Keeping pace

It’s been a very, very wild three months. I’ll bullet point the work updates below so that we can keep track:

• Unqueue got its big break: about 2 years ago, I made a decision that Unqueue’s best future was as an infrastructure company. Focusing on infrastructure is a lot less immediately satisfying: it means we’re making less consumer products, and working more with governments and multilateral to deliver solutions that help a greater group of people. Last month, it bore fruit, finally: Unqueue is moving forward with a grant-funded project to build a wholesale fulfilment and payments channel for smallholder farmers in Trinidad, St. Vincent, and Dominica. It’s huge, and I couldn’t be more excited (and fucking terrified of fumbling it).

• PGS is live: the company that some of you knew as Unqueue Studio is now Public Good Studio—we’ll call it PGS, and you probably might too. PGS is too, this big culmination a focus that I’ve wanted to make and be declarative about: design and tech aren’t  just for people with disposable income and credit cards. This means that we’ll be working pretty consistently in a particular direction, and more importantly, probably won’t be doing any ad campaigns or helping anyone sell anything to drink anytime soon. I’m okay with it, and I’m really excited to be working with some of the old US team members and the new ones both already with us and incoming. We’re cash positive through to the end of the year, working on active projects, and have bright prospects ahead of ourselves. I never wanted to run another design practice, but I’m grateful to have been able to look past just what I want, for a change.

• When it rains, it pours: two weeks before winning the $100,000 grant to build tech with the UNCDF, we were awarded another US$75,000 grant to build something I’ve been theorising and working on and modelling for over a year now, with a close friend: an intra-regional payments channel that gives people in SIDS an alternative to dependency on SWIFT and the card networks.

• I am finishing up a font commission: I’ve been making a font inspired by visual motifs in Chaguanas, Trinidad’s largest city. It’s been a real interesting experience and it’s been very challenging navigating the idea of making something so personal so public (and open source!), but I couldn’t think of a short-term type project that feels closer to home. There’ll be more about this soon, probably.

  

• My first Future Fonts submission goes in this year: I  will not be elaborating.

• I’m NEDCO’s Tech Entrepreneur of the Year: now, if you tell me that I’m a good designer, I am going to give you the “of course” face. If you tell me I’m a good business leader, I’ll laugh in your face. As usual, the joke’s on me.

It’s all very exciting, and very much a lot.

The past six months have perhaps been the most difficult for me. Leading changes at Unqueue requires me to be the one who anticipates and strategises that change, always ready to make tough decisions if things don’t go as planned. While PGS is great, I recognize that I don’t have a long-term appetite for client services, which is the core responsibility of any design principal. I genuinely enjoy working with both the PGS and Unqueue teams, and am currently coaching two clients whom I truly appreciate. It's been a dream journey.

Also, up until a few weeks ago, I was barely eating one meal a day and sleeping no more than four hours a night—for months.

Making enough money, succeeding at the stated objectives, and being recognised for it all should be amazing, but honestly I haven’t been able to acknowledge any of it. One thing, and then another, and so on. It’s not a great feeling.

So, what’s the fix? I’ve been wondering about it a lot, and I’ve started making some changes, and focusing on taking care of my body again, and making sure to nurture the relationships that help me feel grounded, and focusing on cultivating a lifestyle that doesn’t expose me to too much risk (and so, helps me stay clean). It’s hard to make that feel as important as keeping the team employed, or living up to this big potential we’ve been building up, but without it, I don’t think I’m going to survive another 6 months. And, now I kind of have to survive those 6 months. 

I’m going to do whatever I need. I’ve been thinking about Daniel Gross’ Y Combinator How to Win talk and its takeaways about playing infinite games, treating oneself like an athlete, and optimising for peak performance. I’m also hiring an executive assistant, just for me. No more missed emails, or birthdays or award ceremonies, or hurried bios…or, at least they’ll make them to my calendar.

Maybe taking care of myself solely so that I can take care of the work I’ve chosen to do isn’t the right approach. But I’m learning that imperfect can work, too. Maybe there’s something bigger that I’ll find, but for now I’ll surround myself with my loved ones, and hunker down, and try to take care of myself as a person first, and then a CEO. I think it might be harder work than strategising to get Unqueue and PGS to where they are now, but it’ll probably have a better ROI.

Am I the only one throwing themselves at the fucking wall these days? Isn’t it all just too much work, for everyone? Idk man. What about you?