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A Blurry Village

Imagine your strategy, your vision, as a blurry village seen from a distance. You can define, roughly, how big it is. How tall its houses are. How many people are walking around, how they move, how they interact – small groups or large groups.

You can see how wide its streets are, or if it even has streets. Are there cars around, or bikes, or do people just walk? Is it hilly or flat? What type of terrain surrounds it? What does the landscape look like? What lifestyle does it support?

This vision requires clear constraints. Resources like time, people, money, and risk tolerance. Who do you want your villagers to be? What do they value? What principles do they share? Who do you need by your side to help you build that village?

And then, what is this village for? What’s its purpose? What change do you seek by building it?

To say yes to these constraints means saying no to everything else. Setting them clearly from the beginning is crucial. This means that fixing something in the village when you’ve already established the constraints is easier and cheaper. On the other hand, trying to establish constraints once you’ve already started building it is not only painful but way more expensive.

Your village vision needs to be stated clearly and concisely, easy for insiders and outsiders to understand and remember so they know at all times whether it makes sense to be part of it, stay or go, and contribute to its growth.

But more importantly, it needs an element of surprise – something unexpected that makes perfect sense for the villagers you’ve chosen to serve. Something that makes it different from all the other villages around.

Because you’re not just building a place to live. You’re creating a space where your villagers, your specific tribe, can belong, grow, and become who they want to be.