Feed the chicken
It seems obvious, but it is not. This answer is elegant and deceptively simple: you only need to feed the chicken to get the egg.
I am constantly aware that I am — not yet — a part of the ecosystem I intend to disrupt.
Bast AI will become a B$ business and show the world what it is like to experience trusted and delightful AI.
This is my opportunity, and as with all opportunities, I study to understand and think through ways to overcome the challenges and the barriers to entry. Here are all the current questions in my head.
- How do you become a part of an ecosystem you intend to disrupt without interrupting the pathways and pipelines you need to use to get there?
- How do you build a plane while you are flying it?
- How do you create a way for everyone to use your software instead of the status quo’s product?
- How do you do this when you need to utilize an ecosystem's structures and foundational parts to be successful?
- How do you use the business pipelines, contracting, incorporating, and taxing pipes to build something new?
- Pipelines and structures that don't have enough people who look and think like you?
- How do you belong to an ecosystem you can only enter with the capital to get there?
- Do you need the sponsors who are there in the ecosystem pulling you up?
- How do you find the right sponsor, investor, and institution to shepherd you into this ecosystem?
As I answer these questions, I also count my blessings and make sure I am always aware of what I have. Coming from a place of abundance is a practice that I cultivate daily.
- I have customers, which is the best sign that a business is doing well; you have something to sell, and people want to buy what you have. This is healthy and feels good, but it could go much faster.
- I have also been awarded grants — these beautiful non-dilutive sources of capital from our government and institutions that know chickens need to eat to produce eggs. However, we could be going faster.
- I have beautiful, wonderful, amazing early sponsors and investors who see Bast, see me, and believe in our vision and team. Early investors should be rewarded more than they are; investing in companies at an early stage is heroic, and I want to reward these early investors the most. They are the ones who have carried me this far, and early money is like yeast, a far better analogy than chicken and eggs. Yet the chicken, egg, milk, and cow references are the tropes that our current world understands. This speaks volumes.
- I have a mighty team of humans that come into my world precisely when I need them and contribute to our whole. Humans who offer without expectations remind me I can receive without immediate reciprocation.
How can so many people say it is a chicken and egg problem when the solution is simple?
Create an environment for the chickens to successfully produce eggs, feed them, give them physical safety, and create a home so they have friends, psychological safety, and a sense of belonging. Maslovian hierarchy of needs and all, I am still perplexed by the number of people who tell me it is a chicken-and-egg problem when there is such an obvious solution.
If you are looking for eggs, make sure your well-fed and happy chickens are actually hens….
