The John Dass chapter is coming to a close...

How a year of sabbatical under a creative pseudonym transformed my approach to flow states, building products and leading teams

Over the last year I’ve been fortunate to embark upon a creative sabbatical under a pseudonym “John Dass”. As this chapter closes, I wanted to recap some of my creative pursuits, share key learnings and celebrate my collaborators. While building startups taught me a lot about business, technology, and design—taking a creative sabbatical deepened my ability to enter into flow states, expanded my horizons for working with different types of people and allowed me to master the latest AI tools across video, image, text and coding.

What started as an experiment in creative freedom became a catalyst for one of the most transformative chapters of my journey so far—both personally and professionally.

It helped me identify and disrupt some of my deepest held biases and ultimately led me to meet the love of my life. As I step into the next phase of my career as a technologist and founder, I’m going to be using “John Dass” only as an artist name for my musical pursuits.