The Pivot
Hello! I’ve started a blog and initialized it with some friends. I’m planning to post updates on what I’m working on semi-regularly – mostly for myself to get the thinking juices flowing, so I won’t be offended if you unsubscribe.
(Separately, I’d love to catch up and hang out – come visit our office if you’re in NYC, or text/email!)
Rob and I met at Venmo in 2013, but we first really connected in 2015, when we both read Don Quixote and were permanently transformed. 8 years passed, and over those years I realized how important it is to be free to choose how I direct my thoughts and time. So in August 2023, I decided to join Rob on the quixotic adventure of founding a startup. We had a pretty clear vision, so we immediately joined an accelerator and raised a round. We scaled our team to 8, and built Substrate. It was a valiant effort, but we made the difficult decision to shut it down last winter, and reduced the team to two co-founders. We had to learn the hard way that inference is a red ocean. But I’m still really proud of what our small team built. Many of our core takes still feel right and notably missing from the landscape.
Personally, it was a stressful year in the foxhole: I worked all the time, neglected my health, lost touch with friends, stopped playing music. As Rob, and I worked on shutting down Substrate last winter and came to terms with our new reality, we transformed our office into a better third space. The big improvement was adding a small gym (power rack, peloton). Friends often visit to co-work. There’s a keyboard to plink around on. We have an instant pot and hot plate, and cook in the office occasionally.
There are many ways to arrive here, in this reality we now find ourselves in. Usually you arrive here first, going through the process of idea exploration at the beginning of the journey. We skipped it – we joined an accelerator, South Park Commons (which happens to be uniquely friendly to the “0-1” exploration phase). But instead of using the runway to explore, we immediately raised a round for our capital-intensive vision. Now we’re back at “0-1”, though we arrived here less intentionally. Pivoting is pretty common, but from stories I’ve heard, it comes with varying degrees of freedom and runway pressure. After chatting with lots of folks, I’ve realized how lucky we are. There’s so much going on right now: it’s the most exciting time I’ve seen in my career to be building something new in software. So it’s really special to be in this position where we can take a wide look at everything, build a deep understanding of what excites us, and take a lot of shots.
We’ve been exploring for a few months now, and learning about how to work together in this new reality. What’s been working so far:
Unstructured riffing. Often we’ll “turn up the temperature”, spouting silly ideas, because humor often points to truth.
Habitual reflection. We have regular syncs and demos, but we’re also trying to build a better habit of written reflection, which gets the juices flowing in a different way.
Individual exploration. Initially, we tried working together on more concerted group efforts. But we’ve realized we should instead aim to increase the diversity and quantity of our shots by working in parallel.