I have a problem, and it feels daunting and bordering insurmountable.

Over a year ago, I sat down, wanting to build and ship something of value. Make a dent. For my family, for the world, for me. Not because of recognition but because I love the idea of achieving financial freedom through providing enough meaningful value. The expectations I have for myself are sky high. The same expectations has always pushed me to do more, better, and greater than most. After getting kids, most people become increasingly risk averse, and I'm no different.

Not sure where this is all leading, but right now, I'm in a melting pot of fearing to ship something, struggling to wrap up things so it becomes shippable, and fearing none of it will ever work. I know my inner curiousity and lack of singular focus is one of my banes' and I need to find a way through. Otherwise my biggest fear will eventually become true; That I one day will meet the creator and they'll show me what I could have become if only I dared to enter the arena fully.

For a long time, I've chosen comfort. The comfort of not shipping, risking rejection or failure. The comfort of believing, hoping, wishing a simpler path is around the corner. Slowly but surely, the truth will come out and it is: 
And there is no simple, easy path. There's only thoughtful, hard work, determination, and grit. I have had all of them - not right now, but before. Rising to the occasion once again, with stakes higher than ever, is what needs to happen, and so it begins.

How about moving to New York, Deani?
 
After 2 weeks of founder dating, we as a family had to consider the real possibility of moving to New York and starting a VC-baked journey.
Since moving back to Denmark, the prospect of returning to the wider world has been tempting, and we've been longing for it for a multitude of personal and professional reasons.

Out of nowhere, a NYC-bound opportunity came about. Tempting! 
As a family, we added up all the pros and cons, but we decided the time wasn't now. Or maybe ever?! *insert confused doggo gif*
We asked ourselves if we could choose all lifestyles, lives, and ways of living our lives. Would NYC and living in one location be it? Or do we want to live in Denmark? Or would we prefer the freedom to travel and live in different cities, at will, for weeks or months at end, depending on our preference?
We decided the latter was worth the most to us —the freedom of choice.

So that's what we are building for—the freedom to choose.

I attended an EU startup conference called TechBBQ. I spent most of the time networking, talking, pitching, and having fun. I didn't see a lot of talks, but one I HAD to see was with Wesley Chan. He talked about what he's looking after in founders, why and his observations from people who change the world. One of the many things he mentioned is they always have a 5-10-20-100 year plan for where the world is heading and how what they are building fit in.

He also talked about the core values... And that did something to me which can best be described as Wesley re-lit something inside me that I almost forgot. The dream. The dream to dare. Dare to think bigger, bolder. Don't be afraid to go against the grain. Do what you believe—even and especially if it's lonely because having a contrarian take is almost always lonely. (I can confirm.)

Twelve hours later, I sat down and wrote a 20-year vision for where my current product direction could go and why I believe it's bound to happen.
The short version is that computers need to understand not just a human context (LLMs are a great example) but also human core values and empathy to successfully interface with and reach a global end-user audience within a reasonable timeframe. Everyone is building context. I want to do what I do best. Foster empathy and the human connection.

Having spent a nice portion of the summer talking to the best EU Angels and VCs, their feedback range from; Holy shit. This is amazing. Can I try it? If you build and release this, how long will it take before someone wants to acquire you?
To: "I have NOT heard about anyone doing this yet. But it makes so much sense - and that's really exciting!"

The feedback and appreciation feels good, sure. I made the mistake of talking to VCs too early - truth is I don't need any money yet. Not sure if the time would have been spent better building - maybe?
What I know now is - if I need money, I'll need a co-founder or 2 on board. But it's nice to know VC folks and I'm sure one day they'll come in handy.

Now the big question: Co-founder or not?
The answer is pretty simple; If I find the right person to do it with - yes! 100%! But its like my partner in life, my wife and mom to my children. No way in hell I'm going to compromise. Having shared, aligned, and complementary core values and skills is a must. Having asked around, its shocking how many companies fall apart because founders are misaligned in ambition or values. Trying to avoid that from day 1 seem like must. Otherwise I'd rather go at it alone. Not out of ego reasons, but out of responsibility. I know I can built a business, and when hiring other people happen, founders have a responsibility to the employees too. And the basic responsibility is ensuring "mom" and "daddy" are happy, aligned and together on this.
Disagreement will happen, but with shared values and principles, things tend to work out way better.

So, long story short. YES to co-founder. If it's the right human being.

