Day 54: Team vs. Solo

personal

On Monday and Tuesday, Erica, Matt, and I made Just One Earth, a collection of visualizations and games to show the impact we have as a species on the earth and its creatures. Here’s our demo presenting it to a panel of judges (the Q&A is especially hilarious because the judges are investors — they probably expected everyone to be working on 🔥 spicy investment opportunities 🔥 but we just championed some causes we care about):

Today, we sat down to reflect on our work and what we learned, and it made me think more about whether I want to continue working solo or work on a team with others for the rest of the program (and beyond).

I had a freaking fantastic time working with Erica and Matt. We had great vibes, and it was fun throughout because none of us took ourselves too seriously. We joked around a ton, which was especially helpful given that the heavy nature of the topics we explored. (It’s intense thinking about how we might only be a few decades away from a irreversible doomsday scenario or how we ruthlessly slaughter thousands of animals a second.)

Here are some of the things I enjoyed about working with them that I don’t get when working alone:

  • Team spirit 🙌🏽

    When we had a hard time coming up with good ideas, we struggled together. When we worked late into the night, we were all delirious together. When we hit the front page of Product Hunt, we celebrated together. Everything is much more fun with homies.

  • Instant feedback 🗣

    I loved that I could trust their taste and intuition when I wasn’t sure about my own. For example, I had the idea to have the animal emojis turn into skulls in Killed for Food, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go forward with it. I asked them to take a look at it, and within 5 seconds, I had my answer because they both liked it better with the skulls. If they hadn’t been there, I would’ve spent more time trying to make a decision. Working with others can make some decisions take longer, especially when there’s disagreement, but it can also speed up quite a few others.

  • Risk taking ❗️

    I have a hard time injecting my personality into the products I make. There’s probably some latent discomfort around the idea of doing it poorly or turning some people off that’s driven by the people-pleasing side of my personality. It’s one of the reasons why I strongly admire works that so clearly reflect the creativity and humor of their creator(s). I found that it was much easier to lean into being quirky and step outside my comfort zone knowing that I had teammates who had my back. For example, if I was submitting Killed for Food by myself, I wouldn’t have posted the same comment for our Product Hunt post:

    We just out here tryna say something about humans and the earth. We only got one. ☝🏽

    STOP EATING MEAT U CARBON UNNEUTRAL TURDS

    (We originally wanted to go with “U CARBON UNNEUTRAL FUCKS” for maximum humor, but it probably would’ve been removed by the Product Hunt moderation team. Even with the more innocuous “turd”, I still got a warning.)

    I thought that the juxtaposition between the wholesome, upbeat message about saving the earth and the aggressive, misspelled directive was hilarious, but I wouldn’t have felt comfortable posting that if it had been just me because I know that some people wouldn’t find it funny and would take offense instead.

During our reflection, Erica mentioned that one of the things that probably contributed to us working so well together was that each project had a clear owner and decision maker. That setup makes it much easier to make decisions and resolve disagreements (although we didn’t really have disagreements). For example, I felt comfortable making suggestions for Mother Earth or Spend That Green without any expectation that those suggestions will be used because I trusted Erica and Matt to make the call.

Although having independently owned projects worked well for us, I’d like to explore working with others in an environment where there’s more shared ownership. After having worked on my own for a while now, I know that I’ll likely find it challenging to share control and have equal partners for making crucial decisions. I don’t think this is a strictly necessary skill to develop (there are many solo founders who do just fine being the ultimate decision maker), but it’d still be an area that I’d like to explore.

The question I’d like to gain more clarity around is: Do I want to work solo or have co-founders?

Even if I were to continue working solo, I think I’d eventually build a team of employees or contractors to help me with my work, so I’ll probably have a team of some sort, regardless of whether I have co-founders or not. The open question is what role I’d like to play — do I want to work on products where I’m the ultimate decision maker or share that responsibility with others?