“Whatever you find, do it with all your might for in the grave where you are going, there is no knowledge, no power, no wisdom” ―King Solomon

Today, I had a productive (lunch) meeting w/ a friend about a project he wants to take into the wild. At first glance it sounded like a nonprofit. As we discussed further, we reasoned it could be a business. The thing is nonprofits can be launched in phases, ex. fiscal sponsorship (10% fee, requiring no board), to a full-fledged independent 501c3 charity (0% fee, requiring a board, IRS filing, etc). A business on the other hand wouldn’t be so ridden with red-tape. The common denominator here is filing, name, domain (website), an email and a way to accept payments. Filing is give or take $100 (name), domain is $52 w/ DNSimple, email is $5 monthly w/ Google, and Stripe is just a small nominal fee. On this last one, Wufoo is great for non-coders.

“Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone” ―Pablo Picasso.

The thing is what would have to compel us to do something, to launch an idea into the wild? For me, I launched Operation Code because I was pissed I could not use my New GI Bill to go to the code school of my choice. As days and months went on, I met veterans who benefited from software mentorship I was coordinating for them and in one instance met a veteran who was depressed heavily and had considered suicide. That 2014 Thanksgiving weekend I launched a ton of resources on operationcode.org, including a code schools and scholarship page to alleviate these burdens.

So whatever the case, whatever the pain– solve the pain for a customer. Figure out what type of structure you’d like to solve the problem, then figure out how to use the tools at your disposal to get as close to the solution as possible then tweak based on feedback. But whatever you do, scale the idea.