Dan Romero

I am currently working on Tempo.

I'm an angel investor in Meter, Linear, Uniswap, Bridge, Privy, WorkOS, Hadrian, Varda, Brain Co., Substack, Fal, Athena and many more startups.

2025

  1. Agents and StablecoinsWhy consumer spending via agents will most likely be with cards in the near-term
  2. The crypto barbellSpeculation, stablecoins and nothing in-between
  3. Are content coins good?New things require iteration but also an open mind
  4. Farcaster Frames are now Farcaster Mini AppsRenaming Farcaster frames to Farcaster mini apps
  5. Software as contentAn app for every occasion.

2024

  1. Bad is the defaultIt’s entropy.
  2. Where are the crypto apps?Why aren’t there more compelling “consumer” crypto “apps”?

2023

  1. Rome, Sweet Rome meets ChatGPTHaving ChatGPT draft a screenplay for Rome, Sweet Rome.
  2. Farcaster ideasIdeas for stuff to build on Farcaster.

2022

  1. On subscriptionsConsumer internet monetization in the 2010s vs. 2020s
  2. Product-led protocol developmentIf you’re not willing to do it yourself, why would others?
  3. RSS+The original brainstorm for what became Farcaster
  4. Cryptonative domain registrarWhat if every domain name was represented as an NFT
  5. What I’m excited for this build cycleThe Merge, L2s, practical ZKPs and more
  6. config.xyzPortable user settings as an NFT.
  7. Podcasting distribution is the problem to solveBuilding a direct connection between podcasters and listeners is unsolved.
  8. Crypto things I’m excited aboutWe’re still in the first inning of new crypto primitives.

2021

  1. Free startup ideas11 ideas. No guarantees they are good, though.

2020

  1. 2020 booklistBooks I read in 2020.
  2. Strava for cookingSocial network for serious amateur cooks
  3. The toothbrush testA helpful heuristic I use to evaluate consumer apps is the toothbrush test.
  4. Significantly worse or non-existentOne important question when evaluating a new product or technology is “will people or companies adopt this?”.
  5. Good and bad reasons to do an MBAThe pros and (mostly) cons of an MBA for people who want to work in tech.
  6. Erik Torenberg’s Venture Stories podcast interviewI recently went on the Venture Stories podcast with Erik Torenberg.
  7. Netscape’s contributionsA short list of Netscape’s contributions to the modern Internet.
  8. COVID-19 learningA running list of concepts I learned from COVID-19.
  9. What to watch March 2020Crowd-sourced recommendations from Twitter on what to watch.
  10. Jekyll linklogHow to make a Daring Fireball-style linklog with Jekyll.
  11. Improved Anki stylesheetsA few quick improvements for more legible Anki cards.
  12. How this website worksAn overview of how danromero.org is built and runs.
  13. January 2020 links83 links I found interesting last month.
  14. iPad at 10The iPad at 10-years old.
  15. Startup canonI often get introduced to people looking to make the jump into startups and Silicon Valley. This is the reading list I send them.
  16. Coinbase’s pragmatic crypto cultureIf there is a defining cultural trait that was responsible for Coinbase’s success it was the company’s pragmatism.

2019

  1. 2019 favorite RSS subscriptionsI spent a majority of 2019 avoiding Twitter. As a result, most of my Internet consumption originated from blogs, group messaging and email newsletters.
  2. December 2019 linksLinks I found interesting last month.
  3. 2019 booklistI had more time for reading this year. I also traveled to several new countries and tried to read a book related to the place I was visiting.
  4. Next stepsAfter 5 years, I’m leaving Coinbase at the end of the month.