Work with people who know more than you.
#8 • Stories & Lessons of Founding Baron Fig
Light poured through tall windows, cascading over shreds of paper and seemingly ancient book binding machines. There wasn’t an uncluttered surface to be found — and the place wasn’t small.
“I’ve been here for years,” an older woman said as she walked us through a fifth floor apartment in lower Manhattan. She had her tiny dog, Bean, under one arm. “I live in the back, my workshop is in the front.”
Her name was Judy. She’s an artisan book binder who spends most of her time binding detailed, one-of-a-kind wedding albums. Then we came along.
We’d been contacting thinkers all over the world for feedback during the past several months. We asked them one simple question, What do you like in a sketchbook or notebook?, and paid close attention to their suggestions.
The feedback fueled our journey. We came up with in-house Frankenstein’d notebooks, refining as we went, continuously touching base with the community that began to form. The final step before production was a professional prototype. Enter Judy.
“What do you want on the pages?” she asked.
I explained that we didn’t want anything inside the book. It took her a beat to see that I was serious, then her face lit up.
“Nothing at all? That’s easy!” She started grabbing all sorts of tools I don’t know the names of. Before I knew it, we mocked up the book with scratchy drawings and made rough builds with the materials she had lying around.
It didn’t take long for her to fully grasp what I was trying to get at, then her decades of experience took everything to a whole new level. She pored over the little details I had suggested, changing them or asking questions (and then changing them). Watching her was like a performance.
Suddenly, Judy stood up. “See you in a week,” she said.
I looked at the desk littered with incoherent scribbles. She definitely knew what she was doing, but I couldn’t help but be nervous that the only notes she’d taken down were on a brown-paper-towel-looking piece of paper.
A week later I showed up, still hesitant. Judy handed me a book wrapped in a towel. I slowly uncovered it — and immediately fell in love what what I saw. She solidified everything we — and hundreds of people around the world — were looking for.
The Confidant was finished. (Thank you, Judy.)
Joey Cofone is Co-Founder & CEO at Baron Fig. The Founding of Baron Fig shares the stories and lessons learned on the journey of creating our startup.
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