#orbitalnyc

"That, when you’re making something, you don’t know what it is for a really long time. So, you have to kind of cultivate the space around you, where you can trust the thing that you can’t name. And if you feel a little bit insecure, or somebody questions you, or you need to know what it is, then what happens is you give that thing that you’re trying to listen to away. And so, how do you kind of cultivate a space that allows you to dwell in that not knowing, really? That is actually really smart, and can become really articulate? But, you know, like the thread has to come out, and it comes out at its own pace."

Last week, we launched an experiment on the topic of scaling caring, which is something my friend Brittany has written about as GM of the Union Square Ventures Network.

For anyone who is the facilitator of a network, it’s a very familiar challenge.

Across Orbital's membership, launch program alumni, advisors and friends there are well over 100 people, most of whom are individuals working on their own projects.  And as the size of the network has grown, so have the number of inbound requests for help.  

So, it's not at all a surprise that the thought crossed my mind: how could you make it easier for the network to help each other?  After all, as the network has grown, it has also diversified and deepened its collective experience.

The Experiment: Day 1

Last Tuesday, we invited people in the Orbital network (including our newsletter subscribers) to submit one or more requests, each constrained to 140 characters (with an option to add more details).  They could make their request anonymous, and they could also opt to make their request public.  

The Results: Day 3

By our deadline Thursday, we received 31 requests from 21 people.  

7 of the 31 requests were made anonymously

20 of the 31 requests were set to be visible only by the Orbital network, with a third being set to public

As our deadline passed, we used Trello to organize the requests into emergent categories:

Hiring Opportunities (5 requests)

Hiring for startups as well as contractors for project-specific work

Seeking Collaborators (8 requests)

Everything from co-founders to peer groups

Career Advice (4 requests)

Not a huge dataset, but half of these requests were anonymous and they centered around exploring ways in which people think about their next steps.

Strategy (7 requests)

This was a big bucket of questions related to product, marketing, growth and crowdfunding.

Seeking Expertise (7 requests)

Lighter-weight “how do I do X” type inquiries.  

On Thursday afternoon, we distributed the private Trello board to the Orbital network so that the network could begin responding to each other’s requests (huge shout out to whoever worked on the Trello and Slack APIs for making it easy to programmatically move bits around) and put up a public page (also powered by Trello’s APIs) to display the public requests.

The Response: Day 7

As you’d expect, most of the engagement has been behind the scenes.

Since Thursday, there’ve been a handful of comments/emails generated from the public request page and over 80 responses from 23 different individuals.  23 of the 31 requests have received a response of some sort, which is pretty good coverage given the circumstances.  

So what’s next?

We’re still trying to help people get a response.  Take a look at the list here, and answer those that you can or share them with someone in your network who can.

It’s clear that we should run this again, perhaps on a monthly basis.  (If you have a request you’d like to submit, go ahead and post it here and we’ll review it and decide whether to include it with our next run)

I’d also like to try this with a different network altogether, but perhaps with a few modifications.

Finally, we’re still soliciting new members for Orbital.  If you are an individual, remote employee, or a small 2-person team, here’s where you can learn more about the space and submit an application.

We just wrapped up Week 1 of the Orbital Biannual with talks by Edlyn Yuen, KC Oh, Christina Xu, Janet Choi, Tina Ye, Nick Barr, Estella González Madison, Casey Gollan and myself.

The event provides an opportunity for members to reflect on the year so far, share lessons learned and talk about next steps.

Our second week of talks start tomorrow, Tuesday and feature another full roster of members: 

Comic book artist Amy Reeder

Designer and recent SVA IxD grad Anke Stohlmann

Technologist, artist, and Orbital Boot Camp advisor Chris Willard

David Haddad, Executive Director of Open mHealth

Engineer and entrepreneur Eden Full

Designer and developer Ekene Ijeoma

Giana Pilar González, artist, designer, and creator of Hacking Couture

Engineer and creator Ian Ownbey

Independent interaction designer Nicole Sylianteng

Last week, we welcomed 14 students to the June session of the Orbital 1K, a four-week program designed to coach them through launching a crowdfunding project, MVP, or community that can generate $1,000 in revenue. The program is led by Gary Chou and me, assisted by fantastic advisors from around the Orbital sphere. You can find all the students, instructors, and advisors on Twitter here.

I’m teaching the 1K because it sits at the intersection of a lot of things I care about: building support infrastructure for creators, assembling useful communities, enabling a sane way forward for people working independently, and generally teaching structural literacy to as many people as possible. It also enables me to do something I love—give lots and lots of advice over Slack—with a group of really amazing people.

As the participants would be quick to tell you, it’s a wild sprint. In the first week, we asked them to formalize and announce their projects in public (see below). This week, we covered audience development and community building at lightning speed and asked them to start contributing to the communities they’re working with. Next, we’ll cover scoping, project management, logistics and costing, messaging, and promotion—and then they’ll launch.

