How to venture into unknown terrains?

It has been a humbling journey to venture into a total unknown: Building an ecosystem for creative problem solvers. If you asked me about it in 2018 my face will be like this ??

Let us take a stab at it stepwise and connecting the dots from my life experience. Treat me as a case study and see what you can extract.

Step 1: Slay the creative arrogance

The creative arrogance of wanting a bigger problem and a better problem has been haunting me for a while now (3 years). I felt it is important to take care of this longing else i might not die well.

Remember YOLO (You only live once). I remixed it and called it as YODO (You only die once). I am working towards dying well and making my cemetery regret free.

What is in it for you: If you have a longing which is keeping you restless and sleepless slay it with a big vision that you never could imagine.

Step 2: Searching for a lifetime problem statement

The only best way to do the above is to have a huge problem in-front of me for next 30 years (i hope my life ends by then, if not i will treat 31st year+ as a bonus). Searching for that problem statement itself was a revelation.

What is in it for you: There is only one problem statement and there is only one life. Now go and choose. Whatever you choose will be worth it because you will think between that one life and one problem.

Step 3: Mapping past impressions

I have done 7 startups so far. Invested in a few and co-founded a few. Lost money in a few. Made money in a few. I don't treat the loss of money as loss but it was my MBA done in the real world by having skin in the game.

What is in it for you: Learn from the past. Just don't be stuck with it. Remember we come naked and we go naked, everything in between is just a play so be a sport. Money is also another tool. I learnt this lesson in a hard way. Should you too waste time on this?

Step 4: Designing the future

There came a time where I drew a thick line and called it as second tranche of life. This time putting in all the great learnings of my first tranche and designing the path consciously. The irony is i am venturing into a forest and i am designing my trail. I am loving the progressive discovery with a strong anchor to the WHY.

What is in it for you: Draw a line and call it before and after. It gives you clarity to move farther, further and faster. Either something is done consciously or not. There is no other state in between. So chose one else the other one will get chosen by default.

Step 5: Figuring out the pragmatic purpose

The purpose is knowing that you have only 36500 days max this lifetime and working backwards, fitting your passion, capabilities, expertise, financial needs and relationships in it. The path to mastery itself is hard. Now taking mastery to next notch, fitting money making, finding purpose, making meaning and upgrading within all the constraints is a herculean task. It needs about 30 years to get things straight to my little brain i guess. We human beings are slow. We take 20 years to grow up and another 10 years to retire and die. In between whatever time is left we want to go faster, accelerate, stress ourselves, fight the rat race and whither away.

What is in it for you: Remember thinking is way faster than doing. Know the constraints and the details. May be all you think cannot be done. So do only what can be done, it will save you disappointment.

Step 6: Writing the problem statement

As a designer, i took every constraint + capability in my life and mapped it into the venn diagram below and embarked on a journey for next 30 years. It took me about one year to do just that. Hey in the light of 30 years, 1 year is less than 4% of your time. In this one year, i spent time, energy experimenting continuously within my capabilities to understand what is the real problem.

Fell in love with the problem of creative problem solving, solvers and solution. I felt it is worth to dedicate my lifetime to create an ecosystem for the problem solving community.

What is in it for you: Goal oriented vs journey oriented. Latter is better. Former cripples you. Fall in love with the journey and the goal will happen by itself.

Step 7: Anchoring the hypothesis

Contrary to popular belief i always design things for me first. I am the person who has the problem and then i map it to a persona (a bunch of folks like me). This method works for things when you design a solution for a problem you are drenched into. It may not work if you are solving something in a domain not so familiar. In my case, i live this problem.

What is in it for you: Know your problem. See it from 1000 lens. There are perspective, phenomenons and point of views. Know that you don't know everything. It is just a guess.

Step 8: Envisioning the vision

It is scary to see a huge vision in front of you and not knowing what to do and what not to. It is clear that to raise the bar of design, we need to raise the bar of designers and we need to empower them with design education + continuous education so that they are on top of the game. This is not possible by crafting one product or one template or a service etc. An ecosystem needs many things to come together. I am aware of the fact that it cannot happen in one or two years. Not even in three or four years. Remember it is a 30 year project.

What is in it for you: Craft lifetime projects. Everything else is time-pass.

Step 9: Tailoring the execution

The engineer in me kicks in and says let us go modular. The designer in me makes it fun and says let us design an experiment and call it with fancy terms like MVP. The product manager in me goes, how to repeat and scale and find more customers who have similar problems. Are we getting trapped in the quality obsession? Are we sustainable? What is our business model like? etc.

What is in it for you: Now that you have lifetime project in hand, break it down, prioritise and execute every single day.

Step 10: Launch - all reals

Geared up all the guts and time boxed a release. Attended to it holistically. In my view, an MVP is a small product with the core value being the only value and well done in all aspects. It is not a quick and dirty prototype to throw on our customers. Sorry Reid Hoffman, I don't want to embarrass me and my users. It is ok, if I am not fast enough to hit the market. A brand must build from Day 1 and experience matters.

All the above takes time, energy, deep thinking and thoughtful execution.

Be-aware, you may also go through these symptoms when you embark on a long journey. I do encounter a lot of pangs. I go through severe impatience many times. I am affected by attention deficit sometimes. I want to do the entire ecosystem tomorrow. Yet, i ground myself every single day and focus on things that matter and that is needed. Everything else i say NO with a lot of heartache. But i do say a strong NO.

First year of Xperian Ecosystem launched the online school - Digital Product Design Intensive 2019 Bootcamp. We have planned more than 20 tracks and 60 courses. This should ideally take care of my next two years. Now time to be heads down and craft curriculum, case studies, practicum and get the bar moving up.

Knowledge and pickled knowledge (aka wisdom) can be very liberating, grounding and humbling. I am thrilled and excited to learn more as i teach more.

What is in it for you: How you do one thing is how you do everything. So be-aware of every step you take. Let it be conscious.

What is your lifetime project looking like?

It is Xperian for me. I know i will die with a few projects still left WIP but that is ok. At least i will die knowing that some more work must be done.