Founders

Not enough founders talk about their time before starting. Instead, you usually hear super polished, half-true, perfectly linear founding stories that make you feel unproductive. 

The reality is that most startups had a messy exploratory phase before starting. Patrick thought about payment ideas for a year before starting Stripe. Bezos brainstormed dozens of potential products to sell online before landing on books. Brian applied to YC with multiple different ideas before starting Coinbase.

In this spirit, here are some things I’ve recently explored (researched, talked to customers, prototyped) working on next:

* loom for real estate
* real estate x climate
* ai for semi-architecture
* marketplace for ai tokens
* ai for remote communication 
* ai for crypto tax and accounting
* substack for ai-powered coaches
* plaid API for multiple listing service
* decentralized multiple listing service
* stablecoin-based global labor marketplace
* ai/crypto-enabled marketplace for powersports

Pre-startup exploration is messy but essential for success. Unpolished beginnings are more common than perfect founding stories