Arvid Kahl
Have you ever felt like you're good at many things, but people didn't know what to do with you? Well, generalists all over the world have this problem. And my guest, Milly Tamati, has built a home for them. I'm Arvid. And welcome to The Bootsrapped Founder. Today, Milly will share with you why generalists are useful for any organization, what it took her to build a community for them online, and how living on an island with just 170 people plays into all of that. It's going to be an interesting one, I can tell you that. The episode is sponsored by acquire.com. More on that later. And now here's Milly.
Milly, thanks so much for being on the show. So you run this wonderful community called Generalist World. Tell me what is so special about generalists?
Milly Tamati
That's a great question, Arvid. Thank you for having me first of all. I think what is so special is that generalists have been around forever, right? This is not like I've just invented this whole new thing, like, there has been the spectrum of the way we approach the world, whether that's being very, very specialist or more like a generalist nature, forever, since like the dawn of time. And I think what is special, just at the moment is that there's just a shift. And that's from seeing it as a negative thing to a positive thing. And that's come through like loads of conversation and listening and trying to understand like, who and what a generalist is. I think, also, what's kind of special about this time in the world is that we just have these like really, really big, complex, messy problems to like societally to work on and to change. And I think where I get really excited about the uniqueness that comes with generalists is that when you put really, really high caliber generalists in rooms with really, really high caliber specialists and you have this really diverse skill set, that's when you can start untangling these big problems.
Arvid Kahl
Generalist, to me, it always was a negative term. It was kind of related to the dilettante kind of term, right? The idea of somebody who does everything not well enough to be considered valuable or a good contributor. Is that still a stigma? Or is that stigma on the way out?
Milly Tamati
Great question. When I first started looking into this, it was totally a stigma. It was like, I didn't even have the language for generalist. I would call myself an all rounder. And, you know, when I came across the word generalist, I almost said it like in a whisper. I was like, I think I'm a generalist. And my, I'm also, you know, we're all on our own kind of bubbles. But from what I can see from the talks that I'm doing from the appetite and the interest that are coming from not just generalists but social media, super respected organizations like the London School of Economics, they are tapping into this as well. There's this whole push for, I guess, like interdisciplinary. And it comes back to that big problems. We're all on the same boat. We all want to solve these big problems. And so I would say, even like, pre COVID, this would have been still quite a negative thing. It definitely didn't come with like a badge of honor that you're a generalist. And it's been for me as the one who's kind of like, one of the faces of this kind of movement in this conversation. It's been a pretty hard slog because you are facing these like decade's long negative connotations. And then it's up to you to see it in a positive light and to be able to pull out the strengths that generalists have. And to be able to like, kind of shout and shout and shout into the void about it until there's a bit of a tipping point. And I feel like we are at that tipping point now.
Arvid Kahl
Yeah, I think so too, being part of the kind of creator world or the entrepreneurial world in particular, it feels like, the more you want to do your own thing. And you're right. The pandemic has kind of moved people just into their own homes, organizing their own lives and all of a sudden, they didn't just have to do the job that they were doing, but also so many other things to be able to do this. I feel in that world, it's kind of hard to avoid just broadening your skill set and but still, I think there's a difference between somebody who's kind of forced to work from home in the pandemic and adapt to it and a generalist who understands that generalism itself is a good idea. So can you kind of get me into the difference between just being adaptive and being generalist?
Milly Tamati
Yeah, love it. It comes back to the question like is being a generalist a choice? And this is something that as I've built the community, it's something I've asked myself and others a lot. Because I think to your point, when I first started looking into it, you know, the common narrative was that a generalist is someone who is mediocre at a lot of things. But and you know, there was all these narratives like they can't go deep, they can't focus, they're just unfocused, they just can't stick at one thing, and they're kind of average at everything. I mean, that doesn't sound great. Does it? But when I started, actually, digging in, meeting, spending time with people who were opting in themselves, who were self identifying as saying, I think I'm a generalist, I started to see things that I completely just blew my mind. You know, these are people who have PhDs. These are people who are in these, like powerful positions. These are people who their skill set is somewhere between like, incredible and intimidating
Arvid Kahl
Yeah
Milly Tamati
Because they just have these diverse perspectives. And I think that's what it is. It's not just being about being good at many things. It's about being an expert at learning and an expert at problem solving, in a way. And this is something I struggle with a lot. In a way, it's specializing in learning and specializing in problem solving. And specialising in this like big picture thinking. And so I think language is really important. And I always put my hand up and say, I do not have this all figured out, like the language that we're using, where it's evolving as we go. But I think what kind of ties all of these generalists together, who again, is self opting in even with their PhDs, even with their deep expertise. Is this curiosity and this ability to learn and to pick things up? And I think there's also something there about being able to almost like, be drawn, not so much to a certain role, but to the problem that you want to solve. I see it time and time again in the community, people are predominantly interested in the problem that they're working on rather than necessarily chasing prestige or a certain title. It's like, what is the problem that I can work on? That's where they find their meaning.
