Why Don’t We Achieve Our Dreams?
3 Things Necessary to Empower Dreamers
At dreamr, we firmly believe in the limitless potential of every human being on the planet. This belief provides the foundation for attempting to build a product like dreamr in the first place. Knowing with certainty that everyone has the ability to achieve their highest potential gives us the confidence to look at the fact that most people do not actively pursue their dreams, let alone achieve them, as a problem that can be solved.
Through years of studying this phenomenon, working on and testing solutions, we have narrowed the solution down to 3 main factors.
1. A supportive network.
I’m sure you’ve heard the following sayings at least once before.
“It’s not what you know, it’s who you know”
“Your network is your net worth”
“You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with”
The people we surround ourselves with are a major contributing factor to achieving our potential. No one is truly “self-made.” Everyone who has achieved great things has had some help along the way.
Anyone trying to start a business, or achieve some other ambitious thing outside of the norm will tell you that having a network of people who support you is a rare commodity. Creating a network is difficult, especially without knowing where you want to go (your dream). How do you even determine who you should be meeting?
At dreamr, we are solving this in a simple yet very effective way. First, a user decides and declares their dream on the network and tags it with 3 categories and a location. From there, two things happen 1) with a clearly defined dream in hand the user can utilize Dream Connect to discover and connect with like-minded people as well as be discovered. 2) using proprietary algorithms, the network will suggest connections daily that are relevant to the user and their dream.
We positioned the beta version of dreamr to solve the networking problem only. We recognized that social media was a powerful way to connect people, but we also saw that without a clear purpose for that connection, negativity, bullying, and hate were allowed to thrive. In our first iterations of the platform, we successfully created an environment where people felt safe to declare their dreams and make supportive connections. It was simultaneously thrilling to see our networking solution be successful and soul-crushing to realize we missed something big and that networking was only part of the issue. With the naïveté often associated with dreamers, we underestimated a dominating factor: we live in an economic world.
2. Direct access to capital and unlimited economic mobility.
At some point, pursuing your dream will cost money. Money has become so ubiquitous that it is a part of everything we do. One might argue that being outdoors in nature is free, but there is a multi-billion dollar industry around selling hiking clothes and gear for people to enjoy that experience. If your dream happens to be a project like mine (dreamr), you’ll need to figure out a way to get hundreds of thousands of dollars just to get started.
We can equally take an example of a dream that doesn’t involve starting a company or big project. Let’s say Sarah wants to become a professional photographer. She is passionate about it and known for taking amazing shots with her phone, but she wants to take things to the next level. After connecting with many photographers on dreamr and receiving helpful advice, Sarah has a plan to get started and recommendations on the first camera she should buy.
Damn, a whole three sentences into this story and Sarah has to purchase a $500+ camera. Let’s further say Sarah doesn’t have $500+ dollars laying around and is living paycheck to paycheck. All that momentum she gained on her dream by building a network and gaining support just came to a screeching halt.
At dreamr, we are approaching this issue from two directions. To solve the access to capital issue, users will be able to run a crowdfunding campaign attached to their dream after they’ve built up their network and reputation score. In addition, users can list services for purchase in a peer to peer marketplace — a side hustle consortium.
With these solutions in place, we can get back to our story. Let’s say Sarah works for a furniture company but has been learning graphic design on the side so she can edit her photos. To come up with her extra $500, she lists logo designs for $150 in the marketplace. She sells 4 logos in 10 days, provides a great service while helping other people pursue their own dreams, purchases the camera with some extra cash to spare and is on her way.
If you were to raise money for your dream on dreamr — wouldn’t it be nice to know there is an on-demand team of fellow dreamers offering valuable services for immediate hire? And that you would be supporting each other’s dreams by doing so?
3. Education and skill acquisition.
Knowledge is power because, in order to strive towards something, you have to possess at least a general understanding of it. For example, if a dreamer wants to start a bakery because her bread and pastries are famous at local parties, it would make sense to learn a little about business. The knowledge that turns into skills also makes you valuable through the ability to be of service to others.
Revisiting our example earlier of Sarah, who works at the furniture company during the day, but has been dabbling with graphic design software to edit her own photos. Even if she were to run into the money roadblock, there is knowledge relevant to her dream that she can acquire. In this case, it will be an online class for photo editing and graphic design software. Since she’s already familiar with those skills, she takes a few classes to sharpen them.
Within a month, she is listing her logo design service in the marketplace. Her 300 person network, who is aware of her dream and knows she has been actively striving towards it, supports her by purchasing her service. They don’t do this just to be kind, there are realistically four people who need a logo for something related to their dream. Sarah adds value to her network and receives money in return to put towards her dream.
At dreamr, we view it as a top priority to provide people with unfettered access to education. We are dedicated to facilitating the distribution of knowledge and the procurement of abilities necessary to fulfill anyone’s dreams. In the education arena, dreamr will seek to form a strategic partnership with education platforms aligned with our ethos. Luckily, there are some amazing brands already building collectively sourced knowledge platforms and delivering them to anyone with an internet connection.
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At our core, human beings are creators, just look around at your environment — everything around you was created by someone, first in thought, then followed by intent and action. Life can be unfulfilling if we are not living our purpose, which is to create what our heart desires.. to follow the dream of the highest vision we have for ourselves. Our dreams are sacred, they represent the best version of us individually and collectively, and for that reason, it is our responsibility to pursue them.
When these three factors are solved, we believe people will simply have to move in the direction of their dreams with positive intent and it will undoubtedly become a reality.
This article is focused on why we chose to integrate these features in this way. Look out for upcoming deep dives on all of the features mentioned here that will illustrate how the dreamr secret sauce makes them uniquely different from anything on the market today.
