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How to get lost in your neighborhood
Walking under the sun has been one of my favorite ways to think. I think about work, strategies, life, smile at strangers, pet random dogs, and walk while I get lost in my neighborhood.
Getting lost doesn’t mean you’re in the wrong direction; you’re trying to find the best approach by interacting with the external world away from your desk or emails while walking around.
For example, I was walking with my friend in Tampa along the river walk downtown. We were just talking about random things and we saw someone hauling a canoe on his bicycle with an attachment!
As students of science, both of us, at the same time switched topics to focus on how to redesign that attachment for a larger canoe, etc.
This is an example of how we got lost in our own neighborhood with wild thoughts.
And we went on to shoot the shit.
Some of my closest friends met me during random hackathons around the Bay Area or during The StartupBus beside college and cricket.
During The StartupBus we come up with an idea in San Francisco on a bus and then pitch it to potential customers in Bakersfield and reiterate in Las Vegas for validation. By the third day, we launch the product in Austin, TX.
That’s how we operate.
This is what I love about my friends. When we see something interesting, we talk about it like it’s ours and how to make it better.
Walking and thinking have worked for me because the change of scenery = a change of thoughts!
People in your neighborhood
Talking with people who might become a user of your work; asking open-ended questions without selling anything is the best way to leverage from the community.
You listen, build, and…
