This post is not about what you'd think it is.
While it's true that in my area of the world things are slowly starting to open up, I'm not writing about that.
Instead, I'm writing about my friend Neil and I's return to the community of ideas.
Almost a year ago now and two years after our failed startup, we started having weekly bonfires. I'd arrive late, as I always do and Neil would break a few matches before we got the fire roaring.
Much has changed since then. We started with a book club, reading the hard stuff that neither of us could make it through alone (like Growth by Vaclov Smil and Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb).
From there, we were inexorably drawn back into our habit of bouncing startup ideas off of each other. One thing led to another and there we were, thinking about starting a new kind of venture.
We called it, "The Idea Explorers". Our goal was to give away ideas to the community, for FREE. We were excited to share our ideas, but saddened by how we would have to do it.
Neither of us loves social media nor spends much time on it (though I do have a weakness for Twitter). We were spooked by the requirement of spending hours and hours online, building an audience.
Plus, thanks to Paul Graham's magnificent, "How to Get Startup Ideas" we realized we were coming at it all wrong.
Ideas weren't valuable.
Problems were.
So we started from scratch, this time keeping it stupid simple.
We collected problems and solutions, first in Trello, then in DevonThink, and finally in Obsidian.
After a few weeks of that, we decided to try an ambitious experiment. We'd release a product a month for a year.
Then Neil went on a loooong hike, trekking 800 miles across dry, dry Arizona.
Upon his return, we realized we were missing something.
We couldn't put our finger on it at first, but slowly it dawned on us.
It had been almost 3 years since we'd done our ideas with people.
We missed it.
So as we return our project with new energy, we hope to return to community as well.
We aren't sure yet how this will look, but we know it will not look us alone together.
Our hope is to become a hub, where people come to connect with one another over ideas.
We cannot wait to find out what that looks like with you.
While it's true that in my area of the world things are slowly starting to open up, I'm not writing about that.
Instead, I'm writing about my friend Neil and I's return to the community of ideas.
Almost a year ago now and two years after our failed startup, we started having weekly bonfires. I'd arrive late, as I always do and Neil would break a few matches before we got the fire roaring.
Much has changed since then. We started with a book club, reading the hard stuff that neither of us could make it through alone (like Growth by Vaclov Smil and Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb).
From there, we were inexorably drawn back into our habit of bouncing startup ideas off of each other. One thing led to another and there we were, thinking about starting a new kind of venture.
We called it, "The Idea Explorers". Our goal was to give away ideas to the community, for FREE. We were excited to share our ideas, but saddened by how we would have to do it.
Neither of us loves social media nor spends much time on it (though I do have a weakness for Twitter). We were spooked by the requirement of spending hours and hours online, building an audience.
Plus, thanks to Paul Graham's magnificent, "How to Get Startup Ideas" we realized we were coming at it all wrong.
Ideas weren't valuable.
Problems were.
So we started from scratch, this time keeping it stupid simple.
We collected problems and solutions, first in Trello, then in DevonThink, and finally in Obsidian.
After a few weeks of that, we decided to try an ambitious experiment. We'd release a product a month for a year.
Then Neil went on a loooong hike, trekking 800 miles across dry, dry Arizona.
Upon his return, we realized we were missing something.
We couldn't put our finger on it at first, but slowly it dawned on us.
It had been almost 3 years since we'd done our ideas with people.
We missed it.
So as we return our project with new energy, we hope to return to community as well.
We aren't sure yet how this will look, but we know it will not look us alone together.
Our hope is to become a hub, where people come to connect with one another over ideas.
We cannot wait to find out what that looks like with you.