The Library
Our team and I spend our days figuring out new ways of solving problems, with our day-to-day responsibilities consisting of performing product research+distribution for tangible products. We love technology and want to continually learn more about it so here we are today. Spending time today with my family, and thinking of how to structure this post to Hacker News, a site that I visit multiple times daily seemed like a great way to spend the day.
Recently, our team realized that we needed to open up the possibilities and think of topics that we don’t yet fully understand and explore certain subjects that are unknown (to each of us, at the current moment). Multiple team members are partnering up more and more lately to learn and work on building new things together, which has sped up the learning curve for everyone, and has also been very fun at the same time.
Naturally, I started browsing Google+Amazon for ideas, and then started thinking of the problem from the perspective that we have the opportunity to create something new. The something new is a network with new distribution channels that might not have existed before today.
I’m a huge believer in combinatorial innovation, by combining two technologies that did not previously exist together before to create something new. There’s that magical, unique moment that happens only once when you create something new, with the real joy in creation is watching an idea perpetuate over a long time horizon and allowing people to experience things and situations that they never believed that could/would have happened to them before.
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[ 0.30 ms ] story [ 25.3 ms ] threadI love discussing new books and subjects with my family/friends/team, and always look forward to any opportunity for that situation to present itself, but I believe that something or someone has to change our current position(s) to allow the situation to better present itself to each party. Then I started thinking of an offer/accept based tech system that might be able to help align many people’s interests. We’re not sure if the idea currently exists in this current form but we also like fun experiments.
My initial intention with creating "The Library" would be to create a new network to help create/maintain connections between people that might not have existed before. By creating it, I would start the process by purchasing a list of books that are interesting to me, and hopefully people that I know. Everyone has their own unique interest in books, and so as a collective group, I would hope to eventually have a very diverse range of book subjects. Creating and maintaining a large list of books will (hopefully) naturally help our organization grow into what we want for the future, and continually bring up the standards of learning for those involved.
Within the last few days of sharing this sheet with some of my past/current friends, we’ve had many more enjoyable interactions and conversations that might not have previously happened, without this. I hope that result would present itself for future relationships that don’t yet exist. That’s one of the reasons that I’m sharing our idea here today, to solicit any feedback, both negative+positive, with the hopes of building a new network that many people would eventually want to be a part of. I’m very thankful for this site to be around so maybe this could be a way for us to help in return.
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Our current business allows us the flexibility to easily ship things (at least nationally!), so today I'd love to start an additional experiment where anyone in the US (all 50 states - need to limit exposure first, sorry!) can borrow any of the books listed on the sheet, free of charge. We’ll keep track of updates for rentals+returns as time goes on, but we truly believe that we needed to continually invest more and more in the future for both our team, and our company, first by allocating capital to this idea, and then allowing it time to grow on it’s own. If this project and/or experiment(s) are a failure, then the worst case scenario is we have lots of interesting books to read, that lots of people would be happy taking home, so all would not be lost.
We can’t promise anything at this point other than what we just shared with everyone. We would very much appreciate any help or ideas that anyone might have to help us move forward, or could help with what we’re trying to accomplish. We’ll continually re-evaluate the future, based on the variables that we currently have, and then re-adjust accordingly, but this offer is available until I/we state otherwise.
The technology for what we’re trying to accomplish is still very basic, and I’d love to see it continually improve with time, to remove any friction in the process. We see no end to our investment in books, or the future, so unless this gets too huge, then we’re fine. But if it does get huge, then that just presents other opportunities (assuming we could fund it until that point!).
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If anyone is interested in sharing any ideas for new books to add, donating any books, or helping in any other way, please feel free to contact us as we’d love to hear from you. We’re really just trying to build a massive library at our office (or future new location), and my entire personal book collection will be transferred to this to help speed up the process of creating a large list as fast as possible, to help the network grow. The list is only a few days old (and most of it hasn’t even arrived from Amazon yet!)
Our current heuristics for purchasing new books:
Think of Subject (Google+Amazon+Wiki+?) -> Search for 3-10 highest reviewed books (Amazon) -> Purchase ($!) -> Add to Master List (Google Sheets) -> Aggregate Tons of Data (Amazon+Google+?) -> Continue Building List of Books (Referrals+Search+Reviews) -> Perform Tons of Regression Analysis to Learn (?!#?!) -> Figure out all steps for Data/Sheet to update in Real-Time (this is the largest unknown variable in the equation, and we need to get to this point as fast as possible to properly scale the idea)
We’ve self funded the books that are on the current list over the last few days, by purchasing them on Amazon, and we have 500-1000 more unique titles to add in the coming week, so I hope that this is a start to something great. Please let me/us know if there’s anything we could do to improve. Thank you for your time reading this.
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"Don't focus on the idea. Just start building what you believe is true and share it with the world." "If you're not embarrassed by your product release, then you've released too late."
The Library - List of Books (Google Sheets - Public URL) https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pLQ86vv4u0Mutcob6K24...
TO REQUEST/RENT/BORROW A BOOK: Please send me/us a private message on this forum (Hacker News), and include whatever information you’re comfortable sharing with me/us, and we’ll send the book to you this week.
We’re not sure if we’re offering return postage yet, but we’ll guarantee any initial postage for outbound shipments and hope that people return the books to us. Since this is new to us, we’re hoping that by offering this to the Y Combinator community, that we could at least have some past member history as an initial data point to start learning from.
We will not share your information with anyone. This is not a joke post. Please, limit one (1) book per member+household, at least initially. These rules could change at any time.
The most basic details that we need to send you a book are:
Book Title: Address Information: (name not required) Expected Return Date:
You may keep the book for up to 90 days, but we please ask that you think of other people and return the book when possible so other people can also borrow it. If everyone chooses 90 days, then we may lower the maximum number of rental days in the future. If the book that you request is currently out of stock, then we’ll add your name to the reservation list, and send the book to you once we receive it in return.
If you would like to review the book after you return it then it would be much appreciated, but completely optional. We plan on adding different metrics of reviewing the best books to read, based on past data, but that’s in the future.
Thank you again.
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