when everything you build already exists (and other late night thoughts)

#build without emotions

hey,

i wanted to quickly write you all a short letter and share what's been going on with me.

i just finished watching this 1 year old video from buildspace and honestly, i don't know what it is about these videos, but they always bring me back to the present moment. there's something raw about them that cuts through all the noise.

lately, i've been stuck. procrastinating on shipping anything. every idea that pops into my head already exists somewhere, and that voice in my head just shuts me down before i even begin.

yesterday, i had this plan to build a productivity app with a chat interface. never built it though. because chatgpt already does this with their memory feature now.

three days before that, i wanted to create this ugc app that turns one photo and audio into video content. i actually built an mvp for it, spent days on it, but never shipped it. the reality hit me - it costs way too much to run and there's no way i can compete with funded startups like heygen who can offer more value for way less.

so what's the solution here?

i thought maybe content creation was the answer. started recording myself, spent hours editing, felt pretty good about it. showed it to a friend and he pulled up hundreds of intro videos just like mine.

the only difference? every single one of those videos had better storytelling, cleaner editing, better visuals, more views. everything i thought was unique about mine wasn't.

so where does that leave me?

honestly, i don't know. i'm taking time to breathe. going back to what felt real before all this noise started. binge watching every buildspace video i can find, trying to remember why i started doing this in the first place.

i'm also trying to get back into reading but haven't found anything that's grabbed me

yet. if you have any book recommendations, please send them my way.