Arvid Kahl
Oh, that's awesome. Can you even be like, do you have to be curious to be a generalist? Is that part of the deal?
Milly Tamati
Is it a deal breaker?
Arvid Kahl
Well, if you're not, right? If you're completely, I'm curious. Can you still be a generalist?
Milly Tamati
Yeah. My hunch is that is an innate generalist trait to be curious because that's kind of what drives you. That's kind of what leads you to the next problem. I would say it's most of the time, probably a pretty essential trait.
Arvid Kahl
Yeah. Well, it sounds like it would have to be like if you and you described it so well. It's kind of a transfer of the capacity to learn and the capacity to understand between different verticals. And whenever I think about like specialization or generalist, I always have this visual in my mind of the T shaped employee, right? That's always the big thing that people always talk about, right? You're kind of you have a couple of things you know and you go really deep on one. And then at some point, people told me about, well, the uppercase Greek letter pie shaped employee, right? Where you have two fields. And then somebody told me about the comb shaped employee that had all these little different things.
Milly Tamati
Yeah
Arvid Kahl
And honestly, yes, just a block that somebody who loves everything. And I feel like particularly if you take the T shape, I feel a generalist is just capable of moving the trunk of the tea around into different areas as well. It feels like you're not stuck in this one thing. You're capable to just like project your capacity into other fields. I really like this idea of learning being at the core of this. So that seems to be what sets generalists apart. Am I right?
Milly Tamati
Yeah, I think it's really interesting because these shapes are evolving, right? It seems like every year, there's like, like you said, I haven't even seen the box shape. There is like all of these shapes evolving. And I think what we can take from that is that there's so much about the way that humans work that we just don't know, that we're just starting. I mean, we've spent the last, you know, 100 years coming out of like the Industrial Revolution, where it was like we work five days a week, eight hours a day and we work on these factory lines. And it's like, this is your little roll. And it's really only in the last kind of decade that we've really been, you know, there's like been people and culture teams that start to evolve and be like, huh, maybe we shouldn't paint everyone with the exact same brushstroke. Maybe there's this really great study that came out via the Harvard Business Review and it was talking about how diversity of thought is proving to be just as important as diversity of gender, ethnicity and in terms of bringing teams together and how fast they can move, how innovative they can be and it's really proving to be this, like, super key element that if you think about it, like, if you have everyone who thinks the exact same on a team, you're gonna get the same result. It's same as a definition of insanity, right? But if you have this diversity of thought, people who approached the world differently, people who have experience in these seemingly unrelated, this is what always make me super excited in general, as well. You've got someone with like, their PhD in archaeology, who's now building an ad tech platform and you're like, wow, well, what happens there? Like, what is the perspective that comes from having this deep knowledge of archaeology going to contribute to educational technology? So fascinating!
Arvid Kahl
Yeah, absolutely. I think the more I think about this, the more I consider myself one too like a generalist because looking at my own history, really, my educational history, I want to, you know, go into boring route, I guess. I love computers, went to Computer Science University for computer science, kind of dropped out because I played too much World of Warcraft, but that's a different story. And after that, I went to university again because I wanted to do something completely different. And I think that instinct to want to do something completely outside of my domain, that might also be something that just allows me to be more general in many ways. And I studied philosophy and political science
Milly Tamati
Love it!
