Saent Turns One
#26 Saent Turns One
This series is about what I’m learning, observing and experiencing while building our startup Saent (pronounce “Saint”). The good, the bad and especially the ugly, each time in under 500 words.
The header image of our first landing page from January 2015.
On a cold Saturday night one year ago, I had a meeting in Beijing’s tallest building. There, our first investor and I would agree on Saent’s founding investment.
That 31st of January 2015 marks the birth of Saent. While the idea for our product developed over the months leading up to this meeting, it was here that things kicked into higher gear.
It’s tempting, on our first birthday, to write a typical year one review: our crowdfunding campaign, how we’ve started implementing Teal, ran into a delay and invented a new software interface. Instead, I will do none of that, and explore the outer reaches before and beyond this first year.
5 years Before Saent
My personal interest in productivity was sparked by Getting Things Done, as I explained in this interview with Mike St. Pierre. But the idea for blocking distractions and improving work/life balance originated from another book I read, back in 2011.
Hamlet’s Blackberry dissects the influence technology has on our lives. It touches on all the core elements that have gone into Saent, both in terms of how we’re building the product, as well as how we’re operating as a team.
Originally published in 2010, it holds as true now as it did back then. The premise is at the core of what Saent is trying to do: develop focus, but also build more gaps into your day and life. Moments to think, refuel and enjoy meaningful time with others. If a book had to express our philosophy and “market opportunity,” as investors would call it, this would be it.
More greatness from that original landing page; this almost looks retro!
Five years Anno Saent
Ever since my late teens, I’ve been interested in building a great company and doing it differently. A group of people managing themselves in a new way, on a mission, with a purpose, not only out to make as much money as possible. The result has been a digestion of all kinds of management and business books over the years.
Titles like The Future of Management and Maverick sparked feelings of wonder and wanting, but there never seemed an opportunity to apply any of it, until now. When we set out to build Saent, though, I was completely focused on the product, not even thinking about the larger opportunity to fulfill my company-building dream. Yet over the past twelve months these things have evolved quite naturally. So besides delivering awesome products that truly help people do great work, I hope Saent will become a self-managing, self-learning organization. Perhaps established as a B-Corp or operating on similar principles, where all stakeholders (customers, team, investors and society) benefit from any potential profits and other gains.
Today
That’s all in the past and in the future. Sometimes it helps to look back to learn, and dreaming ahead can be good for inspiration and motivation; today is what matters most. Making sure every day we give it our best, move the pieces forward a bit, step by step, and then, then we will get where we are going.
Last one then… the features overview from our original landing page!
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