People love to ask “will you start another startup?”

I never chose to “do a startup”. First, I made stuff and then it turned out people would pay me, and when I wanted to go full time I raised

Maybe that will happen again, but I make lots of things that don’t become businesses.

I am very focused on keeping the maker part of myself fed, and sometimes being CEO really gets in the way of doing that

Every business I’ve had, the first money in came from me. Then from customers. Then from investors (where appropriate).

Yes, my money and customer money is usually dwarfed by investor check size. But the conviction and evidence mattered, not the amount

The amount of people I meet now, who have made nothing, invested none of their own $/sweat, and have no customers... and want to raise a round so they can “start the startup” blows my mind

Unless they are extremely specialized scientists, this does not work out

You do not need to quit your job to start making things. You can set an alarm clock for 5am and capture the first 3 hours for yourself. Or the weekends. Or the late night.

When you find something that makes this schedule not suck, because it’s pulling you along, you’ve got magic

Learning to know what that feels like, without any external validation, is one of the most valuable skills you can hone. Pay attention

External validation can confuse you. There will always be someone who thinks something you made is cool, and if you go searching for investors you will find some... but what information is that transaction giving you, if no customer has paid yet?

It’s also okay when you are the only customer. This is often the case with making food. A complex meal is like shipping a little mini product. If you ever feel you’ve forgotten how to ship, host a dinner party

Sometimes it takes a really long time to find the plot. If you rarely read fiction, you might have lost the patience of the reader getting through the first 50 pages of exposition and character development to meet the rising action

My first startup was a side project for 3 years

Maybe read “The Starless Sea” by @erinmorgenstern if you’ve lost some of your capacity for being an explorer within the story, rather than a linear non-fiction oriented collector of facts

This is how I feed the maker in me, too

I believe everyone has the capacity to make, which is innately part of them. It has to be nurtured and encouraged and prioritized if we want it to continue to function and refine and grow.

I don’t believe this means everyone should start a startup.

Just make something good.

If you’ve made it this far, let me share some of things I am most proud of making lately:
- road trip to see parents
- learning to fly fish
- another scratch cooked pizza
- 13 year marriage (that’s us in 2007!)

Thanks for listening.

I’m sending so much love to the maker in anyone who read this, I hope you’ll give that part of you a little bit of encouragement and fuel