Arvid Kahl
For a couple years at the university too, like at the complete other side of the spectrum. And now that I'm kind of back in the developer world/the entrepreneurial creator space, I find both meaning and insights in both of these fields that I can apply to my writing, right? When I write now, I think about technical problems, technical businesses, but I look at it through the data analysis lens of somebody who is capable of doing like large scale studies for political science or I understand complex systemic dynamics that come from the government's political systems and apply them to entrepreneurial structures. You know that's the kind of the transfusion of knowledge from one to the other, the synergistic element there feels like. I'm glad I allowed myself to kind of break out of the computer route that so many people kind of got stuck in, I felt. That's also, I think, a mental model, right?
Milly Tamati
Yes
Arvid Kahl
You think other people are stuck in their fields. Do you consider this to be? Or is this something that keeps people from even allowing themselves to be generalist is to feel this need to have to be specialized to be a meaningful contributor to the society at large?
Milly Tamati
Words be successful, right?
Arvid Kahl
Yeah, right
Milly Tamati
If you think back, I mean, I ran a workshop for the London School of Economics last week and I was speaking to 100 16-year olds. And one of the first things I asked was, who here has been asked, what do you want to be when you grow up?
Arvid Kahl
Yes
Milly Tamati
And of course, 100 hands went up. And the more I think about that question, the more it's geared to exactly what you were just speaking about this linear path. It's assuming that there is a target and you must hit that target. And, you know, a target often shoots in a straight line, an arrow. But to your experience, you've got Computer Science, Philosophy, what was the other one?
Arvid Kahl
Political Science too
Milly Tamati
Political science, like and as you said, it was the divergence, the intersection of all of these things, which now make you like, you now have this really unique as Wes Kao would say, you know, a spiky point of view. You've got something that only Arvid sees the world in a certain way. And I think my take on this is there is huge value in that and we need to be for some people, that linear line is bang on. Like that is what they're supposed to do. They want to go and study forever and become the deepest of deep of deep experts. And we need those people. This is like people like are you like anti generalist? Heck no. Like I'm like we need specialists. We need these deep expertise. But my take is that not everyone is the same. And we can't be painting everyone with the exact same brush and it's about time like if we want to solve these big problems, then we need to be building teams, building corporations, building organizations that see people for the different shapes they are, whether that's T, X, pi, square or whatever one is going to come out next week, you know and leverage it. Like, I feel like we're not leveraging the talent that exists by allowing people to be who they are. And an example of this is in my previous role, I was interviewing with the CEO of a mental health tech company. And she had asked me to come up with what job description I wanted. And I went back to her with this very weird answer about how I wanted to be an all rounder and I wanted to solve problems. And she came up with a title director of miscellaneous, which completely changed my life.
Arvid Kahl
Ah, that's awesome.
Milly Tamati
Because it was the first time someone in leadership had seen my skill set and said, do not change a single thing. We need to leverage this, like, put her in all the teams except for engineering and design. All the other teams put her in, let her be the glue, let her bring the thing that she can be the one that brings it all together. Because I think that often what happens in organizations is you have these deep specialists who are fantastic at what they do. But then no one's able to speak to each other. You need people that can be the communicator and the glue that kind of brings everyone together.
Arvid Kahl
Yeah, you kind of, you have to break down the silos too, right? There's been a whole culture and business of siloing up and I kind of get it because I only recently over the last couple years, as I did more writing and community outreach, did I understand that was actually who I was. Before that I very much considered myself to be a specialist in the field because software development was the technical skill that I had. And I didn't say I was a writer, but particularly not in a second language. And I didn't think I was a social media person because I had like 200 followers on Twitter at that point. You know, I gave myself good reason not to think I'm a generalist by just looking at the world around me in a particular way. And I remember being a software engineer on a pretty technical software engineering team. And there was a pride to being the skilled and that nobody else understood what we were doing. And I think the leadership in the company that I was in, they also didn't do much about the just the mentality of we are the development team. Those people are marketing. Marketing people have no idea what we're talking about. They have no understanding of the complexity of the software. There was a lot of friction between these groups just because the specialization was different. And that kind of silo thinking that ultimately kind of destroyed this company, like the whole tech team quit and founded a new company
Milly Tamati
Wow
Arvid Kahl
That was way more open in that regard. It was a pretty bizarre story. It was pretty cruel too, to see this like to be part of a kind of replacement company for the one that failed. But now in retrospect makes me think, wow, I was really I was a jerk to these people because I wanted to fit in with my specialized skill team. And I kind of hated on everybody outside. Those were just people that kind of had the same goal as we all did, like make a good product. But
Milly Tamati
Yeah
Arvid Kahl
You know, it's nice to have not just a person in you to teach people how to do it, but even just an understanding of the role of a generalist in business.
