More Ideas

I remember being about 10 years old, home on a summer day and for some reason watching Oprah. I remember it very clearly, she had brought on entrepreneurs who had created products and built small companies. I really latched onto the idea of bringing something new into the world and during my walk over to my friend Justin's house, I had what I thought was a great idea.

I was a huge sports fan growing up, a team in each of the four big sports. And my baseball team, sadly (at the time) was the Philadelphia Phillies. I never played baseball but the video games were enough to teach me every player and occasionally get me to sit down to watch a game. So, naturally, I begged my mom for a Phillies hat, the big league one that the players wore. Somewhat relevant here is the fact that I had a big head as a kid. Not sure how much that matters, but I can't seem to forget it. Anyways, she ended up getting me a fitted, red Phillies hat. Thick, hot wool, perfect for a summer day hanging with my buddy. The thing about the hat was that it definitely shrunk a bit as I wore it (or my big head got bigger), so whenever I'd take it off I'd have a nice mark in the center of my forehead. As I walked over to Justin's that day, I remember vividly thinking that they should make fitted hats with elastic in them. I should make those hats. That'd be my path to riches.

It was a few years still before these hit the shelves and I realized I had the idea but did absolutely zero to execute. That bothered me, and sat with me in a recess somewhere in my big head. Fast forward about a decade or so and when I finally got my feet under me as an adult I decided I needed to work in tech. Not to get rich per say, but to execute on the ideas that now seemed relevant - software-enabled ideas. But I took a slow path. I wanted to be able to build, but admittedly, I also wanted to enjoy my 20's. I worked in tech, building small projects on the side, but never actually went for it. I was having fun and building a life, I didn't want to put myself fully into work. When I finally got myself settled down, ready to pounce, I was living in the UK. After one failed project, I went back to tech and got back to a stable life. Married my girlfriend, had a couple kids, moved out to the suburbs.

But the itch never went away. I wish I could call it an itch. What's bigger than an itch and causes prolonged anxiety? It's that. And as I start to see some daylight where I can again pounce on an idea I find myself in a sort of unfamiliar position: where are the ideas?

After waking up at 4:15am this morning to do God knows what, I found my way to a blog post: "Willingness to look stupid is a genuine moat in creative work" and I have to admit, I've been worried about looking stupid. Sure, in the last few years I've played around with a few ideas. I started a podcast about living away from home and a newsletter about science articles related to longevity. When it comes to businesses that I tell myself are "real" though, I have no patience for stupidity. I try to reverse engineer a B2B SaaS idea and run myself into the ground thinking of all the reasons they're bad ideas. Either I don't like the space, I think AI will destroy it, or I don't think it's a real idea that people actually want to pay me money for. It's vicious. Saddest of all, I feel that I have the energy to sprint, I have all the tools to get it done, but I don't know which way to run.

- That sounds solid. That's a nice hookup. - It's all the way nice. There's only one problem. I got this feeling. - What feeling is that, exactly? - You know this feeling very well. You know, when you got your table all set. - Uh-huh. - Knife, fork, sauce - A1, Luger's, but... - You just don't have the steak. - Exactly.

So what do I do from here. I need to get out of my head. Get back to the fun side of this whole thing. I wanted to be able to look at my hat, decided it needed elastic, then sell hats with an elastic band. Maybe it'd be a bad idea, but what the hell. At least see what other people think. Test it out in my kitchen and see if I like it more than I like a mark on my head.

So here it goes, a few crazy ideas without much worry about looking stupid (because honestly, I think this blog lives in the ether and I doubt anyone will see this).

• Prep food service: I want to cook my own food for me and my family, but I hate the prep. Get someone to come cut up my vegetables and prep my food each week. Ideally with my own ingredients. I don't need a box delivered with a specific recipe, I just want the mise en place.

• Conversation finder: There's so many podcasts and so many interviews, give me what I care about. I want to know where Bryan Johnson has been interviewed about what types of carbohydrates I should be eating. Give me the timestamp on podcasts so I can immediately get to the part of any conversation I want.

• Games with kids: my kids have so many toys - sitting in boxes and around our house. Most of them - matchbox cars, magnetic blocks, train sets - need a pump of creativity. I want a tool for inciting those ideas. Push us to get started, help us figure out what the next cool addition could be, craft it to me and my kids' ages and interests.

These ideas are things I'd been thinking about, but I think the intention is there. I need to have crazier ideas, put things on paper without being afraid they're going to lead to nothing.

I remember a few years ago when I first got to London and started writing my blog for the first time. I had a routine of building out the outline throughout the week, writing where I could, then spending Saturday morning polishing it before sending it out. The most amazing part was how it opened by eyes to the world. The routine of writing created this fresh look at life. Every thought I had, I dug into to better understand where it was emanating from and what it might tell me about my view on the world. I need that.

So stay tuned, there may be more where this came from.

(I'm publishing this unedited and unrevised)