In this blog “I have no idea what I’m doing” I’ll be chronicling the progress and discoveries I make as I build a startup for the first time.
The name of this blog comes from a talk in 2015 by former Facebook engineer Graham Lee. In his talk, he admits that although at the time he was helping build a platform that supported 1 billion people, he had no idea what he was doing. Never before had he or anyone else built a platform that supported so many people. If he was the first, from where was he supposed to learn how to do it? He concluded the talk by suggesting that the truth is that no one knows what they are doing and that’s okay, and that admitting we don't know what we are doing leaves us room for the curiosity necessary to figure it out together.
Inspired by this insight, I’m calling this blog “I have no idea what I’m doing”.
A few weeks ago I left my software engineering job of nearly 5 years at Meta to pursue my dream of building a startup. I've never built a startup before. I have no idea what I’m doing. But maybe we can figure things out together.
Why I'm Writing This Blog:
I want to clarify my own thinking. Writing will help me organize my thoughts and think things through.
I want your feedback. Perhaps my thoughts will inspire you to share yours, or to help me see things differently when I'm stuck.
I want your support. I know there are times when I'll feel overwhelmed, confused, or frustrated. I hope your support will help me stay focused.
Upcoming Posts
I plan to write once a month or so about the things I’m working on and their challenges. In the next few weeks I will write on:
The current business problem I’m trying to solve
Testing the idea for market viability
Thanks for reading and I'm excited to see you soon!
Shoutout to David Tuck of StartingUpAgain and Ian Johnson of Founding In Public for the inspiration to do this.
Also shoutout to Adonis Gaitatzis for editing this!
Looking forward to it!