Heyhey! If you’re new here, welcome. I started this blog // newsletter to make it easier for people to get to know me and to open up more conversations. I also just want to get my thoughts out there.
October was pretty nuts and I have a list of things to do so I’m gonna keep this short!!
Subscribe to join the ride, and if you’ve got questions (or just want to talk), drop me a line at pointone@barbaros.ca
Coffee’s on me if I take more than 24 hours to reply.
If you want to learn a bit more about me -- check out this intro to both me and this blog:
Some reflection on October:
You can just build. I know everyone says this, and I don’t want to sound like an old head; but with what we have access to now, you can literally do anything.
I’m not saying you can achieve something great in a week. Time still matters. However, there used to be barriers to build amazing things -- which are now broken due to our ease of access to endless brilliant information and tools.
The most valuable skill today is learning how to learn -- because it enables you to master anything else efficiently. Equally important is figuring out how to apply what you learn. And with today’s increasingly powerful tools -- both those already available and the ones we build ourselves, like ML systems -- the real challenge is learning how to optimize them to reach our potential as effectively as possible.
HABGuard:
You can check out a 3 min demo here.
I want to build meaningful things, so I started looking into some of the world’s biggest problems. Which is where I found water scarcity -- I can’t solve it all. But by zooming in, and getting really in-the-details, I can find overlooked micro-problems, the unlock macro-solution.
This philosophy is what led us to water desalination plants, and the issue of harmful algal blooms (HABs).
These blooms can shut plants down for over a week, cutting output by up to 40% and costing $200K–$700K per day in lost production and maintenance. If detected early, operators can adjust intake, switch sources, or activate pre-treatment systems before contamination hits.
Our goal is to predict harmful algal blooms before they form, and we believe machine learning and AI poses undoubtedly the clearest pathway forward to achieve just that.
So I made a real-time HAB monitoring + prediction system pulling from 6 NOAA oceanographic datasets + Sentinel-2 satellite imagery.
I built and trained three ML models from scratch (Random Forest + Neural Network + Anomaly Detection) that were trained on prev. HABs + environmental data. These models I made analyze how those conditions evolve, to predict when + where blooms are likely to form -- achieving 93.8% risk classification and 98.5% HAB prediction accuracy.
Antifragility Labs:
If you haven’t read one of these yet, you likely don’t know that I’ve been building Antifragility Labs for the past year. We’re a software-first agency turning startup helping brands rank on AI and search engines alike.
Current clients include YC-backed startups, leading podcasts, ecom businesses, and major VC firms; building software defined by real tangible experience, not just theory.
Our thesis is that it’s too early to bet on a single software solution for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO). It’s silly to say what works today will work tomorrow when the market is so volatile. We can prove this through both recent events, and through studying the beginning of SEO.
So through staying a software-first agency, whenever a client faces a problem, we break it down into it’s first principles and build a software solution to it. Clients often face similar problems, so the software automates processes, therefore allowing us to take on more clients, while inputting less work. This holds us to a higher level of accountability compared to any other company in the GEO space today, and once we’ve built software we truly believe is sustainable, we will make the pivot to SaaS startup.
Our thesis is working out great with everything that’s been going on with Reddit.
Got our first press feature!! Small outlet, but fun milestone. Huge thanks to TechBeat Canada.
Was able to get free tickets to Elevate through cold outreach (smaller Canadian version of Web Summit). Me and my co-founder saw an empty startup booth so we grabbed it -- got a ton of clients to the point where we had to start rejecting people. We even got some folks asking if we were hiring haha.
Still shipping software for clients minimum 1x a week.
I’m working on an extremely interesting product and I think this will push our complete shift from agency >> startup.
Wealthsimple:
As you know, I’ve been taking a gap year after high school to intern at Wealthsimple. Some really exciting things happened this month!
For starters, our latest Wealthsimple presents, For Nerds Only.
It felt insane to be here for that. You really feel integrated within the team here, and what we’re building towards -- truly feel like something much bigger than yourself and it’s a great feeling, especially when it’s around such amazing people.
Not only that, but recently Wealthsimple closed a $750M round putting them at a $10B valuation!!
Very cool that I’m able to here for these super exciting moments, both humbled and grateful for that. I’m really getting a feel of what it’s like to be apart of a rocket-ship company that has found PMF, and I have no doubt it’ll help me in the future to understand how real speed looks like in building great companies.
Building AI automation software for AI experiences team + working on product under recent acquihire Emily Luk, Plently.
Hypesonic:
Started doing some work for an exciting startup, Hypesonic -- who recently closed a $3M round from Accel. The founder who I’m working under is SO cool -- Ananya Chadha -- a literal genius, and an exceptionally clear thinker. She’s been dedicating a lot of time to mentoring me and it’s been such a great learning experience + time getting to know her -- super excited to continue doing so!!
Main work here is helping GTM + building internal software + whatever Ananya needs done.
Side projects // everything else:
Building a SaaS for self-published authors -- though lately it’s mainly been Nitya building it haha.
So sad that the Jay’s lost -- ruined my Saturday night. Toronto needed it.
The #1 thing I want to learn within the next month: machine learning.
Final Reflections
This month I’ve been trying to practice radical optimism -- life gets extremely fun and enjoyable that way.
Along with that, I’ve came to some pretty deep realizations in turn of building in such volatility and depth.
One of which is that I believe it’s impossible to solve an entire problem. Because the biggest problems are just an umbrella of many other problems.
We need to zoom in, and get really in-the-details.
Because through that, we can find overlooked problems, that often lead to the greatest solutions.
This especially applies to complex problems like cancer. Yes, cancer itself is a problem, but the problem is so big, that within it, there is a number of many other problems; the length it takes to identify it, the technology available to cure it, etc.
It’s almost vague. The way to solve it is tackling it bit-by-bit by finding the small problems that others don’t see as they yield the greatest returns.
Thank You
If you gave this the time of your day to read, thank you. As I had noted at the beginning of this update, this blog is built to help me meet new people, and get my ideas out there.
So if at all you’d like to chat, don’t be a stranger and drop me a line at pointone@barbaros.ca
I promise to respond within 24 hours -- if I don’t I’ll buy // et you a coffee!
Later!!
- Noah B