Product People, Is This Anything?

Hello Friday,

"What business do you fantasize about starting?" or "What product do you fantasize about making?" might be two of my favorite questions to ask people. Certain friends of mine will indulge me and kick around ideas, an all-time favorite pastime. Here are a few fantasies that I can't seem to shake.

When I was in college, I had to have a section of my intestine removed because it had developed a kink (as in a hose). Ever since, I’ve had a long saga with GI doctors on an on-going quest to find “what works” for me. During each visit to the doctor's office, or ahead of each colonoscopy, I was told to point to something called the Bristol Stool Chart and indicate what my "typical" poo looks like from a lineup of 10 varying illustrations. This always made me feel stressed -- my extreme irregularity made it such that there was no "typical" shape, color, or consistency. After all, that is why I was at the doctor in the first place. But you likely know that doctor's simply don't have time for hemming and hawing, and therein lies the tension: Doctors want you to select one poop type out of a generalized range, while you want to impress upon the doctor what the full spectrum of poop types looks like for you. They want one answer, but you want them to account for details, nuance, and personal patterns. This represents a data gap, because clearly your doctor cannot bear witness to what's happening in your toilet each day. This also represents an analysis gap, because the doctor's perception of your communication style and description of your experience (+ any inherent shyness, people-pleasing, humility, or frustration therein) leaves room for bias. Meanwhile, I find it curious that we use Instagram and a variety of apps to share every detail about what we put *into* our bodies... what if it were just as normal to track what comes *out* of our bodies? The idea is to create an image recognition and data visualization platform for keeping a log (pun intended) of every bowel movement, because who doesn't shit with their phone these days? Just poop, snap a photo, wipe, flush, and go about your day. Similar to the advent of Heart Rate Variability, the data from these images would help you understand a personalized baseline, and could be cross-referenced with other health metrics such as sleep, location, time of day, and activity to surface patterns showing when and why you might deviate from your baseline. I call it SHITZAM. Don't flush feedback down the toilet!

In 2014 Vanity Fair published a story on President Obama, following his every move throughout the day in order to explain his thought process, his habits, and how he manages his time. It was the first time I learned about the term 'decision fatigue' - The President said that he had too many decisions to make to be concerned with what he is eating or wearing, so he automated those decisions to save his brain power for more important things. That article inspired me. A few months later and despite having worked for many years at Nike, I got rid of all my clothes. I've instead developed a seasonally-modular uniform, with thoughtful pocketing to account for modern-day carry. And I’ve been wearing a version of that same uniform every single day for eight years now, discovering that it has improved my mindset and helped channel my attention across multiple dimensions. Perhaps not everyone feels the need to go to this extreme to act more sustainably and save decision-making energy, but nowadays pretty much everyone has a smartphone and wears clothes. It is plausible that you could simplify to a high-functioning essentialist uniform, relying on data to tell you what to wear, and save mind space for more important things. This simple automation of habit translates directly into intellectual, emotional, productivity and social gain for the user, on a daily basis. EVERYDAYS is a modular uniform subscription system informed by the creative class. Stop shopping; start committing to your everydays.

For as long as I can remember, when I've visited my mom in New Jersey, she celebrates by making a big fruit salad. She buys in-season fruits from the farmer's market down the street, then peels, chops, cubes, and mixes the pieces. Together we pick away at it, as a versatile accompaniment to breakfast, lunch, and dinner or as a standalone snack in between. As much as I love this tradition, when I am back home in Harlem I almost never put forth the effort to make myself a fruit salad. Instead, occasionally I'll buy a 16oz. deli fruit cup. You might know the very specific dissonance that follows: these are usually 90% melon, with the remaining capacity filled with GMO grapes, a couple dark berries, and either a slice of kiwi or half of a strawberry deceptively placed at the top. At the same time, ~40% of our food waste is produce that has been deemed unmerchandiseable for cosmetic reasons. These ugly fruits may look unsavory when whole, but when chopped up in a fruit salad, who cares? I've traveled to other countries where you can buy a fresh fruit salad on the side of the road. When living in China, one of my frequent stops was a place called Mr. Fruits. I imagine that much like when Howard Schultz brought Italian coffee culture back to Seattle in the form of Starbucks, fresh salads made from whole fruits (as opposed to powder-based smoothies and acai bowls) could usher in a new, healthier standard. I'd call it FR????T, with ever-changing O's based on the seasonal featured fruit. Froot as functional nutrition. What say you, Sweetgreen?

A couple of years ago, Corey and I got a pandemic puppy. For Christmas, our family got us a Pupbox subscription, and we had a great time with it. Every month, we received a customized package of toys, treats, tools and information that was tailored to our dog's breed, birthdate, and developmental stage. More recently, I had a hysterectomy necessitated by endometriosis. I had previously undergone years of various hormone therapies, and the side effects had long caught up to the benefits. While in recovery, I got more involved with Both& Apparel and learned more about the hormone journey common during the stages of gender transition, too. I found myself referencing my experience with Pupbox more and more - I wished I had access to a similar thing in the months leading up to freezing my eggs, and in the months following my recent surgery. I wished I had something like it to guide me through the years I was on Lupron, a drug that puts the body in a menopause-like state. And lately, I've been thinking that a Pupbox for HRT patients and/or caretakers might be helpful too. Call it HEM - Hormone Evolution Monthly.

In case you can't already tell, I am a big journal reflection person, always making resolutions and scribbling down daily takeaways. I’ve found that it’s best to reset habits when your environment changes, so when I moved back to the US from Shanghai, I created a new set of rules to follow. One of them was to be more conscious about where or who I am buying things from. I made a goal of spending money equally amongst black-owned, female-owned, and white male-owned businesses, and keeping to this same ratio with the people I talk about on social, designers I wear, authors I read, people I introduce or recommend for a job, etc. etc. And of all these new rules that I posted about, this one got quite a few comments, so I know others in my peer group are thinking the same way. But when it came down to actually buying stuff and being a consumer in the same direction as my values, I found out that this is really difficult (time consuming) to do.?Two big forces shaping our world are consumer markets and capital markets. And on the one side, there is a healthy conversation going on about impact investing, which I think is needed. However not everyone is or ever will be an investor. But for most part, most everyone has to buy things at some point in their life. So if everyone can’t be a part of the impact investing conversation, I found myself wondering, is there a way to make it easier for people to impact consume? Around the same time GoFundMe made an update to its donation platform, inspired by an insight they discovered during the outpouring of support after Hurricane Harvey. Instead of having to choose individual campaigns to support on GoFundMe, you can now contribute to a general cause or topic you’re passionate about, and the company will allocate your money for you. I've read that this new format has been pretty effective: it actually helped to generate more donations because it helps alleviate the concerns that can happen when someone has only $50 to give, but there are hundreds of campaigns that ladder up into a particular event or cause. I wish for an e-commerce platform with a similarly-designed UX, that enables you to shop in the direction of your values. If you care about environmental sustainability, you select that issue and only shop accredited products. If you care about gun control, you filter by that and only shop from sellers who put their money where their mouth is on gun reform. And if, like me, you want to support minority business owners, you simply click a button and don’t have to worry about doing time-intensive research on your own. I'd nickname it the VOTE WITH YOUR DOLLAR STORE… does this already exist?