Werd I/O

Thoughts

1. I remember on my very first startup, my co-founder (the CEO) worried that we weren’t cool enough. We were building a white label community platform that was beginning to be used inside large organizations to share information: what would become a multi-billion dollar business. And we were doing it in a way that would allow companies to keep their internal information secure. But at the time, consumer social web startups were cool, and we lost focus by trying to chase that dream. The worry was more about the image of being a startup than creating something financially viable and doing it the right way.
2. The startup community is absolutely chock full of posturing bullshit. A lot of this is the fault of VC hustle porn: raising money is celebrated. Having a great launch on Product Hunt seems awesome. Being able to tell regular people about your startup and having them recognize your brand is a milestone.
3. But none of these things are the same as building an actually-successful business. Marketing and sales are important, of course, but if your entire effort is blustering and creating the right kind of external-facing energy, you’ll lose. There are plenty of those kinds of companies, but they’re not real: instead they’re sort of play-acting being a startup.
4. You’ve got to ship. That means knowing how to build software that solves real problems and doing it, again and again and again, without losing focus.
5. Another symptom of play-acting is just talking about what you’ll do instead of doing it, as if brainstorming or strategizing is as valuable a task as the act of making.
6. Brainstorming and strategizing set the stage for the real work. They are not the real work.
7. If you’re more worried about how you appear than the substance of what you do, you’ll want to spend most of your time on talk. Often founders like this will outsource the act of making as an afterthought, devaluing the skill and action of making in the culture of their organization. They want to be the ones who dictate what gets done without doing any of it.
8. And of course, the people who make are on the hook for actually producing in this environment, and will receive the flak when it doesn’t happen, with little of the kudos when it does.
9. This is what we call an abusive relationship.
10. Not every maker can be a founder, but every founder should have a maker’s mindset.

Actions

1. I’m in the process of shutting down a bunch of my cloud services (or at least, reducing them to their free tiers) and replacing them with home-spun alternatives. I used csvskit to take my large AirTable databases and turn them into local tables, saving me hundreds of dollars a month. More of this to come.
2. I’m heading back to the west coast for a wedding. The trip is going to be a bit complicated, and I’m still trying to figure out the logistics.
3. I’m also closing out my time in Cape Cod at the end of the month. I’ve been here since early August, in the house my great grandparents built. It’s been cathartic and wonderful to be here, but real life calls. I need to start packing up and preparing.
4. We got here by road-tripping east; while my dad is going to fly back, my sister and I are planning to road-trip west. It’ll be a completely different kind of trip, and I can’t wait. Exactly when we do this, I’m still not sure, so there’s planning to be done. But it will happen.

I was asked to go into a little more detail around how I think about my Fairness Fridays posts.

They were originally inspired by Fred Wilson’s Funding Fridays, which highlights a new crowdfunding campaign. I actually really like those: it’s a fun way to discover new projects that are getting off the ground. But while there’s a lot of focus on new businesses in my circles, and particularly new startups, there’s much less on groups on the ground who are working hard for equal rights and the dignity of vulnerable people. Although I’m not rich, I’ve been lucky enough to earn an above average technology sector salary. So this is a small thing I can do: contribute weekly to organizations in a way that’s within my means, and compound that by encouraging others to do the same.

My mission in work is to build things that have the potential to make the world more equal. That’s my philosophy towards giving, too. Most of the organizations I highlight are providing services that should really be provided by government but aren’t: I’m a strong believer in social safety nets as infrastructure. In a perfect world, giving and philanthropy of any kind wouldn’t need to exist, and the well-being of vulnerable people wouldn’t depend on the whims and attention of people who are wealthier. But here we are, and the people who do this advocacy and support work are hugely unsung heroes.

I typically don’t give to religious organizations, because I’m not religious, and I think any kind of proselytizing in the course of providing community services is immoral. (It should go without saying that I’m also not interested in conservative-leaning organizations: supporting the vulnerable means supporting an identity-positive, pro-choice future with a focus on distributing equity.) That said, I know that not every religious organization does this, and they do provide vital work in many communities, so I’ve made exceptions (particularly at the border). I also prefer to give to smaller, community organizations rather than larger nationwide endeavors, on the grounds that the former are likely more in need of funds - but again, I’ve sometimes made exceptions.

I often privately ask for recommendations, and I’d love any recommendations that you’re willing to share. If you know of a great local community organization that has the potential to help vulnerable people gain equity through advocacy and direct support, I’d love to hear about them.

These posts aren’t the only giving I do. I also donate on a monthly basis to many of the organizations you would expect, including the ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center. These nationwide organizations do deeply important work, and my omission in this series does not imply a lack of support.