Milly Tamati
Yes, it's the representation. I think that is my biggest thing at the moment. It is why I am being so loud and putting so much time and effort into building in public and being the face and being the voice because it kind of starts with awareness. And if someone isn't gonna go fly that flag, then nothing really changes.
Arvid Kahl
Yeah, for sure. Well, I'm glad you're doing this. I'm glad you're doing it in public. I think there's already a lot of people that have found their way into your sphere of influence, let's just call it that. I want to talk about your community a little bit because I think first off, it's amazing that you're even talking about this. That already, like standing on the pedestal, standing on the soapbox and telling people about the truth that you feel and know, that is already quite a challenge, but making a thing happen, where people come together and stay together, now that's a whole other level of work. So how is your community doing? Like, how did you approach it? How big is the community now? How many generalists have you found?
Milly Tamati
That's a great question. So when I, I also kind of want to caveat this by saying that I never meant to start a community. It was really a matter of, when I first had this lightbulb moment of, oh my gosh, I'm a generalist. I think this is what I am. Can I find one other? Can I find one other person who has this path that doesn't really make any sense on a CV? And I started looking. I found one then I thought can I find 10? And then when I found 10 just the pure like laziness of me, I was like, I can't keep doing 10 one to one DM. And so I was like, I'll pop them all in Slack. That was the beginning of Generalist World. It wasn't this like sitting down with a big business plan and being like, okay, stage one: community, stage two: media empire. No, it was like stage one on, I was like, wow, there is. It really started by trying to find a couple, a handful of people who looked like me on paper. And I mean, I've been building businesses for about eight years, either my own or being a very early employee and others and you will know, everyone in this audience will know, it is hard to get momentum.
Arvid Kahl
Oh sure.
Milly Tamati
It is really hard and becoming increasingly harder, right?
Arvid Kahl
Yeah
Milly Tamati
And the momentum that I felt from the minute I put this out to LinkedIn and Twitter was like, undeniable and it actually caused me to quit my job within three weeks of putting it out there on socials just because for me, it was just so obvious that there was this pole, this drive. It was resonating with people on a level that was, yes, we're talking about our careers but it was resonating at a depth of this is also our identity. This is more than the job we do. This is how we look at and how we approach the world. And I think what I can really attribute the success of Generalist World is a lot of folks in there are, as I said, beyond incredible, but they've been overlooked. And they have lost out to, you know, head to head. They've lost out to specialists when they're going up for a role because they don't have the exact experience even though they might have all of these different skills, which could bring so much to a job. So when you bring together a group of people who are either underrepresented or overlooked or feel misunderstood, that is powerful. The community today is it dramatic to say like my pride and joy? That's the truth. That's how I feel.
Arvid Kahl
Yeah
Milly Tamati
That is how I feel about Generalist World. I think there is so much pressure when you start anything, a business, a community, whatever it might be, to just grow, right? Growth at all costs. Big, big, big. And early on I remember reading, it was actually just the title of the book. And it was about building a great company, not a big company. And that resonated, that resonated because, you know, I live on this little island, seven hours away from the next big city. I have absolutely no interest in spending my days chasing VC money. I just wanted to build a product that was really high quality, made a dent in people's lives, could bring people together and help them move faster in their career, help them speak about who they actually are, and do it profitably whilst bootstrapping. And also like, selfishly once again, I love my calm life. Like I don't want to change that. And I love that I can, you know, if it's sunny outside, I go for a couple of hours walking through the forest and along the shore and you know, see the sea eagles. I really value life and the community has been this really amazing way to be able to fund my life, which by all means is not extravagant whatsoever to be able to hire a small team of people that I adore working with. They inspire me. They are absolutely incredible. And then to bring together we've got about 400 plus generalists from about 20 different countries who, yeah, and it operates on like a yearly subscription model. So that's kind of been like the chunk of the revenue, although there's lots of new things on the horizon.
