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👋 Hey What’s up! My name is Shawn, but you can call me “Paps”. I am a Software Dev and Creative writing to you from Tampa, Florida. This newsletter is all about bridging the gap between tech & creativity, and helping you build your creative life and/or career. If you’re new here, thanks for looking. Consider subscribing if you like this week’s article!
When I learned to code, my goal was to find an outlet for my creativity that would allow me to do two things:
Get out of the plumbing truck and have the freedom to work from anywhere.
Make real money by solving real problems with my passion for technology.
I never imagined that this skill would turn into an obsession, and lead me to launching my first startup, Tourpass, in just a couple of weeks. Which honestly, is one of the coolest things about tech — the ability to build something innovative and useful (sometimes life-changing) with nothing but a laptop and a wifi connection.
Building a startup is a lot of work. I’m so thankful to have my friend & co-founder Julie there with me to tackle this ambitious idea. We’ve learned a lot, iterated on this idea several times, and a great product is coming out on the other side because of it.
I can’t wait for you to see it & use it for yourself, but in the meantime, here are some of those takeaways that I’ve had as a founder and developer of my first startup.
Capturing Lightning in a Bottle
Every creative work that gets put out into the world starts with an idea. If your brain runs 1000mph like mine does (thank you neurodivergence 😅), ideas are a tsunami in my brain at 2am when I’m trying to sleep.
What makes it even more difficult is the “I’ll remember that later” mentality. I can’t tell you how many times I felt confident that I’d remember some awesome idea from the night before, or even hours before, and it got lost in translation among the neurons in my brain.
So how do we figuratively capture the lightning in the bottle?
Pretty simple actually. Cheat the system by speaking it into existence, and I don’t mean just saying it out loud. I mean using the supercomputer in your pocket to capture that lightning. As much as Siri is useless for most everyday things, it is great for reminders. I could be in my car driving down the highway, and a great feature idea will pop into my head, and I’ll literally say “hey siri, remind me about x feature at 7pm”. Once I get where I’m going, that is when I’ll commit that idea to Notion along with any additional notes to accompany it.
Don’t be Afraid to Iterate
We are creatures of habit. From our daily routines to the tech we use, we find a thing that works, and that’s okay. However, when building software, sometimes a framework or platform simply makes building more difficult, or doesn’t quite offer what your application needs.
There is fear in letting go, but trust me when I say this: creatives, it is okay to iterate.
Julie and I have redesigned the architecture, UI, and tech stack several times with Tourpass. Through this iteration, we were able to discover what we actually like building with that will grow with us while checking off the requirements from our MVP document (minimum viable product: basically, the initial set of features that version 1 will ship with).
I think that many creatives get comfortable with the tools that they use, and that is okay. However, there is growth through experimentation. I highly encourage you to keep an open mind and iterate. It may work, it might not, but you’ll learn some new skills along the way at the very least.
This is one that I’m trying to be better about, and a reason why this newsletter exists. Share your journey. Share your process. Share the inspiration on why you chose to start building/creating the thing that you’re building/creating.
Tourpass started because I didn’t see an upcoming show some friends were playing until it was too late to change plans. I wished for a better way to network online as a musician rather than sifting through the noise on facebook and instagram.
Sharing your journey not only helps you remain accountable to see the idea to fruition, but also allows you to reflect on what you’re building. It also gives you the power to build a community around what you’re doing. I can’t speak much to the psychology of it, but people love watching other people do cool sh*t. And when you find that supportive audience, that fuels the fire even more.
What do you think? Is there anything that you’ve learned “building in public”? Let me know by replying to this email or in the comments!
Sign up for the Tourpass Beta Program for early access. It’s completely free to join.
Build Fast. Break Stuff. Have Fun.