A company as a workshop

An interesting observation about myself and the company: maybe I really am spreading myself too thin.

We're always coming up with something new: products, medical services, bots, AI experiments. Some survive. Some die. Some I might abandon simply because the next idea has arrived.

I understand that this can be a problem.

Creating something new is often much more enjoyable than working away at the same thing for years. Coming up with an idea, building it, launching it and seeing the first users is incredibly exciting.

Then comes the boring part: sales, support, processes, economics, the hundredth iteration of a feature.

It's very easy to call all this “experimentation” when really you're avoiding the need to choose one thing and make a serious bet on it.

Recently, though, I looked at it from another angle.

Perhaps one of the most valuable things I've built isn't a particular product. It is the freedom to create.

There used to be so much between “I have an idea” and “this thing exists”: money, developers, servers, design, people and all sorts of other resources.

That distance has become much shorter. I now have a company, a team, infrastructure and skills.

At some point, Chota became something like a workshop for me.

A place where I can think, “What if we made this?” and, after a while, the thing actually exists.

Not necessarily because an investor decided to fund it. Not necessarily because a client requested it. Sometimes simply because I'm curious: could it work?

Of course, these experiments aren't free. We pay for them with time, money and the profit we could have made elsewhere.

But the company has given me room to make mistakes. We can build something, realise nobody needs it, shut it down and try the next thing.

I realised that what I like isn't so much the fact of “having a company.” I REALLY like creating things.

So I've ended up with a slightly unusual arrangement. I'm building a company not only so the company can build things, but also so I can preserve my own ability to keep building throughout my life.

The important part is not turning that freedom into an excuse for endless distraction.

One day, among all these experiments, something may emerge and the market may say clearly enough: “This is it.”

Then I'll have to do what may be the hardest thing for me. Not come up with another idea. Stay. And spend several years building one thing.

Maybe that is something I still need to learn.

For now, I love thinking of Chota as my workshop: a place that gradually gives me the freedom to turn “What if?” into “We made it.”

And I love my team because they're the kind of people who add another hundred thousand ideas to mine. We really get to be creators together.