TBOY Newsletter · Tuesday, August 4, 2026

Before James Bond was a $10B movie franchise, it was a book written by Ian Fleming, an actual British ex-spy. Every summer, Fleming flew to his Jamaica house (called Goldeneye) and wrote a new best-selling 007 book. Here’s his daily work-from-home schedule:

• 7:30am: Ocean swim, eggs for breakfast, watch the birds

• 10:00am: Sit down and write 1,500 words

• 12:15pm: Snorkel for lobsters, drink 2 pink gins with lunch

• 2:30pm: Siesta

• 4:00pm: Another swim

• 5:00pm: Write 500 more words

• 7:00pm: Dinner with wife Ann, play Scrabble

• 10:00pm: Bedtime

4 hours of writing a day, 11 hours sleeping/napping, the rest swimming & drinking. Exactly the balance that let him (as he put it) "write without looking back.” Some inspo for your own work routine.

Full Disclosure: Nick collects 1st edition James Bond novels. 5 of the original 14 so far - they’re beauties.

Vita Coco started with two guys hitting on two Brazilian women at a NYC bar, asking what they missed most from home. The answer? Coconut water. One of them moved to Rio, married one of those women, and started importing what became Vita Coco to the US in 2004.

Millennials became so cuckoo for coconut water it led to The Coconut Wars of the early 2010s:

• Coca-Cola acquired Zico

• Pepsi invested in One Coconut Water because it got #CocoFOMO

• And Vita Coco partnered with Dr Pepper just to keep up with distribution

A decade later, coconut water went sour: Coke shut down its Zico brand and Pepsi switched theirs to enterprise only. But Vita Coco kept at it.

The Takeaway Don’t confuse a peak for a summit.

A summit is the highest point you’ll ever hit. A peak means there’s still a higher point ahead.

Coke and Pepsi saw coconut water’s hype curve flatten and assumed the fad was over. But Vita Coco treated each dip as a pause, not an ending — riding it during the pandemic as a health drink, then again as a hangover cure. The fad kept evolving. Vita Coco hasn’t reached the summit yet.

In 1991, Garmin invented the 1st consumer GPS device — no screen, $2.5K, it just buzzed if you drifted off course. By 2008, its suction-cup car GPS units were 64% of revenue. Then Google Maps on iPhone sent that biz to zero.

Butttt, Garmin didn’t fold — it stuffed the same satellite tech into a wristband and branded it “fitness-tracking.” Last quarter its wearables grew 25% to a level 3x higher than 4 years ago. That’s despite Apple Watch, Fitbit, Oura, and Whoop all fightin' for the same wrist. The reason: Garmin won the hardcores… it won the run clubs:

• Garmin’s satellite tracking is more precise than phone-based GPS, and the battery lasts through a full marathon.

• Runners are chasing PRs, not PBRs. And they’re doing it wearing Garmin.

Garmin’s stock has tripled in 3 years, with revenue, profit & the share price all just hitting #ATH All-Time Highs.

The Takeaway Garmin’s beating Big Tech by going back to Y2K.

No ecosystem to lock you into, tactile buttons instead of a touchscreen, no monthly subscription required — Garmin’s watch may look clunky, but you buy it once and it’s yours. It’s designed to feel 20 years old, and that appeals to people.

Eighteen years after Apple gutted its biggest product, Garmin won by staying a one-trick pony that does the one trick better than anyone.

In 2021, a brutal winter storm knocked out power across Texas for days — $26B in property damage, at least 246 deaths. Zach Dell, Michael Dell’s nepo-preneur son, built a company to fix it: Base Power, which just raised $1B at a $13B valuation (he swears the money didn’t come from dad).

The product: a backyard battery the size of a small bear. 23,000 have been installed so far, and together they’re a power plant, but distributed across backyards in TX and IL (the two states whose regulations allow it).

The Takeaway Base isn’t trying to beat Tesla — it’s trying to be different.

Base is based in Austin, TX. So is Tesla, which also sells a home battery, the famous Powerwall. But Tesla’s costs $13K. Base costs a fraction of that, thanks to a different business model.

Base charges the homeowner just $695 to install, then $19/month, because you don’t actually own it. Most of the benefit goes to the utility, so they pay for most of it.

That business model differentiator is Base’s $13B bet.

Enjoy a couple pink gins and a scuba dive after your post-Zoom meeting siesta, Yetis.