In partnership with
The ice cream shop that makes money when it's cold
28 Wishes sells ice cream in Los Angeles. Below 70°F, sales fall about 20%. The weather is out of their hands. Rent isn't.
So the owners started putting about $20 a day into Kalshi weather markets, taking the cold side. The days that keep customers away now pay something back.
This is hedging. Big companies have done it for decades, buying protection against bad weather, fuel spikes and rising rates. It used to take a broker, a trading desk, and an order size no corner shop could meet.
Kalshi opens it up. Contracts on weather, fuel prices, inflation, tariffs and regulation, starting at a few dollars. Take a position on the outcome that would hurt you. If it hits, the payout softens it. If it doesn't, the contract expires and the good month was the point.
You signed up for Free Time a while back. Then I sold my company and went quiet.
Three reasons. One, the acquisition ate my life. Two, I became a dad — my daughter Farrah was born in May, and that's the real headline of my year. Three — and this is the honest one — I didn't think I was giving you anything worth your time. Writing for the sake of writing felt like noise, so I stopped.
I'm back because I figured out what IS worth your time.
I spent twenty years in youth sports from every seat — player, coach, operator. And I keep watching parents spend $30K a year with nobody telling them the truth: what's actually valuable, what the goal should be, what the money should buy, what I wish I'd known from the recruiting chair.
That's what this is now. Every week: the truth about youth sports, one useful thing from twenty years of building companies, and something fun — a bottle, a plate, a place. Short. No lectures.
I'm also building Full Time — a small, selective crew of parents who've lived this journey and built real things beyond it. More on that soon.
If that's not your thing, unsubscribe below, no hard feelings. I'd rather have 8,000 who want to be here than 13,000 who don't.
The best conversations I've had in the last few years weren't with coaches or other operators. They were with parents — people whose kids played, who built real businesses and interesting lives, and who think about the whole youth sports ride honestly because they've lived the other side of it.
Full Time is a small room for those people. Parents of current and former athletes who are interesting in their own right. No cost, no pitch, just good people, real conversation, and eventually a table somewhere with great food.
I'm hand-picking the first group. If you want in, reply to this email and tell me one thing: who else should be in the room? One parent you'd nominate. The nominations are how this gets good.
See you Thursday.
— Doug
Own a sports company — or any company, really? I've exited two of my own, and I'm actively helping owners raise money privately or sell. If that's a conversation you want to have, book a call.
Parent in the middle of the youth sports ride who wants one-on-one guidance? Book here.