Arvid Kahl
Oh, new things on the horizon. That sounds interesting. Before we dive into that, I just want to know like how do you cultivate such a community? Because you just said it, like your lifestyle is if the weather is nice, I want to be able to take the time and walk outside and honestly I think there's something about this generalists as well. People with a diverse range of interests, they might easily do something else than the one thing, right? That you might want them to do as an entrepreneur or as a founder, right? They probably are, I wouldn't say easily distracted but they might be distractible by new and interesting things. Curiosity, we talked about this, right? So how do you keep people coming back to your community? How do you engage them in a consistent way?
Milly Tamati
Yeah, I think a lot about engagement because when you first start building a community, you Google it as I did. I had never built a community. And I was like, how do I do this? And engagement, engagement, re-engage, engagement campaigns, automated engagement. And I will be honest, a lot of what I have done with Generalist World has been kind of through intuition and somewhat ignoring a lot of the mainstream advice. And one of that was engagement. Like, for me, Generalist World is not a place that you come and have to hang out all the time. It's never there to be a burden on your life. It is a trusted, non performative. I think that's a big one non performative, rather than on social media, where you have to have the space like "safe place" that when you need something, you can come and you're probably gonna get your answer. There's probably going to be someone because of just the pure diversity of experiences and knowledge. Someone's done it. And it's this trusted place that you're not expected to be there all the time. And even if you are out there following your curiosity, the value that happens when you do arrive and you do, you're either able to contribute or you're able to have your question answered is so great, that it doesn't like for me, it's not about the quantity of time that people are spending there. It really is about the quality. And I think how to your original question, how you cultivate them, is through like, there has to be a face and a leader of the community. It is so incredibly important to have that one consistent person. And it's kind of almost silly advice these days that you even have to say this, but being genuine and being actually genuine, like, actually really just yourself, like speak like you would to your friend, like how we would speak and use emojis, use gifts. Like, you really set the tone and the culture. And especially in the first six months, you'll be setting like, literally the habits. You're like,this is how you're role modeling constantly. You're constantly being that role model. And eventually, people just start picking it up and they just start doing it because that becomes the culture and the way of being.
Arvid Kahl
I think you've just expressed a very, very critical part of building any successful community. And I think though, the modeling, that you just described. You have to be the person you want to attract. You have to, you know, you have to actively be the experts in the field where you want other experts to kind of gather around you. You can't just start a community for XYZ that you have no idea about, right? You need to be in the in group already to allow the in group to grow. That's, I think, very, very often underrated. I see a lot of people wanting to build communities for whatever because community building is the new thing, right? You need to build community, but in your place or in your experience, I guess it just happened because you found your people and then you started modeling that behavior. And then the
Milly Tamati
And I will say like, you know, I will say that, as you said community has become this absolute buzzword and trend and like big push from like companies like everyone needs a community. And I think the big differences, I think in years and I think that if people are going to be like, taking their time to actually come in, introduce themselves, contribute, learn, meet their peers, then it's almost my duty, like I have so much respect, it's a respect thing that I'm thinking long term about this. And I think almost the problem with communities the challenge with communities these days, is it's way too easy to start them. It's what it's like, two minutes, Slack and started someone says I'm a community builder. That's the big challenge. It's the same with businesses, right? Like it's so easy just to spin out a product in especially now with AI like in, you know, a couple of hours, that we're almost losing this essence of like long term thinking. And I think when you're in the business of community, you're really in the business people. And I see this as, you know, I've put my name, my face, my reputation. All of this is like very intricately tied to Generalist World and that's something I don't take lightly.
Arvid Kahl
Yeah, yeah, it's a reputational thing. It's a relational thing, right? Like a community without relationships is an empty husk like it's just transactional. And I love this. I love the thing you said about it being non performative, that kind of already excludes kind of transactional movements or transactional actions, right. But people do one thing to get something else. Any relational group where people really care about long term relationship, the kind of infinite game thinking that will actively fight anything transactional and performative. I love that. I think that's a really important part too, like encouraging nonperformativeness or discouraging performative behavior.
Milly Tamati
Yeah
Arvid Kahl
Do you actively do this? Like, can you give me examples for that?
