Where the F**k Do I Start.

Week 2 of Building in Public.

[In case you missed it, checkout my original post on building in public.] 

Week two of my OnDeck fellowship is in the books and I know a few things to be true. I am incredibly impressed by the cohort of builders, thinkers, and tinkerers I’ve met as part of the ODF8. I’ve had some incredible brainstorms, been given great feedback about early ideas, had assumptions challenged, and been pointed towards numerous resources I'm certain will help my cause.

I’ve also come to accept that producing anything lasting in education, especially with the goal of normalizing lifelong learning, might be as much about building a movement as building a company.

Week Two and The Top of the Funnel Problem.

As I thought (and chatted) more about the top of the funnel problem, it became increasingly clear that a potential opportunity looms large. 

Access to content and delivery of that content is now ubiquitous through self-paced, cohort based, or bootcamp style programs. Even the cost of producing online courses are rapidly decreasing. Discovery is also a problem that is relatively solved for. Knowing which Data Science bootcamp best suits your needs, schedule, and learning style, is easier to distinguish than ever before. 

However, if you don’t know what you should be up-skilling in, what your existing skills are, or what your knowledge gap is between the:

• Skills and knowledge you already have (known knowns); 

• Skills and knowledge you know you need to acquire (known unknowns);

• Skills and knowledge you don’t yet realize you need to know (unknown unknowns)...

How do you know where to start? 

I’m calling it (for now) the “Where the f**k do I start?” problem.

From Barista to Business Owner.

It's more clear to me than ever that the existing model, although better than before, is only about upskilling or retraining from an existing job (that may be on the verge of being obsolete) to the “next job.” Why only think about the next opportunity and not the many opportunities in your future? What might it look like to create a career journey map with 10-20 potential paths for workers? What if they had someone to join them along this journey? What if they could see someone that has done it before? 

Right now, when I think about career maps and growth planning, I see those who don’t need it, have it and those that don’t have it, need it. What does a plan that takes a barista to a business owner in 20 years look like? 

I don’t know the answers yet, but this is what I’ve been noodling on for the last week. I plan to continue to dive deeper into these questions in week three of the fellowship. 

---

Your Turn.

What do you think? Do you agree with my general concept? Think the idea is stupid and unrealistic? Has someone built this already and I missed it?! I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments or just hit the reply button and let me know!

---

Extra Curricular: 

I wanted to share a great nugget from a chat we had with Erik Torenberg (the founder of OnDeck). He presented the concept of "Personal Moats" and, although I’m not new to the idea, what struck me in this moment was how valuable this concept would have been to me if I had learned it at 18. It’s not to say that it isn’t valuable for me at this point of my career, just something that I had wished I had been privy to when I was first starting out.

Erik Torenberg @eriktorenberg

7/ Steps to building a moat if you’re not going to start a company: a) “Get in the game” b) Build an asset that builds some social capital c) Convert social capital to financial capital (e.g invest)

In that vein I encourage you to have a read and share it with younger siblings, family members, cousins, and friends who can benefit from developing their personal moat.