Currently participating in Y Combinator’s “Startup School” for ARSBETA.COM and enjoying this idea:
With your startup, what kind of really big problem are you trying to solve?
1. Social media is broken
For example in arsbeta.com, this is the really big problem I am trying to solve:
Social media (Facebook/Instagram) are detrimental/bad for our growth as photographers, visual artists, and innovators.
I love the idea of the concept of social media, but the question is:
How can we create a new productive social media platform which ENCOURAGES constructive critiques (to help us all empower one another as artists), instead of participating in a meaningless ‘popularity contest’, which actually makes all of our artwork more generic and PREVENTS us from innovating in our artwork?
Also:
Social media (with likes/followers) is patently bad for our self-esteem.
How can we create a new social media which isn’t predicated on likes, metrics, and numbers? A social media which isn’t like social crack cocaine? A social media which isn’t run on advertising, but something else?
2. How to empower ourselves as artists
My main goal with this blog is this:
To empower you to become the maximum apex version of yourself as a visual artist, thinker, and philosopher.
The problems:
- Photography isn’t seen as a legitimate art-form
- We have a hard time motivating/inspiring ourselves to shoot everyday, all-day!
- We are distracted and suckered into thinking: “I cannot make good photos because my camera isn’t good enough.” The reality — you probably aren’t shooting enough because your camera is too big, cumbersome, and cannot be carried with you all-day, and your camera cannot integrate itself with your everyday life.
Fix your own problems
My idea:
Strive to fix your own personal problems in your own life.
This means:
It is impossible to know what the problems of others are, but you clearly know what YOUR problems in life are.
For example, I have a hard time finding motivation and inspiration in my own photography. Thus I ruthlessly self-experiment, and once I figure out something which works for me, I share these findings with others.
Fix what you consider is broken in your own reality
First strive to fix your own reality, and share these findings with others (via your own website/blog).
Simple as that!
ERIC