I never knew you can feel return-on-investment in creative pursuits, but I am certainly feeling it now. I’ve been doing a lot of writing, diagramming and sketching around thesis, which has helped me identify and hone-in on the crucial aspects of what I need to build.

Lately though, I can feel the ROI on these conversing-with-yourself kind of activities diminishing. I am beginning to rehash the same diagrams and minor variations on sketching again and again, with little new insight. Per the law of diminishing marginal return, this is no longer a good use of my time.

The diminishing ROI in “thinking work” was especially vivid as I spoke with Albert Wenger at USV today. In the very first exchange he had, Albert pushed back against assumptions about political apathy in my thesis thinking that I hadn’t fully addressed. I had been framing the antidote to political apathy being information and empowerment. Albert countered that even before that, I must first evoke and engage.

Albert also gifted me with a new model for thinking about engagement. Somehow I had never connected the funnel model of thinking about engagement to my thesis. In the funnel model, there are two key activities. 1. Expanding the top of the funnel and 2. Improving the conversation rate between stages. I have to do both, but the expanding the top of the funnel likely has a far larger ROI at this stage.

Where does this leave me? At the beginning of the thesis project, I knew this will get done “one prototype at a time, and one conversation at a time.” I’ve had quite a few great conversations, done a whole bunch of thinking and sketching. I have yet to do a really concrete prototype. I feel that many of the questions I have in mind now can only be answered by building.

So, really, I must start building.