“Don’t ask what the world needs, ask instead, what makes you come alive, because what the world needs most is for you to come alive.”
— Howard Thurman
My entire professional career has been working closely with founders and entrepreneurs. I’ve learned the importance of product-market fit, the opportunity size (total addressable market), and having a moat (a differentiated product). Because of this, I have always been apprehensive about launching my own thing. My ideas never fit in this box. They were always way too capital-intensive, or I would say to myself, “The world doesn’t need another dumb minimal/luxury/clean/design/apparel/lifestyle brand.”
Eventually, my thoughts started to shift. I continued down a logical path, and while the idea might not have a large moat, my mindset became: “Well, let me launch something and fail so I can learn and move on to the next thing.” Zero action = no learnings. Any action = learnings. It made logical sense. The result of that thinking was this—Sundhed.
Then came this quote, introduced to me by Graham Weaver. This is my new thinking, which coincidentally aligns with my own preaching.
Sundhed is by no means groundbreaking, nor does it have a wide moat or a particularly unique differentiation. But in the mornings when I journal, or when my mind starts to wander, I often think about Sundhed—an idea for a product, a journal post, a community event. It makes me come alive.
Whatever coming alive means to you, at whatever scale the thought or action is—go for it. Because that is what the world needs.
—Joe