Entrepreneurs are like fish
While I was in Hong Kong last year, I got a beautiful gift that had deep symbolism: a small fish sculpture on a necklace.
What I was told stuck with me. It rings true from my experience:
Entrepreneurs are like fish. They seem to weave from side to side, but they’re propelling themselves forward. They find the invisible currents, the path of least resistance. And they always carry a surplus.
My weaving path, course-corrections, experiments and forays have often moved me forward in unpredictable ways. Like a lot of founders I know, I try to be attuned to trends and opportunities that others don’t see. And in spite of my multiple failures, I’ve always found a fall-back and lived to fight another day.
The simile also gives me a sense of identity and belonging. It’s nice to think that under The Scorpion and The Frog, and a long way from Animal Farm, we fish are swimming along, doing our own thing.
What am I up to these days?
I’m a new parent, and prioritising my attention on our new rhythms as a family.
Work-wise, I’m trekking along at a cozy pace, doing stuff that doesn’t require meetings :)
I have a few non-exec/advisory roles for engineering edu programs. I’m also having fun making a few apps, going deep with zero-knowledge cryptography, and have learned to be a pretty good LLM prompt engineer.
In the past, I've designed peer-learning programs for Oxford, UCL, Techstars, Microsoft Ventures, The Royal Academy Of Engineering, and Kernel, careering from startups to humanitech and engineering. I also played a role in starting the Lean Startup methodology, and the European startup ecosystem. You can read about this here.
Books & collected practices
- Peer Learning Is - a broad look at peer learning around the world, and how to design peer learning to outperform traditional education
- Mentor Impact - researched the practices used by the startup mentors that really make a difference
- DAOistry - practices and mindsets that work in blockchain communities
- Decision Hacks - early-stage startup decisions distilled
- Source Institute - skunkworks I founded with open peer learning formats and ops guides, and our internal guide on decentralised teams
Other thoughts
Don't miss The Floop (2024)
Some kind of parent (2024)
Exploring Istanbul: Beyond the conference bubbles (2023)
Retreats for remote teams (2023)
What do you need right now? (2023)
Building ecosystems with grant programs (2021)
Safe spaces make for better learning (2021)
Choose happiness (2021)
Working 'Remote' after 10 years (2020)
Emotional Vocabulary (2020)
Project portfolios (2020)
Expectations (2019)
Amperage - the inconvenient truth about energy for Africa's off-grid. (2018)
The history Of Lean Startup (2016)
Get your loved ones off Facebook (2015)
Entrepreneurship is craft (2014)