Numenon
A knowledge garden that grows with you.
You've read or written a million times these industry clichés:
Fail fast, fail often
Fail forward
Move fast and break things
Pivot or die
And the list goes on
I don't know about you, but I'd be okay if I never read a similar phrase again in my life. It's not that they're wrong. They try to compress many truths into 3 to 5 words. But the compression isn't lossless, and the message can't be applied everywhere. It's not enough to just follow these concepts blindly. You have to understand why they exist. Otherwise, you'll most probably create a culture of chaos in your company and in your mind.
In order to begin an entrepreneurial journey, you have to have a vision and you have to be optimistic about the future. That's why everyone preaches to "fail fast", because knowing if your vision is a delusion as early as possible is critical. You want the minimum possible investment of time and money to get that answer. But not less.
Do you see the contradiction here? You have to exist in a conflicting state. Be optimistic about the future, but not that optimistic because you'll probably fail. So don't over-invest. But still stay optimistic that eventually you'll succeed, so don't let failure crush you. This isn't a simple way to live your life. This is a sophisticated state of existence. It's not easy.
Your vision is somehow a prediction. You predict that the thing you're making will appeal to a certain number and type of customers, at a specific point in time. This looks like a long shot regardless of the content of your vision.
The internal conflicts are all over the place. You have to have passion and believe in your vision, otherwise, why bother? But at the same time, you have to be open to the fact that you could be delusional or simply wrong.
The optimistic dreamer and the cautious realist
The optimistic dreamer and the cautious realist should live together and be productive. Good luck. Even if you know that this is the way to go, it's not a comfortable position, constantly trying to balance.
Starting something new means that you're passionate about your vision. But at the same time, they tell you that you have to be ready to pivot. And pivot, sometimes, means that maybe you have to compromise or adapt to something that you're not that passionate about. But hey, you did this to win, right?
One of the reasons I chose to be an entrepreneur is the freedom. The freedom to envision and build things. I'm sure that other people will have a different set of priorities. And that's the wonderful thing about entrepreneurship. You get to pave your own path. You get to travel your own journey.
All these clichés certainly compress a lot of wisdom, and although I have an aversion to buzzwords, I always try to unpack them and find the essence of them. There's so much knowledge out there, and I want to be open, to learn and enrich myself and my philosophy. But at the same time, I refuse to follow "orders".
I'm not here to solve a puzzle, I'm here to make an original painting.
Somehow promoting my product has converted me into a full-time writer (exaggeration). That's absurd, right? I didn't plan to become an author. I am a maker. I do stuff. I don't like to talk about it. Talk is cheap. I have invested half of my life learning to make complicated worlds kind of work, and now I have to come back to plain English? Imagine you had learned to drive a spaceship and now you are back sitting in this old car, pressing the clutch and changing gears.
But still, writing code is an act of communication as much as writing is. Many fellow coders don't treat it like that, but they should. Coders compose worlds. Coding is about communicating with other coders or your future self. The way you express your program is a combination of experience, ideas, and opinions on how to structure processes and flows. There are countless opportunities and decisions on how you would express and solve the task at hand. Coders can and should be considered writers.
That's why I expect myself to be able to communicate my thoughts clearly in prose. If I can't do it in plain English, how can I expect myself to do it in code? In a way, these two go hand in hand. If writing is walking in the park, coding is riding a broken bicycle while drunk. So what am I? I am in the business of communicating ideas, constructing worlds, understanding workflows, and ultimately understanding my potential users, other people. Because not only am I a coder, I also sell a product. Other humans will use it. Both development and promotion are a unified process of throwing what once was in my head back into the world.
As a coder, I consider writing and promoting my product a chore. Something that doesn't suit my personality and the way my brain works. But as I dive deeper into it, I realize that maybe I am wrong. Maybe writing and expressing myself in English is exactly what I need. Deconstructing my vision and trying to get it across is like doing psychotherapy in public. I will certainly not be going to share my darkest thoughts, but I am going to be part of this evolutionary exchange of ideas and feelings.
