Discover more from Spaceship Earth, by Lightfoot.io
Hi Lightfootians,
Hope you’re doing well and are enjoying the new year. Wanted to give you an update on all that’s happened this week and what’s to come for the next.
Updates:
I started working with a fantastic pitch coach, named Will Greenblatt. His company Out Loud Speaker School helps founders create a powerful pitch. The goal for me is to really hone the story of Lightfoot.
I began my outreach process to find merchandise partners. Lightfoot is all about connecting you to the environment and part of this is helping you find the best eco-minded products that you might also fancy. If there are any companies that you really like and think that they would make a great fit, let me know and I will contact them :)
I am finishing up a few design-related updates to Lightfoot. I expect these to be done sometime in the next week or two, at which point the app will be live :) It’s been over a year in the making and it’s amazing to see the work that’s been done!
Posted a written article on LinkedIn about an interesting question on the economics of renewable energy. The general thought experiment is as follows: What would be the economic impact of a hypothetical 10x increase in the supply of renewable energy? Check out the post here.
Around the corner…
This week I’m mostly focused on practicing and refining the story. I’ll shoot some videos, make some content, and post. My goal for this week is 3 posts.
I will also be doing some outreach and coding, to finish up some of the items I mentioned above.
I have some content dropping on TikTok, Instagram, and LinkedIn, in case you want more lively updates.
More broadly, my plan for the next month is to move more clearly into the “growth” phase. This means launching and focus on partnerships, content, and customers.
What I’m thinking about
Lately, I have been really interested in the power of compelling stories and storytelling. During the first lockdown, I read a really interesting book about story structure (The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller ). I had never really given this topic much thought but when I read more into it, I realized the profound difference a good story can have, not just on social media or product marketing, but in small things like chit-chat, networking, dating, etc.
My goal for Lightfoot has always been to prove that becoming climate positive isn’t a hopeless struggle - that it can actually be simple, easy, and rewarding. I do this a few ways: constantly taking in your feedback, improving the product, finding ways to innovate on your behalf, and building a differentiated product & service experience.
Over the past year, I’ve closely watched the stories we tell ourselves about the climate. My observation is that they are overwhelmingly negative (rightly so, given the state of the climate). The problem I have with this is it’s counterproductive and doesn’t allow for genuine long-term, trust-based relationships to form (in our case, between company and customer). Let me tackle these individually. First, I think it’s counterproductive because is only speaks to the problems and not the solutions. We individually have to face the unpleasant reality of the situation, but omitting or not actively participating in solutions only results in cheap, stale, and repetitive conversation (not action). Second, it does very little to inspire people to find a common goal, something that is a non-starter for any type of goal. To the extend that it does, I argue that a compelling story that focuses on solutions will always win. I think back to the storytelling principles I took from that book and think: don’t people get tired of listening to this crappy story, over and over again? So my approach with Lightfoot has been to find compelling, action-oriented stories to build the company around. I want to tell you stories that make you think: I can make a difference if I try.
Talk to you next week.
Adam