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The Passion To Overcome Adversity
Posted on | November 18, 2008 | No Comments
What is the vision behind GeekStack? I’m sure some of it has come through in through what I’ve written on the site, but I thought I’d put down some more explicit thoughts. Forgive the personal nature of this entry – it’s as much for my own benefit as it is for yours.
There’s a big problem I have: I’m in a terrible position to be doing a startup. I have a full-time job, a long commute, two little kids, and no source of investment besides what I chip in from my income and savings. What else could possibly be stacked against me? I can work maybe 10-15 hours a week. This is split between time on the train (without Internet) and after my kids go to bed (15 hours after I wake up). I don’t have a cofounder (although some of my friends have expressed interest in helping) so I’m pretty much on my own. I’m doing a multi-media product so I have to do graphic design, web design, and web programming. I have a physical product so I have to pick a vendor, pay production costs, and deal with (or pay for) storage and fulfillment. I’m making a consumer product so I have a lot more marketing than to do than a typical software startup. Did I forget anything? Oh yeah, I have to transform kids’ attitudes towards learning. In 10-15 hours a week.
Facing all of those obstacles, why would anyone want to continue? Why would anyone think they could succeed? Because I believe it’s related to my life purpose. Steve Pavlina talked about how to find out your own life purpose. He said to take out a sheet of paper and write down things you think you would like to do, moving towards what you think you’d like more. Continue doing this until you cry. Simple, huh? I didn’t do it his way (I try to avoid crying, especially making myself cry. Seriously, I was a crybaby kid and got teased for it. Plus when I was 8 and watched ET, I bawled for like an hour afterwards and swore never to watch that movie again.) but over the last couple years, I noticed that every startup idea I had that stuck around for more than a couple of days revolved around making education and learning more accessible.
Maybe it’s just the hindsight of looking back at my life and imagining how it would be different if I had access to the amazing material that the Internet makes available now. I’ve always been a kind of input freak (One of my childhood heroes was Johnny 5 from the movie Short Circuit) but there never seemed to be enough. Now I find more things every day than I can consume in a week. Whereas my problem as a kid was not enough information, the problem now is too much, and not in the right format. Over the last couple years, every startup idea I’ve had involved a combination of software and human editorial judgment to make information easier to consume. I passed on them because they required significant programming, the sort-of intense, mentally stretching programming that you really have to get into a flow to do. That kind of flow is hard to get into on a forty minute train ride or fifteen hours after you woke up. So I thought and planned but could never get over the hump of implementing them.
My time situation is even worse now than a year or two ago, but GeekStack puts me in a better position to succeed. I can work on marketing, or copywriting, or graphic design, or organization, or small web functionality in little bursts without needing deep, breakthrough work time. The idea is simple enough to describe in five words: science and technology trading cards (note to self: simplify front page text). It doesn’t take a breakthrough like PageRank or materials science, just making an enticing consumer product (easier said than done). Tons of people are working on education, but no one I know of is taking the same approach as I am, so I don’t have the same time-to-market pressure as other projects. I’m planning on getting the first set out in early 2009, but the need will still exist if it takes longer. And the vision is extremely long term so short term fumbles won’t stop me.
I don’t know if GeekStack is the ultimate expression of my vision for education and learning. It’s my first at-bat in what looks to be a lifetime of making the world a smarter place. If I’m wrong about the demand, or if I misstep in my execution, or if I can’t make the economics work, the trading cards will get shelved and I’ll move onto the next idea. I’ll be that much more prepared for having started one business already. If it succeeds, then I’ll have a platform to work from as well as currency for future projects. One thing’s for sure, GeekStack won’t fail for a lack of interest or effort on my part.
I didn’t write until I cried, but I have to admit that it gets a little dusty in the room when I think of a future scientist treasuring the Niels Bohr card that got him interested in chemistry all those years ago.
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