So yeah, I am a full-time writer. I just don't accept it yet.
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It was interesting to read your perspective on this. I don't know if it's exactly related, but it reminded me of something I struggle with, which is the blurring line between marketing and product development.
In my mind, marketing is the act of promoting a product or service, but it's also a way of eliciting feedback and understanding market needs. It's a 2-way street in that sense. You communicate outwards and receive communication inwards, process it all, then start the loop all over again, and that in turn drives business strategy and product development.
The problem is when I think like this, even as an exercise, I find it hard to develop a marketing plan without trying to invent entirely new systems and tools to support it. In that sense, everything is connected to marketing in one way or another. Maybe it all is. Or maybe that's just my bias approaching things from a marketing perspective.
But it's like you said, even coding is communication, and maybe that's because it conveys intent and is a product of the coder's intent.
In the end, building software products and selling them seem to be like you said, 2 interconnected parts of the same whole. I guess it's up to us to decide how we want to manage them and hopefully find a balance that works and fits our individual styles.-
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I find the way that you put it very clear and useful. Indeed promoting and product development can be part of the same loop. And I think it's "the way" to go.
Regarding your "problem", tell me if I get it correctly. You mean that because you are more on the marketing side, each time you are starting a campaign let's say, you dedicate more time than you want on developing your methods? You feel that creative urge and spend more time on how you will do it instead of doing it?
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That's definitely my main issue! It's the classic case of perfection being the enemy of the good.
Another issue is the matter of scoping. The way I keep thinking is that, I can't do my best marketing unless I have the 'best' product. But that's rarely the case and also very subjective so it's a fool's errand that'll never be completed.
Intuitively, I know the product is probably good enough already, and with proper marketing would be an attractive offer to a customer, but the impulse to keep trying to make things better (before even making anything concrete) is a big issue for me.
Surprisingly, reading things from a developer's perspective like yours has been helping me lately slowly overcome this way of thinking. So thank your for sharing!
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This is a beautifully articulated reminder that coding isn't just about logic and syntax — it's about storytelling. As developers, we're constantly shaping worlds through the structure of our code, the clarity of our documentation, and the flow of user experiences we design. Much like writers, we have to consider our audience, communicate ideas effectively, and make complex systems approachable. Recognizing ourselves as writers helps us embrace empathy, creativity, and clarity — all crucial traits in building meaningful software. Thank you for highlighting this connection. It’s inspiring to re-frame development not just as a technical task, but as a narrative craft.
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Empathy is the word. You can't have empathy towards a machine. Once you realize that your code is not about the machine, empathy kicks in. For me it transformed the way I code. An it's not a profound realization. Most people realize it. But when you really start evaluating your code based on the future reader, everything changes.
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I didn't want to build Numenon. I didn't want to spend the winter reading doctoral theses and papers. I didn't want to write and delete the entire core of the program so many times.
I wanted to use Numenon and have someone else build it. I knew very well that I have a need that isn't covered by the tools available in the market, and together with Elvira we decided about half a year ago to take the leap.
I don't know if it will succeed as a startup - time will tell. But it's the first time in my life I feel such great satisfaction from the result. We built something we need and we use it every day, having replaced many other tools.
Something else that has great value is that Numenon potentially appeals to everyone. I can tell friends to go and "play" with it. Organize your personal life. Use it in your company or department. Use it for research or your next music album. It's really that versatile.
Numenon right now is a SAAS knowledge management system. Parts of it might remind you of Notion or Obsidian or something similar. We give you the freedom in how to structure information and make connections by creating a graph. You can use this graph in any way you can imagine. From building a CRM to creating a board game (we have beta testers doing this).
The concern for Numenon was that it should stand strong both theoretically and practically. We achieved this and it's already a very useful tool for quite a few people.
Now the vision is to develop it in the following areas: Collaboration, Security, Interactivity and AI.
We invite anyone who wants to sign up for the newsletter. From this pool we will select our next 50 closed beta testers.
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