Okay. Good news. Bad news. "Bad news" is I'm not as far as I wish I were. That's the virtue of being relentlessly impatient, driven & hungry.
So far, I've built multiple prototypes, and it's clear as day - real-time intelligence is super high value from a usability/value perspective. Also, most complex. As always.

Let's take a made up example - There's TONS of folks building transcription software. Go to the doctor. Software listens. Converts the conversation to notes, doctor edits, saves, happy.
Now, imagine software that listens in real-time and functions as a hyper-aware, 'trained' super doctor. It can assist in diagnostics based on daily trends locally, nationwide, and globally. This, coupled with its ability to stay updated with the latest studies and correlations, presents an extreme value in comparison.


The prototypes we have so far use real-time as the centerpiece. The challenge right now is the multi-domain applicability of the idea is massive, meaning soon I have to narrow down the direction.

Doing hard shit is hard. It's difficult. It's crazy. If you look for reasons to quit you can find them. Every day I find it feels like 10 new reasons pop up. But I have a way bigger reason to do it.

Saw someone tandem base jumping, and when walking to the edge to pro said to the 1st timer; keep walking. Stay in control of your mind and your feet. When you get to the edge, jump. Off they went. They took the real deal, not the exit sign.
That's how every day feels doing hard shit.

"... and do it anyway."

Like any other human doing hard things, my brain constantly attempts to make me question the feasibility. Every time I say "fine" and do it anyway.

There is a steady flow of setbacks, excuses, and changes that could be turned into a reason to stop. Here are a few examples from this week.

• YC-backed competitor announced their carbon copy product, and they have +1500 users already.
• Still can't program, so literally everyone feels faster than me
• Spent days and +100$ to build a landing page in Webflow only to learn it's better if I make w/ NextJS and wave goodbye to the $ spent.

At face value, this sucks and can feel bad and close to a relentless headwind. BUT! Here's the best thing....

• I downloaded the competitors' software. I learned my plan, which they realized before me sucks. Time saved and I have a direction that's going to be magnitudes better. WIN!
• Doesn't matter, especially if you're building the wrong thing. Also, I'm faster than weeks ago. WIN and pedal to the metal! 
• But it only took me a day to redo the site, with better styles in NextJS. And now, with a few additional days of work, Auth & Stripe is fully connected too. WIN! 

If you only look for the shadow, you'll find it. But if you look beyond, that's where the light is.

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Last week I realized a few risks I had to mitigate. The risk of going dark on whatever I'm building, not creating awareness, not iterating and gathering feedback fast enough.
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When running solo, there's rarely anyone who provide feedback, pushback or tell you; hey this idea is shit.. I thought about this fact for a bit and realized the best way to mitigate all of it would be to tell and show the world what I'm doing and mitigate it all this way. Streaming the building process seems like the best path forward.
GREAT. Only one drawback; It means the world will see the real me.. The real me.. Who googles.. Tries.. Fails.. Overcomes.. And repeat..

And then the million dollar question I got from friends and fam; what if someone steals my idea? Well.. They can try... I'll build a better product anyway. :)

More than once or twice, I've been told; If only I'd studied and done what you did, then I would do that too, but I'm not you, so I'm shit out of luck compared to you.

It happened again this week, and what I'm about to say might be career suicide, but that is of lesser importance compared to the essence of this post.

Most importantly - don't you ever again compare yourself to others and think I could or would do that too if only I had {insert your presumption}'.

Self-pity, envy, jealousy, and all that jazz are self-imposed limitations that bring you no good whatsoever. And even worse, more often than not, what you believe and think isn't even factual or reality. Let me show you why...

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Here's my bright light story as seen by others:

"Deani, wow. He worked at Slack for 5.5 years, can write software and design things, understands business, and does product development better than most. He built mobile apps for years before spending 3 years being responsible for the development and distribution of one of the world's most popular enterprise desktop apps called Slack. Before that, he led one of Slack's mobile teams for a few years. Later, Deani was even deeply involved in Product, Design, and Engineering operations and CxOI leadership with one of the European unicorns for a year before going off on his own. And adding to that, back in his distant past, he worked at an agency where he built apps for some of the largest companies in Denmark, and he has managed IT Infrastructure and done Business Intelligence, too.

A Swiss knife who can do it all. Now, if only that was me, then I would...."

All of the above is true, but let's add some much-needed nuance to tell the real story.
So let's break down my prerequisites for building my product company today..