As for us, we’ll do it all over again with a new batch of participants in July. If you want to be among them, apply now! We’re even accepting remote applicants, though we’ll have to work through some logistical challenges.

Here’s a full list of the projects from the June session:

Ajay Revels is creating an art/storybook about the inner lives of trees called Tales of the Stick Clan.

Amelie Lamont is starting a themed monthly salon called the Bold Creative for people to share their experiences around taking risks with their creativity.

Caleb Dolister is releasing a new album, the Daily Thumbprint, while exploring new types of band merchandise.

Dior Vargas is raising the visibility of people of color dealing with mental illness through photography and storytelling.

Giana Gonzalez is continuing her work on Hacking Couture by creating a collection that decodes French fashion houses.

Harry Raymond is launching Barbook, an on-demand concierge that recommends and delivers craft liquors.

KC Oh is assembling Dear Designers, a community for new and experienced designers to share their experiences, career advice, and feedback with each other.

Laura Patterson is starting Dinner for Good to introduce young professionals to great nonprofits they could be supporting.

Max Dana is launching the External Revenue Service, a peer-to-peer giving community.

Mike Ma is making a documentary called Being Dennis about the first customer of the mushroom burial suit and the hard conversations he’s having with his family about death.

Mohammed Fayaz is creating the MoJuicy Mail Art Club, a subscription-based quarterly art package.

Moonsub Shin is publishing Dudoji’s Drawing Diary: Europe, a compilation of his thoughts and drawings during a recent trip.

Richard Baker is collecting illustrations of President Obama to create a record of his presidency told through images.

Tara Reed is interviewing people about their first experiences with buying art as part of her work for Kollecto.

Since Monday, we’ve been interviewing candidates for the Orbital 1K.

What we’re looking for mainly is project/program fit.  Because the program is only 4 weeks long, the notion of “fit” really comes down to scope.

Based on these conversations, I’ve found myself reinforcing a few (previously unwritten) concepts, which I’ll now share here for those still considering the program:

1. Your idea is actually launch-able in 4 weeks.

The usual project management rules apply—are there any external dependencies outside of your control or resource requirements that make this a challenge?

2. You are closer to the execution phase than the ideation phase.

It’s not that you can’t change your mind, but it should be more likely than not that you have landed on an approach that has passed muster.

3. Your idea has the potential to generate $1,000.

Likes, clicks, views, retweets are great, but when you are just getting started, it can be helpful to hold your ideas to a higher standard.  The project should acknowledge that money is a way for others to express meaningful interest in what you are making.

4. You’ve chosen a starting point.

It’s important to have a vision, but once you do you need to set it aside because getting started isn’t a process of building your grand vision brick by brick.  

Your starting point will likely be a subset of your vision, but it could also be something different altogether.  Moreover, it should be something that you can quickly produce at low cost.

If you’ve got an idea that fits these criteria, I hope you’ll consider joining us!

The deadline for applying to the Orbital 1K is tomorrow evening, Wednesday May 13.

The program coaches you to launch a $1,000 Project, while teaching you about constraints, networks, and product development along the way.

The $1,000 Project is a constraint borrowed from the entrepreneurdesigners course I co-teach at SVA IxD.  What it does is reduce the problem space so that you can get something out the door within a shorter time frame.  That is beneficial because it enables you to learn more quickly.

So, if you or someone you love has been sitting on an idea for a startup; thinking about a creative project they’d like to start or a community they’d like to build; or simply have something they’d like to sell, I’d challenge you to scope it into something that fits the $1,000 Project constraint and apply to the program.

I should also note that if you are returning to the work force, changing industries, curious to explore ideas and interests you’ve long held but never pursued, or looking to reinvent yourself, one of the best ways to explore your options is to make something small and put it out there.

I’ve been wrapped up a bit this week and am on the road today, so I’ve been slow to get the word out about our latest program at Orbital, aptly called the Orbital 1K.

I wrote about it here via our Tinyletter.

The backstory is that the project, which originated in the Entrepreneurial Design class that Christina Cacioppo and I co-created in 2012, continues to be a potent tool for teaching people to launch.  It creates an opportunity to learn about constraints, iteration, negotiating the unknown, building and leveraging networks, and much more, by challenging the students to work in public.

So, this Spring/Summer, we’re going to try it out at Orbital.

If you’re interested, read the newsletter announcement linked above and then let us know here.

For additional background, here are some posts I’d recommend reading:

Learning Entrepreneurial Hustle by Jon Kolko

Why Trying to Build a Billion-Dollar Startup Is One of the Biggest Mistakes You Can Make by Walter Chen

On Self Sufficiency by Gary Chou