Field notes
Ideas for making
your own way.
What’s changing. What’s worth building. How to begin.
A series in eight parts
The new starting line.
Our beliefs about the next wave of building, with the research behind them.
One person. More possibility.
The distance between having an idea and being able to build it is getting smaller. That changes who gets to start.
02When building gets faster, choose better.
A shorter build cycle makes the choice of problem, customer, and moment more consequential.
03Distribution starts before the product.
A following can be a head start. So can credibility, a community, or knowing exactly where the problem lives.
04The distance to first revenue is changing.
A connected world and faster early growth create room for new businesses. Stripe’s latest annual letter gives us a clearer view.
05The startup stack is becoming a starting point.
Company formation, login, data, payments, and publishing are increasingly things a small team can assemble.
06Build for the person and their agent.
Some work will happen outside your interface. The opportunity is to make a useful capability easy to find, understand, and use.
07Show the thing you made.
Video is a powerful place to teach, demonstrate, and earn attention. For builders, the work itself can become the content.
08A business small enough to be yours.
Smaller teams can make different economics work. Building a business is becoming a path more people can explore.
Put it into practice
One useful step at a time.
Start something. Make a tool. Put a first version into someone’s hands.
From the studio
How we think about the work.
Your next chapter
Make something
that’s yours.
The tools are here.
The next move is yours.