On Building

If you create a good product or process, and don’t constrain yourself too tightly, it will have other uses that you will discover later.

Avon: A door-to-door bookseller in the late 1800s used perfume samples to try and interest customers. The samples were more popular than the books, so he switched to selling perfume.

Another is the story of YouTube, which began life as a dating site that failed terribly. No one wanted to upload video introductions of themselves, not even after the founders offered $100 for participants to do so. But the video uploading platform created in 2005 was very good, so they simply let anyone upload anything, and the users, not the website creators, found its real uses. The YouTube we know today was an invention that founders let happen, by way of a permission-free set of users.

There is a large danger in over-engineering your plan, and failing to respond to local conditions. There is great bounty in remaining sensitive to context. We understand this individually. Do we understand it collectively? Are we as a civilization still letting uses be discovered?

Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact, and that is: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it. You can influence it. You can build your own things that other people can use.

“Young designers, you need battle wounds. You need to fail. You need scars. Be curious and don’t ask for permission.” - Joel Beukelman