Build things. Explore ideas. Chase snow. Repeat.

I have been meaning to write things down for about a decade. This is the part where I finally start.

Not because the internet needs another founder blog. Mostly because I keep learning things, telling three people about them, and then forgetting the details six months later. Writing is the cheapest storage I have found for that.

What this is

A workshop, not a résumé.

My CV lives on LinkedIn and it is fine. It says I was an engineer, then a senior engineer, then a lead, and then somehow a CEO. All true, all deeply boring as a description of what I actually do on a Tuesday.

What I actually do on a Tuesday is closer to this: read something, get suspicious about how it works, take it apart, find out it is more complicated than advertised, and then wonder whether the complicated part is a business.

The four modes

Looking back at how I spend time, it sorts into four buckets. Not a framework. Just an honest description.

BUILD. Products, software, companies, experiments. The default. Most weeks live here.

THINK. Technology, product strategy, business models, systems. The part where I work out whether the thing I want to build should exist.

EXPLORE. Factories, suppliers, trade shows, new technology, rabbit holes. The input side. Nothing worth building comes out of a room with no windows.

LIVE. Snowboarding, Japan, travel, food, the parts of life that have no roadmap. Also the part that keeps the other three from eating everything.

They are not phases. They run concurrently and interrupt each other constantly, usually at inconvenient times.

What I will write about

Things I actually investigated. Which means:

• Notes from building software and running companies, including the parts that did not work
• Technology I took apart — AI, RFID, computer vision, IoT, hardware, automation
• What happens when a software person discovers warehouses, suppliers and shipping
• Field notes from travelling, which for me is usually half business and half snow

I am not going to pretend to be an expert on any country, industry or technology. These are field notes. The value is in the specifics, not the conclusions.

What I will not write about

Growth hacks. Morning routines. Ten lessons from my journey.

If you are here for that, I am afraid this is going to be disappointing.

More soon. Some of it will be about snow.