Living in San Francisco is a marvel. The sheer scale of the city and the intensity of its tech scene are nothing short of breathtaking. Thanks to Trustedhousesitters, I found a way to live there for free for three months. Not only was I living in homes far more luxurious than my own in Amsterdam, but I was also taking care of some incredibly awesome pets, which allowed me to explore every nook and cranny of the city. Imagine this: a villa, a dog, and, oh yeah, a car—all at your disposal for free. It was surreal. This setup was such a success that I ended up referring around six or seven people to the service. Things got so out of hand: after telling a UK friend about this hack, two weeks later he texted me saying he was around the corner ready to meet his dog later that day.

Oddly enough, I felt more at home and less by myself in a state I’d never visited, a whopping 9,000 km away from Amsterdam. The sheer number of like-minded people I met who were determined to defy the odds and start a startup was thrilling. I encountered people from all walks of life, each with different interests, perspectives, and underlying motivations. I’ve never had so many fascinating, intellectually dense conversations in my life.

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The Power of Asking for Help

It’s astounding how many people in San Francisco are willing to help a stranger out, especially when compared to places like the Netherlands. In SF, it seems everyone understands that at some point, we all could use a hand, and this understanding drives a culture of paying it forward. For example, I aimed to talk to as many interesting people as possible. While most might naively email the first big-name CEO that comes to mind, like, say, Patrick Collison of Stripe or Brian Chesky of Airbnb, I realized my energy would be better spent reaching out to the brilliant individuals working for these companies instead. This approach would increase my success rate while still offering more insights than I could ever hope to process.

So, I reached out to dozens of designers, developers, and product managers. I cross-referenced anyone who seemed interesting, was based in San Francisco, and worked at a consumer-facing software company I respected. After filtering for companies like Stripe and Pinterest, I received a response from an incredibly kind, energetic, and intelligent product design manager at Airbnb. He was so nice, even inviting me to his office. After entering the lobby, I only realized I was standing in Airbnb’s headquarters. The generosity of his time and the hospitality of showing me around one of San Francisco’s iconic tech company headquarters were overwhelming. We also discussed Telos; his feedback on the value/growth hypothesis and the unique selling proposition from a design perspective was encouraging. It motivated me to focus intensely on coding and to release as soon as possible.

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The Startup Community

Long story short, I ended up on the guest list for a pretty exclusive event through a personal connection. Unfortunately, I arrived too late and couldn’t get in. To make matters worse, I couldn’t even take out my frustration on the car parked outside—I didn’t want to become the first European to break his foot trying to smash the exoskeleton of a Tesla Cybertruck…

Why am I sharing this? Because, in a similar predicament as me standing outside, I started talking to this intriguing, cool-looking guy who was also apparently a founder as well. His friend, another founder inside the event, eventually joined us outside, and we decided to grab a drink. The startup conversations were fascinating. Through this connection, I learned a lot, and another night found myself in a “hacker house,” a concept I hadn’t been familiar with. In this three-story SF apartment lived an incredible group of I believe it was 22 young, driven founders working tirelessly, day and night, to build something valuable. I also met a fascinating Belgian who had journeyed to the US to learn and grow, supported by a startup willing to take a chance on him by going through the trouble of sponsoring his immigration. It was at that moment it became clear I could achieve in 30 days in the States would take me 30 years in the Netherlands.

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3 Lessons in 3 Months

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1. Understanding the Ecosystem

One key takeaway from my time in San Francisco is the importance of being in the right environment, with the right “fish-to-pond ratio.” No matter how skilled you become, you can’t exceed the ecosystem’s carrying capacity — jumping out of the water onto the pavement. In Amsterdam, this capacity is shockingly low—only €2.5 billion in VC investments in 2022, primarily in fintech, sustainability, and water management. By comparison, the UK sees around €27 billion, and the US towers above that with an astounding €237 billion in VC investments annually. The 100x market size disparity is even more startling when you consider that the US only has about 20 times the population of the Netherlands. If I do everything right in the Netherlands, at best, I’d end up building something akin to Hyves.

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2. The Space of Social Networks

Just like Tesla, which got pigeonholed as a car manufacturer even though it defies that label at every turn, companies that try to reinvent industries often still get classified as part of the very category they aim to disrupt. For two decades, attempting to compete with Facebook or its subsidiaries like WhatsApp and Instagram was entrepreneurial suicide. That was, until today. Consumer sentiment has shifted drastically, and we are now, according to Sarah Wilson from Harvard Business Review, on the verge of an “age of anti-social media.”

Starting a new social network seems almost impossible when you factor in the challenges of consumer-facing products, the notorious cold start problem, and competing with a trillion-dollar incumbent. Yet, this daunting scenario is precisely what makes the industry ripe for disruption—because few are crazy enough to notice the emperor is wearing no clothes. Telos isn’t playing by the same rules; doing so would be a guaranteed path to failure for a startup as incumbents are to a brutal degree far more deep-pocketed. Today, Telos is however unfortunately will be labeled as yet another social network, and categorically dismissed as such. For the reason supplied above, social networks aren’t fashionable. What’s trending now at this particular time is artificial intelligence and Web 3.0. This causes two problems, one obvious, one less so.

