ORIGINAL FRUSTRATIONS

 

Why can't we take the work out of work? 

Some people live their dream - why can't more?  Why are so many people, including lots of very innovative, smart, ambitious people, trapped in the rat race?  (Ex: the NYT article on "In Silicon Valley, Millionaires Who Don't Feel Rich"

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/05/technology/05rich.html

 

Why can work be so unpleasant?  

- It just feels so unproductive (not to confuse activity with productivity). You're trapped there in face-time (not space-time), waiting for other people to get back to you, or creating reports that no one will read..."Um, about that TPS report..."

-Manager-employee relationships feel more like parent-child relationships, and put too much artificial, unearned power into people's hands (and give someone power to see their true character...). 

- The nature of a corporate entity structurally creates fear, wasted time, politics...especially as a company grows.  The inherent inertia grows.  The past strategy of economies of scale might have been beneficial, but what about the economies of leverage and nimbleness? 

- Innovation requires speed, thought, freedom and a lack of constraints - not resources, size or economies of scale.  

 

More Frustrations

I've always been frustrated with corporate jobs (even when I was the CEO of my own company):

-  I never felt like I could be completely productive whever I wanted to be.  In a single job, you always end up waiting around for things to happen or people to get back to you, which is non-value-added time.

- The classic hierarchy, while useful in organizing large groups of people, ended up creating unnatural "parent-child" relationships between managers and reports. 

- In one job, you can only make incremental increases in productivity per year - it's very rare that you can multiply your productivity.

- Corporate structures inherently treat people as cogs in a machine, and this worsens as the organization gets bigger, especially once the org is past 150 people, and everyone becomes just names on spreadsheets. 

- People attached too much of their own self-worth to their titles. 

- Titles: while titles can be helpful in the short-term in identifying someone's function in a company and place in the pecking order....over the long-term titles end up putting people in boxes.  People get defined by their title, and every person is much more than their title! 

- Functional orientation: most people are put into functional roles/groups that focus on a particular area: sales, marketing, development, etc.  Sometimes people are happy with this (for awhile).  Oftentimes, people end up being frustrated, because when they're ready to make a move to another role or try something new to expand their experiences...companies don't like it when people move from one function to another.  It's 'too risky'.  "You've been doing sales here for 5 years, what makes you think you can do product management or marketing?"

- other...

 

Biggest bottlenecks in business?  Why is work so unproductive?

- Lack of trust....creates long sales cycles, complicated contracts, dysfunctional corporate cultures...

- Carrying costs ("inventory")...you hire a huge number of people and create all kinds of fixed costs, and then have to 'feed this beast'.  Work and growth become and obligation, not a choice

- Selling is incredibly inefficient compared to word-of-mouth + 'engaging'

- 95% of contracts (excluding regulatory compliance) are crap.  Here's a great post from a lawyer:

 

- How can we separate value-add v non-value add activities?

 

 

 

WHAT I WANT (YES, I'M BEING SELFISH)

 

 

Realizations, and What I Want

When I landed at Alloy, I started down the path of research that would then probably lead me to start a venture-funded company from scratch.  Yet - after three months...

- I wrote "Small Pebble, Big Wave"

- I realized I did NOT want to start a single venture-funded company, which I'd end up being a slave to for a few years

- I really like working with people and have a lot of people I want to work with...and if you're in one company, you end up being very limited to the number of people you can collaborate with

- I'm not happy when I'm tied down, trapped by a job or obligation

- I didn't want the existing work options: 1) start a single company and scratch it out/brute force it into existence, b) corporation, c) consultant, d) starving artist

- I want to be hyper-productive, not 10% more productive. I want to be 10-100x more productive.

- I decided I needed to figure out a new way to work

    * I wanted more passion, less stress, more money

    * I want to work when I want, on what I want, with who I want

    * I wanted to be able to be hyper-productive

- Also, I had about 10 ideas that were all very interesting to me. Conventional wisdom is that you kill 9 (of my children!) to save 1...and I didn't like that choice.  I want to choose a way to do them all - how?

 

 

Mental Digestion

I went to asia for three weeks, and by the time I got back, I quickly began thinking about how, instead of being stressed out by having 10 very interesting ideas, I could embrace them.  I'd already begun partnering (Zain on ZeusLogos, Rab on YourCRMOffers), but what if I found cofounders for each one? And what if the businesses were complementary?  Maybe this can work...

 

I want to have my cake and eat it too!

