releasing the figure
Releasing the Figure
Minecraft Youtube channels, Getting into EF, and the value of just starting
"I saw the angel in the marble, and carved until I set him free".
- Michelangelo
Before you lies a great block of marble, newly quarried; unhewn. Somewhere within that indifferent stone, beneath six unflinching faces, is the future you envision for yourself; the opus you've long imagined yourself to carve.
Such a block sits before me, of course, and my inability to ignore it is what led me a few months ago to quit my c-suite job at a YC-backed startup after three years. I wanted to build something of my own and that I believed in. The decision to do it was a slow burn: I'd long mulled it over and discussed it with my family and friends; even one or two of my colleagues in confidence. I had something in mind that excited me. It was an idea that I believed (and indeed, still believe) to have real legs.
It started out with a simple desire to aggregate all the bookmarks I make across the tangled web of my social media. Like you, I imagine, the things I save online are never to be revisited. A book recommendation on X, a recipe on YouTube, an Instagram Reel of a podcast episode that sounded mildly interesting. The algorithms of these platforms do an incredible job of what they're supposed to–keeping you on their app instead of the others–and a terrible job of delivering to you the value that would justify the endless hours spent scrolling through them.
Thus, hoarder was born.
I was never going to be able to devote the time I needed to scoping and building if I was still working full-time. A few hours here and there would only get me so far. I'd barely scratched the surface of my marble. I needed to start in earnest. Ultimately, allowing that penny to drop was the most difficult–and most important–part of the process so far. I was paralysed by the prospect of not doing my vision justice. Perfectionism and fear of failure are nothing new, and you don't need me to explain their perils; no doubt you're well familiar with them yourself. But what I want so desperately to convey to you, the reason that I'm writing this at all, is the value of just starting.
Of course my first strikes at the great slab were clumsy. That's fine. Michelangelo too had to rough out the monolith from which David emerged, and I imagine he wasn't too concerned with precision at that stage. This is to say that I made mistakes when I could afford to, and now I'm applying their teachings as I continue to point and chisel my way to my end goal with ever greater clarity and focus. Take my early customer conversations, for example. When I spoke to potential users and friends to whom I'd given very early access, I thought that their enthusiastic but vague assurances that I was building something they would use were evidence of PMF. I continued chiselling away, still pursuing my original vision for hoarder. Clearly, I thought, I was going in the right direction.
Then why was the uptake on the early version I rolled out so low? Reading Robert Fitzpatrick's The Mom Test showed that I was carving more blindly than I thought. The crux of The Mom Test is that if you ask your mum whether she thinks your business idea is good, she'll say yes. Of course she will—she's your mum. She loves and supports you. This seems like an obvious pitfall that I should have been wary of, but it's so easy to be buoyed by earnest nodding from those who don't want to tell you "no". Fitzpatrick stresses the importance of a problem-first approach to building. Rather than pitching my vision of a fleshed out idea, I should have been listening to users' existing problems. Now that I'm cognisant of this, my conversations with users are far more productive than before, and hoarder is all the better for it. People are bad at predicting what they'll do in the future, but I can tell you for damn certain they know what's pissed them off in the past. It's like this that you're going to come across veins in your marble. You can either work with them or against them, but I've found the humility to accept the fallibility of your vision is one of the most freeing discoveries. It's the route to something robust… and to PMF.
With lessons learned and ideas better validated, I felt heartened to apply to a handful of accelerators and incubators here in the UK. One of these was Entrepreneurs First (EF), many of whose portfolio companies have been backed by tier one VCs. The unique thing about applying to EF is that you don't need to have an idea, just your talent—you bring the marble and they'll give you the tools to release the figure. This mode of betting on individuals means that they've got founder identification down to a science. They're screening for certain traits, asking questions about experiences, accomplishments & failures, and testing problem-solving ability. To my own surprise, I was accepted into the Fall '25 cohort at the first time of asking. It really goes to show the value of backing yourself, and I'm incredibly excited to start.
This is how the value of starting has made itself so clear to me. For months I doubted the feasibility of hoarder; I was waiting for the right time to start, succumbing to the toolbox fallacy. People will tell you that there is no perfect moment to start, but they're wrong. There is a perfect moment. It's now. Things can only work out when you create the conditions that allow them to do so. Hoarder may never take full shape—my EF adventure may take me in a totally different direction, but I've learned so much from hacking away at my own block of marble, and those lessons aren't going to leave me because I start on another one. They'll only make the next that much better.
Even Michelangelo left blocks unfinished. His Prisoners or Slaves - four sculptures that remain partially trapped in their marble blocks - weren't abandoned due to failure, but because other opportunities emerged that demanded his attention. The figures strain against the stone, forever emerging but never fully released, and they're no less powerful for it. They've become some of his most celebrated works precisely because they capture the eternal struggle of creation itself. This is perhaps the most liberating realisation of all: not every block needs to become David. Sometimes the act of carving teaches you what you really want to sculpt, and sometimes the partially formed figure becomes the foundation for something even greater.
Speaking of blocks, when I consider how far just starting has taken me in a relatively short period of time, I can't help but think of the Minecraft Youtube channel that I had when I was 12. I gave up on it when the subscribers didn't pour in overnight. Perhaps if I'd stuck with it, EpicLayth222 would be mentioned in the same breath as the Yogscast and CaptainSparklez. I imagine that you have a similar 'what if?'. I think everyone does. Alas, we'll have to refocus our efforts on other pursuits. But whatever they are, please just start.