Scar Tissue

You do not come back unchanged.
Sometimes that is the point.

7am, June 15th 2026, prepped and ready for surgery

If you recall in last month's newsletter, I mentioned the bouldering accident I had in early March this year.

Well, last month I had ACL reconstruction, which is a pretty major knee surgery. So whether I liked it or not, I really had to slow down.

For someone who is used to moving fast, this has been uncomfortable. I am not great at sitting still. I am not great at waiting. I am especially not great at having a big idea and then being told, by my own body, that I need to rest before I can do the next thing.

But now I am leaning into the slowing down, because it allowed me to do something important.

It allowed me to cut out the noise and really reflect.

Cheese has been working hard offering Cat Therapy while I recover

I did not plan to spend this much time on the couch this year!

Before surgery, I had spent months talking to people across the post-production community: freelancers, editors, colorists, facility owners, technologists, producers, founders, operators, and people who have lived through every version of this industry.

They told me a lot of things that I did not fully take to heart at the time, because I was still driving toward one very specific version of the goal.

But just as everything else in my world got turned upside down after surgery, so did Daily Special.

Not the mission. That has stayed very clear:

The workforce has changed. The infrastructure needs to change with it.

But I started to see something important.

People need this sooner than I can open the first Daily Special Studios facility.

They need access now. They need trusted options now. They need clearer pathways into the spaces, communities, tools, and professional environments that already exist, without all the friction, opacity, and extra stuff their projects do not need.

So while I have been resting, "protein-maxxing", recovering, icing, elevating, doing physical therapy, and learning how to tolerate a slower pace, I have also been building the first layer of Daily Special.

Daily Special Studios is still the long-term goal: neighborhood-based spaces built around community, work, events, and serious infrastructure.

But Daily Special Exchange comes first.

I am beyond excited about this.

I do not want to say too much yet, because we are still in the proof-of-concept stage. But I have been testing an early version of the product, and I am about to start working through it with some fantastic people across the industry who share the same philosophy and mission.

Over the coming weeks and months, the goal is to make it reliable, useful, accessible, and ready for real-world testing.

It's so cool. It's going to have an amazing impact. I can't believe that slowing down helped me find the faster path.

I cannot wait to show it to more of you.

Since you are already on the mailing list, you will be invited to be part of beta testing when we are ready.

Because this starts with the people ✊