Will Anyone Care About This?

For creators, I imagine this question must weigh heavy in the moments before their creation passes from intimate and private to public and exposed. There aren’t guidelines along a blank canvas. When a new track, a first novel, a debut film, or a online marketplace are about to be set loose to the world, the only believers are those that made it. 

This is a uniquely insane state that’s not found in many other professions or pursuits. For the majority of the working world, confidence and validation that one is doing something that’s right, meaningful, and productive comes as much, and often times more, from within the workplace as from public reaction. Necks are stuck out for work completed, but not in as drastic or individual a manner as with the artist-creator. 

For the author or painter, there could be some solace in knowing that another canvas awaits to be the filled-in, a new physical outlet for what their minds’ manifest. The sheer lunacy of bringing a creation into the world may fade once its done. Marked on the impact of a completed work, they can begin another. For the entrepreneur, it seems a different lens is applied to answer the title question. A startup founder’s creation will be measured by the impact - utility and/or enjoyment - it delivers over a long period of time. 

Maybe there’s a level of creative mind that doesn’t worry about how their works are received; who are confident in their creations no matter what. But for the founders who launch something into the world with anyone caringmeaning a product or service that’s consistently profound over months and years, the implied commitment in those moments before launch is immense. It may just take insane moments, total devotion and contrarian or eccentric or impossibly creative minds to afford something profound and, hopefully, the answer: YES.