## What happened Several months later, hyped by the idea of "decentralizing education and empower self-directed learning", I started thinking about putting this lofty mission statement into reality. I imagined a community where every one can share what their learning of life, where resrouces flow, and where individuals are empowered to direct their own learning. As a result, at the end of May, in the joy of having vibe coded an entire webpage on my own for the first time (https://learninginpublic.space), I shared the community with my firends and invited them to join. Despite the initial excitement, I sensed that this will not last long, because no one is quite sure what exactly are we doing here, and this is no place beyond a new platform for people whom might find it cool to post something. As a result, I used a prompt that I came upon in X that copies the style of Lenny Rachitsky, and used it to concult my own project. And a lot of Lenny said really struck me in the heart. ![[Screenshot 20250829 at [email protected]]] > Your current approach is a solution in search of a problem. > Nobody wakes up in the morning with their hair on fire thinking: "Damn it! Education is too centralized today! I need a solution right now." Powerful words aren't they. I realized the need to to come up with something real to spice things up and really push things forward. As a result, I started the 100 day writing challenge -- It turned out to be working for quite a while, but still gradually failed as people gave up. Including me. ## What I Learned Later, I read [[The Heart of Innovation]], which seems to have talked about exactly what I needed to learn. 1. [[Authentic demand is the heart of successful innovation]] 2. [[Innovators & entrepreneurs are often hindered by their own knowledge & beliefs]] My biggest mistake was that I went all the way from top down -- from mission statement and value and trying to fit it to the reality. I never considered from the bottom up -- who exaclty are we dealing with here? what's their need and pain point? what does my solution actually offers? -- and I never had a working product or business model beyond some lofty imagination. That's where the concept of a [[Product-Market Fit]] comes in -- a lofty mission cannot change the world on its own; it has to be accompanied by a concrete working model / solution that actually works and that people actually needs. A "community of learners" doesn't come from nowhere. Identify authentic demand and provide a real solution.