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations for Twitter Addicts” – My 1st ebook Friendly Ambitious Nerd ▲ is about becoming a kinder, bolder and more curious version of yourself.
FAN v1.0 is a fairly short, easy read – lots of people said they breezed through it easily in a couple of hours, and found useful elements to integrate into their own lives. Someone described as “Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations for Twitter Addicts”, which I think is a fantastic way to think about it.
You can buy it now at gum.co/FANbook. Here is a “one page summary“.
“The self-help book I wish someone wrote for me”: My 2nd ebook INTROSPECT ꩜, is about the inward hero’s journey to earn your own trust and self-respect.
Introspect is the guidebook that I wish someone had written for me when I was going through my teens and 20s. I’ve condensed almost everything useful I know about managing your psychology, troubleshooting your inner narrative, persisting through despair, dismantling your inner tyrant, and truly coming home to yourself. I’ve described it as a remix of Nietzsche, Emerson, Alan Watts, Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung and more.
You can buy it now: gum.co/introspect. Here is a “one page summary“.
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There are several other book drafts that I’m working on simultaneously, which are publicly accessible:
- Constructive ADHD – lots of people seem to really like this one
- Less Unstrategic – why blunder around cluelessly when thinking ahead do trick?
- Uninstalling Copes – about my journey quitting smoking
- … and several others, which you can check out in my centralnode google doc, if you’re interested.
I’m also working to build my YouTube channel, which recently crossed 5,000 subscribers
It would mean a lot to me if you subscribed! My plan is to replicate what I’m micro-famous for on Twitter – building a web of thoughtful nerd content that’s known to have a nourishing, supportive space for comments and engagement.
I have a public Roam database you can check out.
I’m most active on Twitter. I’m known for my elaborate, interwoven threads.
“Visakan Veerasamy has created — and continues to create — a fascinating stream of interlinked tweets. It is a work of art. We see the history of his craft in the artwork itself.” – Kahlil Corazo [source]
“My Twitter feels like a local library. […] There are a lot of knowledgable folks out there, but Visakan Veerasamy is the ultimate librarian. I like to think of him as the crown prince of Nerd Twitter […] Visa is playing the Twitter game on a whole new level. He’s constructing a digital version of his brain, and his curation style feels like an early iteration of something that might one day go mainstream.” – Aaron Z. Lewis, The Spreading of Threading
“Visa’s entire web presence is a lavish longitudinal autoethnography — a warm data wellspring… (Not to mention the simply resplendent vibes, free from ‘growth hacking’ gimmicks & ponzi-ish sleaze. The permaculture of audience-building.)” – Daniel McNichol, Ingroup Colossus: @visakanv
I maintain a list of my Twitter threads. Here’s a list of tweets with at least 100 favorites.
People also ask about the memex in my header picture all the time:
I’m currently working on @1000wordvomits, a project to write 1,000,000 words in 1,000 sets of 1,000. I started on this project in December 2012. As of Oct 2022, I’m 81.5% complete.
I maintain a list of bookmarks that are quite popular.
Here are a list of blogposts I’ve written over the years:
2023
2022
2021
2020
2019
Talking to people makes you a better writer
2017
Being Smart vs Being Kind – This is another thing that I find myself sharing a lot, because so many intelligent people needlessly limit themselves by being unkind. It has some similarities with the idea of “radical candor.”
My relationship with religion – this is one of those things that I just felt like I had to write down at some point, just to make sense of it for myself.
One must imagine Sisyphus LOL-ing – this is a pretty decent representation of my personal approach to managing the widely-perceived crisis of existence.
The instructions I wish I was given as a newbie startup marketer
2016
Beware the moral failing fallacy – even in our supposedly secular modern times, when you really sit down and analyze people’s mistakes and failings, eventually you tend to arrive at some variation of “I’m lazy / greedy / jealous / selfish -> I’m a horrible person”.
2015
My journey from underachieving student to moderately competent adult [2016] – I wrote this when an older friend I admire who works in education asked me about my personal experiences growing up.
2014
An Analysis of Power And Social Dynamics In ‘Mean Girls’ – somehow still one of the best things I’ve ever written.
Letter to a young songwriter – I wrote this for a younger version of myself, and I find myself referencing it quite often. The central insight is “don’t try to be good, or to have fun – strive to be prolific instead.” Your ideas about what is good and what is fun will both change once you’ve got more experience. So just get as much experience as you can.
Would modern day Singapore as a nation cease to exist if a megaton nuclear bomb was detonated over it? – This is probably the funniest and most entertaining Singapore-related content I’ve had go viral.
Here’s something I wrote when I was annoyed with some “hustle porn” type content that was very lacking in numbers: How to bullshit everybody with an inspirational success story, sans facts
2013
I’ve had a blogpost about procrastination hit the front page of Hacker News, which got me over 18,000 hits and all sorts of interesting emails and requests.
2012
My blogpost about meeting Singapore’s PM Lee Hsien Loong went viral a few years back. He’s a smart guy.
I’m a marketer by trade. I built content teams to achieve marketing goals. Now I do consulting re: branding and positioning.
I was the first marketing hire at ReferralCandy. I managed the ReferralCandy blog in particular. I’ve helped it grow from 2,000 hits per month to over 130,000 hits per month, during which time ReferralCandy users made over $100,000,000 in referral revenue.
I’m always happy to talk about content marketing, SEO, distribution, hiring writers, managing a writing team, etc. My slides on “how I edit email copy” was well-received on Twitter.
Check out my marketing blog here: visakanv.com/marketing/. I particularly recommend The Instructions I Wish I Was Given (As A Newbie Startup Marketer)
You can hire me for a consultation for US$600/session. Here’s a glimpse into my consulting process.
Reach out to me:
The best way to reach me is on Twitter, at @visakanv. You can also try emailing me, visakanv at gmail.
If you sign up for my Substack, you can reply to the emails that I send.
I also have a Patreon, where you can get private updates on my writing career.
I also read and try to reply to all my youtube comments at youtube.com/visakanv
Other things about me:
I co-founded statement.sg, which has sold over $100,000 worth of t-shirts and counting. We get quite a bit of media attention about it.
I organized a “screaming event” where I invited strangers to come and scream at Hong Lim Park with me. It also got quite a bit of media attention.
I have a very funny wife and two cats that have no respect.