‍Technical Chops: My technical learnings is essentially worth 0 with Microsoft quitting the native app, phone and tablet business - because Microsoft Apps was what I did for almost a decade. When Microsoft killed their phone and native apps business I spent 6 months building stuff with web technology. That's the extent of my web development knowledge. I can't write Python, barely know Typescript and CSS & Webpack is a city in Russia, and I have no idea how CSPs, Redex & build pipelines work. I can write basic SQL but the moment you say let's join some stuff, google is my friend. I've never written any code or apps for iOS or Android, though I know their respective design languages and platform capabilities quite well.

Most product-related software today is written using tools and languages I know very little about. I dare say that +98% of developers out there know more than me.

Design: I took 1 course at a university in basic graphical design. That's my background. I have opinions about visuals and can tell good from bad design, and I can draw & visualize some of it. I did spend some years designing Microsoft apps that other developers though. My background for doing so. None - I just figured it out anyway. And by the way, the university course came at the tail-end of my design career. 98% of the designers are faster and more capable than me.

Product: I've seen tons of PM work over the years. I witnessed how both good and bad work happens and remembered some of the mistakes others made and I now try to avoid most of them. Years of personal experience? Zero.

Business: Being in close proximity rubs off, no doubt. I've seen others lead big, make decisions, and steer large organizational ships. The secret to success: Bet on asymmetric upsides, do what's right for the company's needs, and keep building and maintaining momentum.

Management: I can hire, plan, lead, and drive most teams and projects better than most. I've managed up to almost 20 people at a time and led close and open-source-focused teams. I know how to talk to and interface with stakeholders at any level of an organization and how to treat and talk to customers of any size & scale. I can navigate hairy situations and lead incidents and crises of organizational and technical character.

This is cool but irrelevant when building a bootstrapped (solo) business from scratch. There's no crisis nor anyone to lead. There's just... Me.

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👑 What I do have is this...

I believe in my heart and bones that I'm not defined by what I have done in the past or what I have a background in. What defines me is what I do today, and by doing, nothing can stop me. Because what I do is I think critically, adapt, read & understand, figure out, try, fail, learn, grow, make mistakes, look at what others do, ask computers, the internet, and people for help, and do and keep doing. Even if I don't know what I'm doing, I'll figure it out anyway. That's the reality.

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Do I envy others of their skills, achievements or results? Fuck no. I congratulate and cheer those who grind, suffer, grow, learn, and do. If they succeed - good for them. If they don't - good for them. Either way I hope they get up, learn, adapt, share and keep doing.

The last post I shared has had me reflecting since hitting publish. Especially I was reminded of the book "the alchemist" and how it reads;
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The only thing that makes the accomplishment impossible is the fear of failure.

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At a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That's the world's greatest lie.

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There are so many out there who live lives full of dreams they no longer dare pursue. My biggest fear is dreaming and not daring.

So goes my inner dialog on some days, not all, but not none.
"you have no idea what you're doing".. So said the little voice in my head. "Be quiet, or move out of the way. There's work to do!" was the swift response.

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With no cofounder around, bootstrapping is the way. That means at least three things;

‍Technically - I've needed to brush up. ElectronJS, TypeScript, React, Python- it's all coming back, but some of it looks like a hack. But ey' it works.

Risk - ..is forever a weird thing for me. As much as I thrive with well-calculated and thoughtful risk, it carries a different weight now with a wife and two kids. Our savings are not infinite, and when its dwindling size influences more than just me, it hurts. Thankfully, my wife is a warrior, power mom, relentless support, and now family CFO.

Product - some days feel like a ever-changing scenery on a long hike through seasons and landscapes. Brushing up technically equals time spent on learning. From learning comes ideas. Lots of new ideas. Some terrible, some alright but not for me, some exciting, and some bordering on impossible. The last two categories are my jam! 

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With technical exploration, creativity, and learning spurring, I have a few interesting ideas that I'm digging into.

An English GenAI Voice tutor/coach for professionals. Over 750million professional English speakers have English as a 2nd language. Everyone struggles to improve, and duo lingo is like a fitness subscription. It's good to have, but it's mostly a chore for most and you don't use it enough.
What I need is someone who can sit in on my calls, only care about what I'm saying, provide concrete feedback, and help me become a better communicator. Get rid of filler words, swearing, mispronunciation, and saying 'like' all the time, and expand my vocabulary. Generally, make my articulation and communication go from decent to great when it matters most.

