Have you ever written 3 pages, opened up the document a day later, and thought: Even my mom wouldn’t read this?
That’s what happened with this post. And so I deleted it. And then I thought: I should at least give a quick status update.
So here is a quick status update.
Over the past several weeks, Heather and I have been testing 20-30 product or feature concepts using “concept cards” (what IDEO calls “Conversation Starters” in their Design Kit).
Concept cards are small sketches that each represent products or features. The cards I have made suggest I am a 1st grader armed with a Crayon. They’re crude. But that’s ok! The point is just to communicate many unbuilt ideas in rapid succession, and not to distract with UI.
For example, here’s a card to represent a chat function that allows non-native English speakers to converse in their native language:
Here’s a concept card to demonstrate the idea of decentralized, auction-driven project staffing:
Here is a concept card to demonstrate push-notification requests for ETA updates:
We have tons of these cards. The key is to keep them low-fi enough that you can just as easily create new ones as cast rejects aside.
Anyway, after showing a card to an interviewee (+ some explanation), we ask them to react, gauging curiosity, wonder, revulsion, etc. through their words, but also through nonverbal cues like pauses, exasperated sighs, eye rolls, or (hopefully!) the brightening of their face. The conversations are a blast for us, and interviewees tend to enjoy them too.
For synthesis, we’ve used a transcript analysis and tagging software called Loop. Loop was cofounded by a friend of mine from Parthenon, Kritika Oberoi (check out her blog!). and I can’t recommend it enough for organizing, sharing, and synthesizing interviews.
What’s the end game? Once we have several concept cards that our target users are hungry for, we’ll build and test a higher-grade prototype with them.
But the real headline of the past several weeks: my girlfriend and I moved out of our Brooklyn apartment to become digital nomads. This transition has absorbed much brain space.
Moving logistics alone would have been a significant distraction. Because we weren’t just “lifting and shifting” to another 1 bedroom, it took at least a week to distill the bare essentials that could fit in our CR-V, and then another few days to boil away the rest to OfferUp, friends, and a trusty 5x10 storage unit in Bushwick.
Beyond just the moving logistics, we also spent a good deal of time saying goodbye, both to dear friends and also to this chapter of our lives. We didn’t want to neglect a last dinner, or a final walk through Prospect Park.
If you’ve ever gazed back at an empty living room, gingerly nudged the lights off, locked a front door for the last time, and thought “I am now one apartment older,” you know that strange elixir of melancholy stirred with hope that makes you want to savor every last moment in an old place.
But digital nomading has been so special. I’ve reconnected with college friends, camped in deserted state parks, audited a Yale grad school class on “non-timber forest products” (read: maple syrup), and even experienced the terrifying responsibility of babysitting a 1.5-year-old. Don’t worry: he survived!
On top of all this general adventuring, I’ve also started freelance consulting for a well-known venture capital firm. While this commitment has absorbed less than 10 hours per week, it has covered nearly all my (sparse) living expenses. In a later post, I’ll write more about how I’ve engineered my personal finances, and minimized my “burn rate” over the past 2 months.
For all these joys, changing residence every 5-10 days is not ideal for deep work, the exact kind of work I “should” be doing. Every leg of the journey is so brief that I find myself constantly reasoning to myself: stay here; this conversation / cherry blossom / musical experience is more important than another hour on your laptop.
And looking back, I think I reasoned correctly.
I’m tempted to write, I need to buckle down again. And I know I will. But I’m also grateful for the flexibility of the early stages of this process and hope other entrepreneurs allow themselves (at least pre-product, pre-revenue) to meander a little along the way.
For sparing you the 3 page version of this post: you’re welcome.
More to come later!
Where is the next installment??