In July and August, the PebbleStorm system really began to take shape in my mind.  The core purpose is the "how do you work on what you want, when you want, and make more $?  I want more fun, less stress, more money"

 

 

WHY NOW?

If something like this was possible, why doesn't it exist today?  Actually, there are individuals and small clusters of people who've created their own perfect working worlds.   And I would define this not as people who have a lot of money (because there are a lot of very unhappy wealthy people), but people who have found a way to do what they want whenever they want to, with low stress (which includes not having to worry about money).  Is this 0.1% of the USA population?  Whatever it is, it's tiny.

 

But for the next 1-10% of the world, why hasn't someone created this "new way to work" yet?  A way to help more people create a working/lifestyle around their core passions, and make more money from it with less stress? 

 

Why me, why now? 

 

There are two major change-themes going on in the world today:

1) INTERNET: The internet has enabled outsourcing (have other people do what you can't or don't want to do more cheaply and easily), virtual collaboration, ease of communication/networking

2) DEMOGRAPHICS/CULTURE:

    a) Boomers are beginning to retire in mass numbers, and there aren't enough knowledge workers to replace them.

    b) The old "work harder" mentality isn't sustainable in the internet age; there's no leverage. It doesn't get you to where you need to go: a happy, stressless life with plenty of income.  Today's markets and news environments keep putting more and more pressure on companies and people, increasing stress.  This route isn't sustainable.  Email/news/internet/job/life overload is common. There are real reasons why the "4 Hour WorkWeek" became a #1 bestseller.

    b) The new generation of college graduates (and younger) are less and less likely to want to sign up for the corporate route.  They want to work in a group they can connect with, where there is a higher purpose than career and money.  They want to learn and progress at their pace - not a company's pace.  Their attitude is "What can you do for me?"  A lot of 'old guard' mentalities whine about this, about their entitlement.  They should learn how to harness it, because this new generation is going to be more creative and productive than any before it.

 

GOAL

I'm creating my own perfect working world.  I can work on what I want, when I want, with who I want, for more money.

 

 

Why Me

Why not? 

 

Actually, there are a lot of people working on this issue from different angles.  Tim Ferriss' "4 Hour Workweek", a lot of the scarcity/abundance people (like "The Secret"), etc.  So many people are working on helping more people better integrate their passions and happiness and balance into work and life.  Carol, Scott Krajca, etc. 

 

Experimenting

Now we're trying things out, to find out what's going to work.  We're doing the hard work (well, it's not that hard!) and research to build the system and network, so that more people can more easily join us. 

 

 

More Passion

Desire and passion should be the basis for all the work you do.  There should be meaning in it beyond the money and titles.  When you have a network of your friends that you can work with, and you get to focus on your passions 80% of the time instead of 20%, work is fun!

 

Less stress

There's something very healthy about having multiple projects with multiple peopasd.  When you only have one company and you're the owner, you become unhealthily attached to it, a slave to it.  You share it's extreme ups and extreme downs.  It's like having your retirement nest egg placed in just one stock - you get serious emotional ups and downs!  When you have a few stocks though, it's easier to emotionally handle the fluctuations.  It's the same idea with multiple projects.   

 

More Money

 

Once these projects are up and running, most will be great cashflow businesses.  Some will organically grow into larger ones and need outside investment.  Some will die.  But the long-term results are a lot more income.  

 

 

It All Depends on Trust

Creating businesses with just a few hours of total work can only happen when you trust the people you're working with.  Handshakes instead of contracts, collaboration instead of arguing.  "Selling" goes away. because people, through word of mouth, who need what you have can find you.  And you can either help them, or not - but there's no real sales cycle. 

 

The PebbleStorm network isn't enabled by a website or software - it's enabled by common values and relationships and trust.

 

 

NEXT STEPS

We're actually working on the first few 'pebbles now'. Blackbox Revenus is the platform and income-generating company that makes it possible, and easy, to build a bunch of other new companies and entities.  We'll also be able to pull more people into the vortex :)   Then, once we have some case studies and know how this really works (those emergence principles), we'll document it and begin to be able to scale it faster.

 

PebbleStorm, because it's based on relationships, trust, and not worrying about rushing things, can only grow organically. That means slow at first...as it should be. But if we double every year (which means we'd have 4 full-time pebblestormers next year and about a dozen contributors, 8 full-timers in 2009...), it will only take until 2033 to hit the 100,000,000 goal...that's 17 years ahead of plan!

 

Build

Test & Iterate

Prove

Document

Grow