Issue #9 | Sam Beek and the millennial diary app
Welcome to RIP, a tribute to every great idea the world didn't get to see
A few years ago I set myself the goal of saying “yes” to everything that scared me. And among the (many) unusual situations I’ve since found myself in, I discovered the weird and wonderful world of improv.
I could wax lyrical about the brilliant things it’s brought to my life — great pals, endless belly laughs, being okay with failing, to name a few. But more recently I’ve been thinking about how it helps me as a writer. Because, turns out, there’s a lot of similarities between fooling around on stage and the magical, mysterious, infuriating world of creativity.
The most obvious one is “yes and.” Don’t shut down each others’ ideas, build on them instead.
Listen. Don’t just wait for a gap in the conversation to get your point across, creativity should be an open dialogue.
“If this is true what else is true?” If you know your audience is struggling with [x] or they value [y], what else might they think or feel? Use that to inform your strategy. (I.e. If someone subscribes to a meal kit delivery service because they’re conscious about food waste, they probably also care about recyclable or compostable packaging.)
Find your why. An improv scene where someone justifies not liking cats “just because” is boring. But if we find out why they don’t like cats — a childhood trauma, believes they are reincarnations of their enemies, finds it uncomfortable that animals don’t wear clothes etc — then we’re going to be able to get to a much more fun place in a scene and put that character in some other challenging (and hilarious) situations. It’s the same for creativity, find out what drives you or your brand, and make sure those values are rooted in everything you produce.
Build a base reality. Once you find your game in an improv scene you have to know when to use it and when to rest it, otherwise things can quickly get ridiculous. And it’s the same for creativity. Most of the time we’re creating for the masses, not for our peers or for the awards, so it’s important you know when to push yourself and get a little spicy, and when to keep things grounded and relatable.
This month I’m speaking to someone who knows a thing or two about thinking on his feet. Sam Beek is Head of Product at VEED.io, but likes to keep himself busy with a variety of side projects, one of which he hasn’t quite managed to bring to life (yet).
Welcome to Rest in Progress, Sam. What’s your idea and what happened (or better yet, didn’t happen) to it?
A diary that calls you.
At a random moment each day this “diary” will call you and ask you a few questions. How was your day? What’s the last meal you had? Was it any good? And so on. It will then save your answers and transcribe them to an app where you can scroll back to previous entries and listen to or read them.
I actually started drawing out some things and researching the technology I would need. But at a certain moment I got kind of lost — I felt like it didn’t have enough of an edge. The concept sounded super fun, but when I was drawing it out it didn’t feel right. I needed to spend more time on it, but I kind of forgot about it. This happens quite often when I have an idea, I feel super inspired, but before it becomes “real,” I get bored and jump onto the next thing.
What is it about this idea you love?
I love the idea of keeping a diary, but I don’t like writing one. I get bored of writing about my life after 100 words. I also don’t like sitting down —I like to walk — so I never really got into the habit of keeping a diary. For a while I would use voice notes, but it felt awkward to talk into my phone about my life. Then I had the idea to make it seem like a phone call.
Random moments to reflect on your day can be super powerful. And I think audio is a great way to time travel to fun/sad/interesting moments in the past. I always love it when people call me and ask me how I’m doing, but also I’m a millennial and no one calls anymore, so I was like: why don’t I automate this?
Over lockdown you thought up, built, and then released CloudEMDR, a tool to help people with online therapy. What advice would you give to someone who has a great idea but doesn’t know how to make it happen?
So the biggest thing I learned is that building a successful side project is all about maintaining positive energy. This sounds very spiritual, but it’s actually very simple: in order to build a habit, it has to feel rewarding. It isn’t like running a startup or having a full-time job, which is much more part of your routine, so you shouldn’t treat it as such.
These projects often start with a lot of creative energy, but that soon wears out and then you either stop with the project or move very slow. So how do you get new energy? In my opinion, that’s traction. It’s anything that shows that you’re onto something: your first real users, your first feedback, your first revenue. I think you should build something that can reach any of these milestones within the first week. If you don’t, just stop the project and start on something else.
With CloudEMDR, I made a first prototype in 12 hours, and it got used a couple of times in that timeframe. This gave me so much energy that I spent every night during lockdown improving it.
🛎️ QUICK-FIRE ROUND 🛎️
Where do you get your best ideas?
Never at my desk — I need to be somewhere else. I love walking and thinking (the “calling diary” would be great for this).
What TV series/book/podcast are you binging right now?
I’m currently reading Everything I Know about Life I Learned from PowerPoint, and it really hits home for me. Although I don’t use PowerPoint anymore — Paste is much better — I do like to make slides from my ideas. Over the last few years I learned that telling the story of an idea is often just as important as the idea itself. Not only to convince others, but also yourself. And this books talks about a lot of that.
Huge thanks to Sam for sharing his RIP. And a small slap on the wrist to me for missing a month of this newsletter. Here lies my attempt to make up for that:
This fantastic visual guide to Jeff Bezos’ wealth
A hilarious take down of Google Slides
Jurassic Park tweets always slap
Boundaries are hot (and so is every issue of Haley Nahman’s newsletter)
Ever wondered how many people are in space right now?
This throwback to simpler days
Honesty I can only aspire to
I did my first podcast!
And finally, two films that made my jaw hit the floor: Everything Everywhere All at Once and Downfall: The Case Against Boeing