the start of an idea

“I always say ‘beginnings are easy, endings are hard’. Beginnings get easier and easier [because] there's so much technological assistance [and] so many ways of getting something started like rhythm machines and chord pattern makers.

There are a lot of ways of getting something pretty respectable going quite early on. To quote Picasso, ‘there's... See more

when making things becomes frictionless, starting stops meaning anything.

Once you've found something you're excessively interested in, the next step is to learn enough about it to get you to one of the frontiers of knowledge. Knowledge expands fractally, and from a distance its edges look smooth, but once you learn enough to get close to one, they turn out to be full of gaps.

"“If you put these five things together - you can't use money to attract talent, you can't advertise, you can't take risks, you can't invest in long-term results, and you don't have a stock market - then we have just put the humanitarian sector at the most extreme disadvantage to the for-profit sector on every level, and then we call the whole... See more

The gap between knowing what you want and going after it is where fear thrives. You don't need enough courage for the entire journey. You only need courage for the next step.