My Next Adventure: Before Alpha
Looking Back
For the last 6 months, maybe a little longer, I’ve been thinking about what I enjoy most in both life and work. Becoming a dad has been the greatest gift I can imagine. While that was a rapid transformation, work has been an evolution.
I’ve always been an entrepreneur. Honestly, I am not sure that I know how to do anything else. My life as an entrepreneur has toggled between two extremes:
- Services — creating something for someone
- Products — creating something for anyone
When I sketched this, I realized there was a pretty amazing pattern (I always find patterns):
In short, doing services has been my greatest inspiration for the products that I build. It looks like time to re-connect.
Getting There
My life as an entrepreneur has been a journey of learning. In college I studied Sociology and was on track to go to med school, but that obviously didn’t sit right for me. Of course, when you go out on your own, you also have to learn everything you need. I picked up all the skills I have because I needed them as part of bringing my ideas to life. I’m often asked, “What do you do exactly?” — and that’s a hard thing to answer.
What I do know, however, is what I know:
- Design (22 years)
- Product (21 years)
- Development (20 years)
- Social (14 years)
- Influence (8 years)
- Content Marketing (6 years)
- Enterprise Sales (4 years)
There are a lot of useful skills in there. So useful, in fact, that they’re utterly useless in almost every org chart you can imagine.
Going Further
Each generation of my life as an entrepreneur has been about a different ecosystem. First it was “The Internet”, then “Social,” and finally “Content & Marketing”. The common thread has always been innovation — not for innovation’s sake, but to solve real problems.
Armed with experience from multiple industries at companies of every size, and countless relationships with leaders and innovators everywhere, it’s time to try something new. The next problem that needs solving is corporate innovation. I know, I know, innovation is a bullshit word and it doesn’t mean what it used to mean or what anyone thinks it means anymore, but hear me out. Innovation is possible at scale, with the right people.
I’ve been a technologist my whole life. It’s held my interest above all else. I know it can be used to solve important problems and it’s equally powerful at helping us be our best. Companies can no longer be bystanders to their future — too much is on the line.
I’m positive that all the ingenuity, passion and determination I have can be put to use helping every company become the best version of itself, one step at a time.
“We cannot predict the future, but we can create it” Dennis Gabor
Today, I’m launching my new company, Before Alpha.
Before because too many people act without thinking first.
Alpha because we’re optimized around understanding the opportunity.
I’ve partnered with some of the smartest people I know, but more importantly people I love spending my time with. We’re services first, but products are soon to follow, I promise.
You can read all about Before Alpha here:
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Gregarious Narain is a serial entrepreneur and product strategist. A reformed designer and developer, he writes on his experiences as a founder, strategist, and father on the regular. Work with him at Before Alpha, connect on LinkedIn, follow on Facebook, or say hi on Twitter.