In the periphery, I'd love to bring something like Raycast to Windows. The Windows experience, in general, is something I've always struggled with, but having a smart agent & launcher that is genuinely useful, AI-integrated, and extensible would be hella' cool!

As one might know... Building experience is what makes my heart sing. Having an Apple Vision Pro on my desk is helpful, valuable, and exciting, and I have a few ideas I'd love to create for this beautiful device. Still, I'm torn about whether it can bring enough income to justify the time and effort. Also, unity charging 2000$ to do fully immersive development hurts - a lot!


That's what's happening right now. I'm leveling up on a lot of fronts. My verbal English included!

Fortune favors the bold. At Slack, we had it written on one of the walls in what I consider the best-designed office in the world - 500 Howard. 
What this means to me is that those with the courage, discipline, persistence, perseverance, and tenacity shall seek and find what they are genuinely looking for eventually. 

Most people attribute this to smarts and character, but the biggest influence is mindset. 

When someone wants to do something and the world tells them no. What most hear is "no, stop, not happening - go away and please don't come back". BUT you can choose to hear differently. You can choose to hear the first two letters of "not yet," and this opens up more opportunities and a healthy mindset. The words you speak matter! 

Boldness comes down to a simple fact. What you choose to do in the face of resistance determines the outcome. Meet enough resistance, and most people will give in. Those who make it, more often than not, is because of "natural selection". Most gave in, gave up, walked away, and they didn't. 

Once you realize that quitting is not an option, a world of possibility opens up. Being bold isn't always fun, sunshine and rainbows, or pretty. But pursuing and eventually finding the fortune you're looking for, whatever it might be, sure is rewarding. 

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Having one or more co-founders is essential for Venture Funding and for good reason - risk minimization and 1 is not a team. Having a well-balanced team with complementary skills, a track record, and strong shared core values goes pretty far for making an early venture case. It's all about the team - as it should be. There's just one issue. My preferred plan A sorta' fell through, and without a co-founder - then what? 
Right now, there are two options under consideration. Rescope the idea and go bootstrapped (self-funded) OR search for another great potential co-founder with a strong overlap in core values and complimentary chops and build together.

Honestly, realizing the plan I had in mind wouldn't work out this time was a bit of a curve ball, to say the least, but I spent a few days and the weekend dusting myself off. Can I keep going? Yes! So I must. 🥾🥾🥾🥾🥾

My wife last night asked: Can I ask you something? Are you passionate about this thing you're building, and why this thing in particular? 

My first response was: That's a really good question. Hmm...

After a minute of contemplation, I answered:

Passionate is an interesting word, and logic says you should expect a simple "YES of course" answer, but to me, it's more nuanced than that. What I am incredibly excited about solving a foundational problem, which only a few of us discuss most of the time. Today, for most people, the pinnacle of their AI experience is chatting with a computer. But who wants to do that? And explain what you need, again and again?. Even if the computer is super smart. 

Example: Which is better here? You have to tell me what you need all the time? And stop, no joking now! Or if I know you as an individual and I'm just here to help you proactively without you asking. Think; Oh you are busy, and I'm not, so I bring you a plate of food just before hunger is setting in? To me, a part of kindness towards others is to make their lives more pleasant. Software and hardware can do that if you create the right experience at the right time. And it's that experience I'm most excited about. And with what we are building now, we are opening up so many opportunities to create software experiences that feel there for you! 

Unexpected questions prompted some reflection, and that's a part of the journey.

A few weeks later +10 of Angel and VC meetings, the experience has been great overall. VCs are as different as humans. Some you connect with personally, others less so. Thanks to their input and feedback, I entered the first wave of calls with one idea and exited with another.

Initially, the core idea was:
To build an operational platform for product companies. Best practices as a platform. But as Theis, Co-founder of Vivino, pointed out to me over coffee. It's easier to sell people a product they want than the one they need.
Still, I field-tested the idea at the first few calls, and at call number 4, I realized I started pitching a different and more exciting idea.

The next iteration, and the idea I'm super excited about is; 
Automated hyper-personalized productivity and proactivity. 
Talk about buzzwords. When working as a professional, an almost infinite, always-changing context is available with Notion, Slack, and other platforms. Being able to reason across systems of records, see the patterns, and connect the dots - that's where the real value lies. 

