12) Worldbuilding

Behind-the-scenes building Vambrace AI, a company on a mission to unlock the truth in human conversation. Please pardon the stream-of-consciousness style. Subscribe to follow along or visit the site here:

(typos are to make sure you’re paying attention)

Introductory Remarks

Dear Vambracers —

In last week’s post, Tacking, I explored the incremental shifts in direction required to navigate your startup-boat into the sea of product-market fit. The Iteration Channel you must traverse to get there can feel quite dangerous and you never know how big the rocks are just beneath the surface and the winds can be fierce. But there’s always a path forward if you’re patient and let yourself listen.

Worldbuilding

Today, I’d like to explore the concept of worldbuilding within an entrepreneurial context. Worldbuilding is most often associated with works of fiction, including books and video games, but the more I work on the company the more I keep coming back to the importance of worldbuilding in my day-to-day life as a founder. First, some background on worldbuilding, and then some organizations and artistic endeavors that I think I think nail authentic worldbuilding.

Definitions

1) Mainstream definition

2) Fantasy author’s note

So to summarize we can think of worldbuilding as the narrative construction of the environment into which you aim to bring an audience. The more immersive and coherent the environment, the more fulfilling the experience for the audience (hopefully) and the more likely they are to want to stay in that world, speak highly of it, or share it with others.

Why does this matter?

We’re all worldbuilding

After having spent nearly 7ish years now in the professional world, I’ve come the conclusion that really we’re all actively and cooperatively worldbuilding, in a literal sense, whether we’re aware of it or not. I’ve started to view society as a collective manifestation of humanity’s shared imagination—and so in that sense we’re all creating and subscribing to reality together. Of course there are economic realities that layer the cake of our shared imagination—but for the most part we’re all co-creating this existence.

You’re either welcoming or entering

Within the context of most interactions with the non-self world, we’re either welcoming others into our world or entering the worlds of others. It’s a little bit reductive and basic to think of things this way but I like it as a general paradigm.

Company building is worldbuilding

Within the context of building a company, it’s one of the most intense and explicit worldbuilding endeavors that we can undertake. Building a company is creating something from scratch, for no reason other than you want to or see some opportunity to create value. And so you do have to actively create the world that you want your customers, employees, investors, supporters, etc., to enter—and you want it to be a welcoming and immersive and compelling and easily-understood world.

Lessons from consumer investing

As a consumer investor, the best brands were those that created an immersive, authentic, and unique environment for customers to enter. Once in this environment, it’s much easier to want to purchase a product than it otherwise would be if it were a lotion in a tube (as an example). Over time it became clear to me that more often than not customers are more interested in purchasing the experience and feeling that the product and its brand environment create, more so than just getting the benefits from product usage. I think this can be generally applied across any type of interactive product or service usage category, whereby each and every product we use and the brands we give money to (even in the software space) create some type of feeling in us that is really what we’re chasing. It’s great to have real problems solved, but it’s even better to do so within an epic and immersive constructed brand environment.

My worldbuilding role models

The following works of art and brands have I think done an excellent job at creating immersive, authentic, and on-brand environments into which they bring their consumers and listeners. It’s also important to mention the commitment that these brands demonstrate across all customer touchpoints which goes a long way to reinforce the worldbuilding.

Lost in America (Original Release) - The Gathering Field

Apple Music

Lost in America is the second release by Pittsburgh band The Gathering Field. The album was a hit in Pittsburgh, selling (I think) 10,000 records in 2 weeks, and led to a deal with Atlantic Records. The record is below. [I wanted to include the booklet but didn’t have immediate access to it (alas, we persevere!)].

I think Lost in America is a good example of when a very specific feeling and attitude and psycho-orientation is crisply and emotively captured within some creative medium—and then that feeling happens to coincide with some cultural moment. This convergence led to rapid popularity within Pittsburgh and a record deal with a top label.

But my biggest takeaway is the narrative consistency and integrity of the album across all songs and across the actual packaging and construction of the record. You really feel like you’re walking, lost, in a cornfield in the middle of nowhere—but oddly not without hope—when listening to the record. And I think there’s a subtle universality to that feeling that resonated with a lot of people; and this sense of really seeing some group of people, and speaking to them in a unique way such that it describes what they’re feeling better than they can—and I think that’s what this album does.

Within the context of my company, I think there’s power in creating a cohesive narrative experience and being very specific about the journey you want to take with customers. And then if you can catch customers at the right time in their own professional journey, then you just might be able to walk down that road together.

Vacation

Website

Vacation is a sunscreen brand with a mission to enhance leisure for its customers. Vacation has built an entire universe committed to leisure and relaxation-and is making sunscreen fun again. They’ve done an incredible job of reinforcing their playfulness and brand atmosphere across the actual digital bones of a consumer brand: product pages, webpages, post-purchase emails, loyalty programs, etc. I think this demonstrates an authentic company culture that draws customers in and an attention to detail that implies trust.

The biggest takeaway for me with Vacation is that there is no line where you end and brand begins. The company has been built in the image of its 3 founders and is an extension of their unique attitudes and worldviews. And they’ve gone farther than most in building that world, because that’s the world they live in.

I also think the company helped me realize that there really aren’t any real rules in business. Sure, there are “best practices,” but I think novelty trumps best practices and so strictly adhering to best practices can actually just make you pump out a lot of the same—and that’s tantamount to death in an increasingly competitive digital environment.

Le Alfre

Website

Le Alfre is a modern menswear brand designed for GenZ and millennial men with a tagline of “cool and elegant menswear.” It was started in the past few years and has become popular with younger professionals in urban cities. It offers a new take on the stuffy menswear of the past decades and creates an environment where button-up shirts and dress pants can actually be fun and playful (again?).

I’m also inspired by the brand’s character development around this guy, Alfre, who is the creative director (or something) of the brand—and who is seen in the pictures above. There’s a playful irreverence there that I think really speaks to what GenZ and millennial consumers are looking for—and that is lacking in incumbent apparel brands which creates an opportunity for Le Alfre.

And also I think there’s this sense of bucking the trend that really separates Le Alfre (and Vacation as well) from the pack. It’s almost like Warren Buffett’s classic, “Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful” also applies to building brands—and doing things that are authentically you even when it feels most weird or atypical or unwelcome (within legal and moral parameters, of course). And so Le Alfre really inspires me to lean into me as much as possible, in an unapologetic and unabashed manner.

Looking Forward

I know it might seem silly, but I do think that brand exists whether or not it’s consciously cultivated—and I’d much rather actively shape the character of the company I aim to build than be submissive in its development. It might not drive value in the near-term, or even in the intermediate-term. But I have every intention of building an enduring organization that outlives me, and I think that’s made possible by boldly planting my flags and building the firmest foundation possible right now.

Thanks for reading and I hope you have a wonderful week of building the world you want to live in!

Sincerely,

Luke