Milly Tamati
Yeah, so I banned self promotion. I like no self promotion because, yeah, you know, almost every community I'm in has a self promotion channel. And in my opinion, they're completely useless. No one actually goes to look at it unless you're just going there to self promote and then you never really look at it again. There might be some exceptions to this, especially in like, say, founders communities or something where that could be a loophole. But for the vast majority, these self promotion channels are just an endless pit of people sharing a link that isn't actually, of any value.
Arvid Kahl
Yeah
Milly Tamati
And so that was a very intentional decision. Maybe six months in, where I was, like, you know, we have a very dedicated onboarding process. And part of that is we have a kind of template where people can introduce themselves. And it helps tease out these different parts of their generalist self. And I'm like, by all means, drop your links in there, like introduce yourself, drop your links. We want to be able to go and see who you are outside of Slack. But this is not the place where you're going to be like, up vert me on Product Hunt and like my blog and we can connect outside and you know, go for gold on social media. But this is a place again, where the noise is low. I'm like, it shouldn't be a noisy place. It should be a high quality content that's found inside the community.
Arvid Kahl
Yeah, did you have to ever enforce this, like, strongly? Did you have to ban people from your community or even not allow them in for that reason?
Milly Tamati
No, touch word. I've actually never had to ban or kick anyone out. I think part of that is just, we've only been going for 18 months and maybe that will be around the corner at some point. But people are very respectful. It's also like, you know, you pay to be a part of it. It's a paid product. So you're almost not going to jeopardize that five in sharing a link. And it's also, it's cultural. It's not a part of the culture. It's not a part of what we do. People would be like, whoa, like, why are you doing that?
Arvid Kahl
Yeah, I love that. That's great. I think like barrier to entry, like making something paid, you kind of have a loss aversion bias that you can work with so that people don't do the thing you don't want them to do. I really enjoy this. And I've been I kind of am generally torn on completely banning self promotion because I feel that is a way to selflessly self promote. But that can just be through your action. That doesn't need to be through a link, right? Because people if they see you help them, they will find a way to figure out if you can help them in other ways, like they will find the link, right? They will go to your social media, they will go to your website or whatever. You don't need to push it into their face.
Milly Tamati
Absolutely.
Arvid Kahl
There's something to be said about giving, giving, giving. And then just eventual reciprocity kicks in and they figure it out. And they try to make ends, you know, get even with you.
Milly Tamati
Yeah, and to your point like that's how the world works in the real world. Like, if we were to meet on the street, I wouldn't be like, click this link. And
Arvid Kahl
I would love that. If I were to ever meet you like in real life, if that would be right to action. Yeah, it's so weird, right?
Milly Tamati
Maybe I'm doing it all wrong.
Arvid Kahl
Just be the walking QR codes, just kicked in. Yeah, that is absolutely right. Nobody would do this. Right? Yeah, nobody would ask something off you before they even understood if you are trustworthy or not.
Milly Tamati
Yeah
Arvid Kahl
Like that is the baseline for human trust is
Milly Tamati
Yeah
Arvid Kahl
To establish some kind of relationship
Milly Tamati
Absolutely!
Arvid Kahl
Which is why scammers or con people abuse that trust and then scam you after the fact. And it's nice to see you actively fight this but not even giving people the opportunity to do stuff like that. That's cool. It's nice. It's nice to see you building a community super intentionally with very clear rules and the culture that you project into the community by just living at yourself. That's really awesome.
Milly Tamati
Thank you. It's also a culture I can sustain. I think when people think I'm going to start a community, it seems like this fun rainbows, unicorns like everyone's happy. Like it is, oh my gosh, it is exhausting. It is constant constant people and you're missing that like that kind of diagram where it's like, if you have like three people working together, there's like three lines. And then like 10 people, there's like 50 lines. The community is no different. You know, there's so many people too and especially what I'm realizing at the moment is as it scales, your challenges change. You're up against, you're like, okay, well, this is not the same as it was at 100 members. How do I, I think you kind of nailed it with the intentionally designed. Like, if anything, I probably think like too much about the design. I'm like for me, the community is the absolute core product and it deserves and it needs this like, constant iteration and thought that goes into it. And I hear that all the time from our members that it's a rare place to be on the internet. Like you don't really find places like that so much like just loving care.
