Professionally, I focus on creating social benefit startups. In my Saturday morning emails I share what I’m learning and thinking. Topics range from better living and parenting to business and philosophy.
Running Questions. After a broken toe, ankle issues and plantar fasciitis, I was excited to get back into running in earnest this year. I hired a coach who helped me run pain free. Monday, I completed a (very slow) half marathon. These days, I enjoy training more than the race. I love the moving meditation of running outside. And it gives me time to ponder things like the best running technique. Should I follow US Army doctrine or choose another approach? Do you wear out your joints running or is joint pain a sign that you’re doing it incorrectly? How old is too old to run? And the fundamental question: is running healthy?
Meatless Venture. Fellow venture studio founder Rob Spiro wrote a great series on eating less meat. He explores reasons to do so, why many people are eating more meat and if there are startup opportunities in the space. Very cool that he shows a window on the venture studio process and invites people to run with some of the ideas they developed. I liked the idea of mixing burger meat with plants to average down the amount of meat content. I’m fascinated by the consumer insight that many people consider meat to be natural and therefore healthy. Whole foods and unprocessed foods are healthy for us. We evolved as omnivores so why isn’t eating meat regularly the best choice? My guess is that just because we evolved to eat meat when food was scarce and we lived until 40, doesn’t mean that eating lots of eat is the best strategy to live to 90. In this corner representing eating more plant-based is the book How Not to Die and in this corner fighting for meat The Carnivore Code. Could it be that the optimal healthy diet is different for different people?
2000 Startup Ideas. Speaking of startup ideas, at our venture studio, Purpose Built, we’ve generated over 2000 startups ideas. When we passed 1,000 ideas, we published a blog post about our process and mentioned some of our ideas. I was surprised that ideas we mentioned as “weird” or “bad” had supporters. If you’re wanting to have startup ideas, check out my piece 15 Ways to Generate Startup Ideas Ways.
Until next time,
Miles