First, fewer investors are looking to fund social networks, or worse aren’t aligned with the disruption needed in this industry. However, more interestingly, finding and hiring talent has become the limiting factor. As most talented individuals are naturally drawn to more fashionable endeavors of our time, smart people aren’t eager to join early and there is no point in hiring the bad ones.  Which brings me to my next point.

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3. Cavalry Generals Ride Horses

I initially believed doubling down on design would be Telos’s key to success, as the issue of “The Social Dilemma” is fundamentally a design problem, rather than an engineering one. By playing to my strengths and following the Matthew Effect, I planned for Telos would stand out on this front. I was wrong.

By focusing solely on design, I was essentially waiting for someone else to come along and ‘save me’ by parachuting in and building the high-end front-end that Telos requires to get traction. This essentially left me in a position of waiting for someone else’s permission, which is a terrible place to be in as a startup. I’m acutely aware of the need to attract the right human capital to evolve Telos from a solo venture into a formidable global tech startup. This is partly the reason why securing a toehold at MIT is so valuable. Just like a calvary general who can’t ride a horse can never be formidable, I need to learn how to code sufficiently to navigate this stage in the lifecycle of Telos. With the new capabilities of the emergent field of AI, I have decided to tactically learn to code enough to navigate this phase of Telos.

Much like Apple disrupted the personal computer industry with its design-driven approach under Jony Ive, I’m confident Telos can succeed as a design-driven social framework. However, after visiting SF it became clear I can no longer afford not to know how to program. I’m fortunate to live in a time where I can access incredible online coding courses and use AI to explain any detail I might need 24/7. I’ve just completed courses in CSS, HTML, and React, and I’m moving towards React Native. While this transition will be challenging, I see it as a natural extension of my lifelong passion for software, which began with UI design at 17, evolved into developing high-end websites with Webflow, and now, into the world of programming.

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What’s Next: The MIT-Exclusive Focus App

After multiple in-depth sessions with MIT students during my stay at SF, clear, recurring pain points emerged from those trying to navigate the rigor of one of the world’s most demanding technical universities. I spoke with around five students in-depth about what would help them study more effectively while also leaving time for rejuvenation with peers—friends who could likely become lifelong companions if only they’d get enough time and attention. Using the double-diamond approach of design thinking, we generated day-in-the-life-of-an-MIT-student, and a staggering list of 25+ potential features, which we then narrowed down to the most essential four. With input from my Airbnb acquaintance, I’m confident we have a viable, minimal MVP clearly outlined.

I won’t disclose too much detail here, but eliminating external interruptions is top of the list. With the new Apple ScreenTime Kit, it is now possible to not only turn on Do Not Disturb, but even to overwrite and essentially block the opening of other installed apps. Opal is a good example of an app exploiting this new functionality, gathering some steam, but its blocking works on a set schedule. Whereas Telos would be offering something more flexible: eliminating noise only during deep work sessions of undivided attention. I believe this is much closer to the goal we ought to be striving for. The goal shouldn’t be to spend less time on your phone. Instead, the goal ought to be to spend more time on life.

It’s important to note that this app is intended as a single-player experience designed to ensure sufficient user retention and establish MIT as Telos’s beachhead. This strategy aims to avoid the pitfalls of Andrew Chen’s “shark fin” dilemma, where sufficient virality is ultimately made useless due to the crippling unaddressed user retention. Supposedly, this makes for a nice bang, but inevitably it goes out with a predictable whisper.

For Telos to succeed long-term, its ultimate strategic offering must remain front and center. To achieve the viral growth needed to make Telos an international success, I’ve also been refining the user interface design, developing unique features, and creating an interactive prototype of both the multi-player internal messenger and event-sharing experience. These features, while distinct, are interrelated, and after years of careful study of the problem space at hand, I am very confident it is these experiences that will ultimately set Telos apart, and offer the beginning of the end of social media as we know it today. Now, following the mantra of first-thing-first, my focus is on finalizing the MVP to be allowed to bring these second-order multi-player features to the market.

To make this happen, I’ve decided I’ve had enough of Amsterdam—11 days was enough—and will spend the next month in a small, remote Italian village in Ameno to focus on coding.  I already have 50 MIT students signed up in person, including first and foremost, K., who, after many conversations, is awaiting the prototype. Ideally after some humble success on campus, this will lead to another plane ticket to MIT where I will launch Telos by heading to the Banana Lounge in Building 26 again and manually ‘do things that don’t scale’ and onboard students to this incredibly compelling yet free MIT-exclusive focus app tailored to their needs.