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Exit the Cave

turtlespace.blog

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Re: Exit the Cave

#21

Post by chairmansteve »

LogicFailsMe wrote: post #11

The only thing worse than 100% inhabiting your own cave is trying to fit into someone else's. I had a conversation this weekend with someone in an emerging startup that I initially wanted to join but increasingly didn't as I realized I had gone from starring cast to somewhere between entourage and sub 1% equity NPC. And at that point, startups are horrible bets when you have any sort of sure thing IMO. But it was ins…

Missed out a crucial word: there's nothing - wrong - with spending most of your time in the cave.

I agree 100%.

Re: Exit the Cave

#22

Post by TimTheTinker »

edg5000 wrote: post #6

There is a real tension. On the one hand, you need to grind to develop the horse power needed. Without the horse power, it's just not possible. On the other hand, your ideas need to meet reality for things to get steered and stay grounded. I started a business in 2022 and constantly got the advice to first sell, then build. It's a bit of a chicken and egg problem. You can't sell something that's not good enough, but…

> It's a bit of a chicken and egg problem.

AI can help tremendously with the initial leg-up problem of shipping a working prototype -- paradoxically, if you're willing to put in the work. That is, the right kind of work: talking to people, getting suggestions, writing all your own marketing copy by hand, creating a design that has human touch, throwing it away and starting fresh (with less genAI help) when you've learned what the real demand is for, etc.

Re: Exit the Cave

#23

Post by chairmansteve »

baron3dl wrote: post #17

The bar for what is worth bringing out of the cave gets higher every day. Unless you have a huge network of fans or a small network of foolhardy VCs, screaming into the market, with two million other voices, may as well be the void. It's getting hard to even get a shrug.

The answer is to aim for a much smaller audience. Solve a problem for one other person/company.

Re: Exit the Cave

#24

Post by JumpCrisscross »

edg5000 wrote: post #6

There is a real tension. On the one hand, you need to grind to develop the horse power needed. Without the horse power, it's just not possible. On the other hand, your ideas need to meet reality for things to get steered and stay grounded. I started a business in 2022 and constantly got the advice to first sell, then build. It's a bit of a chicken and egg problem. You can't sell something that's not good enough, but…

> you don't know if there is demand without selling. This is an awkward balance

The answer is you start with the sale. Once you’ve sold it, you build it. Ideally, you sell it to customers first. Less ideally, to investors.

Re: Exit the Cave

#25

Post by samudrijan »

multisport wrote: post #2

> Better to be pinned in public with courage than to train endlessly in private like a coward. Ship that product Funny, I didn't read this as career advice, but social advice. Like, get off the apps, get off the couch, go sit at a bar alone, ask someone to hang out.

We should strive for somewhat higher than sitting at the bar alone.

Re: Exit the Cave

#26

Post by samudrijan »

sph wrote: post #9

Tangent inspired by the first half of the article: wasting time on the Internet, in front of screens being akin to Plato's Cave is a useful framing device I wish I could internalize. Two or three decades ago getting acquainted with the nascent web felt like escaping the cave to a brand new world, just to now feel discovered we have been trapped into a worse one, and now wishing to escape back to the real world. You k…

Have you hit the end of the internet? I mostly have. This thread though is pretty decent.

Re: Exit the Cave

#27

Post by card_zero »

altcognito wrote: post #7
interroboink wrote: post #5

I like this article, but on some level I vehemently disagree with it? The summary is this: > A writer needs readers ... Any worthy pursuit needs a mat. > ... Better to be pinned in public with courage than to train > endlessly in private like a coward. And then I think of various shut-in artists that I admire. Take, for example, Henry Darger[1]. He clearly did not seek public recognition; he never showed his work to…

Yeah, I think the distinction is just the underlying purpose. If you are doing art for arts sake then just do your thing. (and there is nothing wrong with that) It may even be where you spend the majority of your time if you are lucky enough to do that. But if you are labouring under the belief that your art has human value to others, you must put it out in the world, and often the sooner the better!

How far out into the world? Tolkien wrote The Hobbit for his kids, after dabbling in writing stories for the preceding 10 years or maybe longer, and he showed them to his friends sometimes, and a friend showed it to her friend who showed it to her boss, who published books, and this chain of events led to Tolkien having to write The Lord of the Rings. He wasn't exactly shielding his work from criticism, by writing for friends and family, but he wasn't throwing himself to the lions either, because why?

Re: Exit the Cave

#28

Post by ang_cire »

> A writer needs readers. An entrepreneur needs customers. An athlete needs competition. A lover needs someone free to reject him. Any worthy pursuit needs a mat.

Nah. I judge myself by how I progressed from yesterday, not by whether what I am or what I built is useful to others.

Is keeping a diary pointless if you're not planning to make it a memoir?

Is staying healthy pointless if you aren't using that health to compete with others?

It's hilarious to me that the author calls the cave "grinding", when to my eyes the "grindset" guys are the ones always trying to very visibly compete with others about wealth/status/women.

I've never heard of some guy trying to build the best Rimworld colony (in what is probably a very cave-like setting, no less) try to portray it as grinding.

Re: Exit the Cave

#29

Post by Vakaiser »

'Putting yourself out there' is really only a necessity if the validation you seek through your pursuits is external in nature.

Those who seek internal validation need not exit the cave, for it is not a coward's cage; it is merely another space to pursue one's own enlightenment and holds no power over its occupant.

Re: Exit the Cave

#30

Post by analog8374 »

You ever spend a decade working on something really great? I mean something truly brilliant and clever and next-level. And you bring it all the way to solid results. And it's real and beautiful. And nobody cares.

I have. I think that's the dev parallel here.

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