Build Something Beautiful
The craft of building great things
Yoshio Goto and
Build Something Beautiful
There are essentially two business models right now: boring, useful things that can print money and tastemaker brands that can brute force cultural relevancy. Dumb $ is funding the middle: stuff that is neither useful nor cool enough to make it past current startup headwinds.
I wanted to make a product and sell it directly to people who’d care about its quality. There’s an incredible connection possible when you align your financial motivations with the service of your users. It’s an entirely different category of work than if you’re simply trying to capture eyeballs and sell their attention, privacy, and dignity in bul... See more
Reconsider
Quality software deserves your hard‑earned cash
Quality software from independent makers is like quality food from the farmer’s market. A jar of handmade organic jam is not the same as mass-produced corn syrup-laden jam from the supermarket.
Industrial fruit jam is filled with cheap ingredients and shelf stabilizers. Industrial software is filled... See more
Our choice of the particular work we do depends on the whole context of our life and society and current needs, of course; but there is also just a general orientation that emerges out of almost any set of accumulated experiences of doing something useful, particularly as part of a coordinated exchange with others. And there is profound, life-giving value in even the seemingly mundane ways we apply our minds and direct our focused efforts toward purposeful ends that matter to us. This could be as complex as building an entire company, or it could be as simple as flipping burgers at a restaurant. It could also be volunteering at a shelter, if we make a serious and sustained project of it.
The antidote to burnout and the existential inquiry it brings seems to be doing things that don’t scale in pursuit of things that can’t scale. It becomes exciting not to see what you can do without limits, but to see what you can do with them.
Anu Atluru • Pursuits That Can’t Scale
“You feel differently towards the world when you make things.”
– Milton Glaser
There is a children’s TV show called Bluey 3, which follows a family of anthropomorphic dogs and their life in Australia. The lineup includes Bluey, a 6-year old Blue Heeler puppy, and her family: her dad Bandit, her mom Chilli, and her little sister Bingo.
Bluey is an Australian TV show that premiered in 2018 created by Joe Brumm who wanted to por... See more
Bluey is an Australian TV show that premiered in 2018 created by Joe Brumm who wanted to por... See more
When You Destroy the Tools of Creativity
Most innovation is a new wrapper for an old thing, meaning there's a fanbase already foraging for it. Your marketing job? Make sure the 'new' still 'looks like food' to this crowd. Use the same images, words, and ideas that resonate.