What if we can build a local personal context by understanding what you work on across most of your applications, how you communicate, and generally ingest the information available to you? Then, we can build highly personalized, relevant, and productive output, saving you hours of work every week.

And if we integrate your core applications - like Slack, Google Docs, Calendar, Slides, Sheets, Notion, and LinkedIn. Then we can start considering and reacting to things you have yet to see. 

The simple use cases could be:
- draft highly accurate message responses if someone pings you out of hours, saving you time in the morning. 
- Jumping on a call with someone you haven't chatted with in a long time? We can pull together everything you need to know so you can hit the ground running. 
- Inviting someone to a meeting? Great, we know about the work happening and why. We can craft a super solid agenda in seconds, and you can share. A better you, without you having to spend 15-30 minutes writing something up. 

The use cases are incredibly abundant when we have a personal context. Just imagine what it's worth to save someone hours every week leaving more time for the actual valuable work.  

The VC's feedback on this idea has ranged from "YES! This is what I need, can I try it? Like now... I wanted this yesterday!" to "Uuuh, that won't work. Go find another, even bigger or different, problem to solve". 

How we think about the next steps right now is; concept of a deeply personal context can be taken in so many different product directions, while the technical implementation doesn't change much. This alone brings some confidence that the path is worth additional exploration and more prototyping. And I'm super stoked about building a product where I don't have to chat back and forth with a computer to explain what I want, need or know. It should just work 🪄

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Saying something out loud makes it real - at least for me. One morning, only for my own sake, I updated my LinkedIn and changed my current work from Sabbatical to Stealth Startup. "Hello world, there isn't a product yet. Just a lot of leg work but hey this is happening. We are doing it!"

What happened next was unexpected! Within minutes, the first VC reached out. Then, an angel investor. Then another one, and another one. Over the next 7 days, more than 30 folks reached out to ask: Hey, what are you up to? Want to chat?

Facing a peculiar and unexpected interest, I called a really good friend, the one and only Kenneth Auchenberg, that evening to ask: What the fuck do I do? Kenneth, as always, shared hours of invaluable advice, including: Take some calls, be honest, never forget it's business & build relationships. It will be worth it.

Now, a week and a lot of calls later, Kenneth was right. I feel humbled and energized AF by all the thoughtful and intriguing individuals I've connected with, their advice, the learnings, and the positive validation of the overall direction.
LFG! 

Late last year I bought and read readMAKE.com by the infamous @levelsio. It is a good book that, among other pearls of wisdom, shares the concept of building in public. Interesting, albeit bordering terrifying. 
And between then and now, two of smartest and kindest people I've had a chance to work (@alirayl and @johnnyrodgers) created buildingslack.com and regularly share delightful tales of the early days of Slack. - A few years before I joined as employee number 200-something.

Inspired by the above, I'm sharing my journey of buildingmyfirst.company. 

Years from now I imagine I'll have: "an honest journal full of thoughts, decisions, challenges and celebrations that come with building a company." and something to look over time and time again as a source of reflection and growth

Welcome to me, and everyone else, to my journey.

To this day, I've sifted through at least 43 ideas, mainly across software, hardware, manufacturing, and gaming. It took me months of restless nights fighting a term I got to know firsthand: FOBO. Fear Of Better Options. In sheer frustration and anxiety, I've applied and had sprees of applying to jobs I never wanted. All because I couldn't determine how to narrow my list of ideas and what idea(s) to pursue.

One day, on a slow and bumpy train ride, it clicked for me while listening to Walter Isaacson's voice narrating Elon Musk explaining the Idiot Index and reading Shreyas Doshi's tweet explaining how: Impact = (Execution ^ Strategy) × Market. A spreadsheet (my sheet with ideas and all) with a few calculations would likely do the trick! 

Fast-forward 45 minutes, I had a stack-rank of my ideas and had a short short-list. Voila! And I disembarked the train.

I've known I wanted to build something ever since reading The Fountainhead 15 years ago. While reading the book one of the main characters, Roark says "If he doesn't build, when he has the means, it's because his life has not been what he wanted." I didn't know what, but I've known it would have to happen. 

After five years of hyper-growth, I left Slack in 2021, and before joining Productboard, I seriously considered starting my own, but Julie and I had our second kid, and with believing in putting family (your first team) first, the timing felt like too much of a risk. Now 3 years later. It's time.