Arvid Kahl
Yeah, I'd love to hear it. Because it feels like you're giving a lot of yourself to this community, if not everything that you are, right? That's kind of what comes comes across here. Like what do you struggle with? What are the things that are really hard about this community building right now? And how do you tackle those issues?
Milly Tamati
Yeah, the biggest struggle I have at the moment is evaluating and prioritizing opportunities. So when I first started this thing, I was pretty small on LinkedIn and my Twitter did not exist. My first tweet was like, is anyone here a generalist? How does this work? I was like, what's a retweet? Real noob, real noob, didn't know at all what I was doing. And as both of those have grown and as my sphere of influence, I liked that. That was cool. Has kind of grown, there's, again, this tipping point, I'm reading the book, The Tipping Point at the moment and everything in my life is relating back to it. And there was a tipping point where I started to have to say no to more things that I was saying yes to . And Arvid, that is the first time in my life that that has happened. And I feel like it's a skill, right? Like it's a skill, especially like, you know, I grew up in this really small farming town in New Zealand, where the only thing that people wanted me to be when I grew up was a wife and to marry the neighbor and have more cows. Like that was kind of my aspirations. And I'm not exaggerating that growing up. And so then to, you know, reach 30. And then suddenly, these doors are starting to open and I feel this like, almost urgency to say yes, oh, my gosh! Opportunities, they're finally coming. And it ,again, had to be a really thoughtful process, which was just a big self reflection and lots of self work as to like, well, what is actually important here? And am I saying yes because it is going to keep us moving toward kind of the Northstar or am I saying yes to people please? Am I saying yes just because it's a yes? So I think my biggest challenge at the moment and I'm sure your audience will be able to relate, is that if you stick with this, you're just gonna keep growing. And as you keep growing, more doors are going to open and you have to start being able to evaluate what opportunities are "worth your time". And that's difficult. That's not something we're taught.
Arvid Kahl
Oh, for sure not. Yeah, no, because opportunities either exist or they don't. And then you take them. That's the rule that I grew up on. Right? So you then go to university, you will go to university, end of story. There is no alternative path. There's no, you know, pathless path as Paul Millerd would call it or something like that. That's just the path. And if you see it, you go there. Yeah. So that is a skill. Have you developed some kind of framework to kind of judge these things? Because I think I have minus synergy. Everything new, that is an opportunity has to fit into the system that I've already established. Otherwise, I'm not gonna do it. But how does it work for you? Do you have a similar kind of approach?
Milly Tamati
I really like that. I guess it kind of is similar. I think how I think about it when an opportunity comes in, is how it's almost like, how much effort is this going to take and how much impact is going to come from it. And that could be impact from revenue, it could be impact of just like amplifying the platform, it could be impact. It really makes someone's life better. You know, there's lots of different ways to evaluate impact. But I think what I've realized is that, the more I say yes to things, the less I can actually show up to things. And so I'm looking at like, I'm actually doing a disservice to others if I'm saying yes to everything. It's actually a disservice. Yeah.
Arvid Kahl
Okay. That's an interesting point. I think so, I believe so too. Which is why I think I went from building a software business to building a media business because I just have more control over my calendar. Right? It's like the thing that our conversation right now is the last thing that I've scheduled this week.
Milly Tamati
Wow!
Arvid Kahl
It is just one of two things that I've scheduled this week, right?
Milly Tamati
Wow
Arvid Kahl
That was always the plan. I mean, I'm lucky enough to have had a software exit in the past and be financially secure enough to be able to do this. But that's kind of what I worked towards was to have an empty calendar, be the status symbol, right? That I always wanted it to be. I don't need a Lamborghini.
Milly Tamati
Yeah
Arvid Kahl
I just need a calendar with two things.
Milly Tamati
Yeah! Like I'm here for it.
Arvid Kahl
That's very good. Yeah, that is super common. You know what? That kind of brings me to something that I wanted to ask you this whole time. You mentioned your Scottish island with 170 people, that is a pretty calm life. Let's just call it isolation, which I know you're not completely isolated. There's still people there. But has this isolation been kind of an amplifier for you need to find community outside of your local physical community? Like was that also a reason why you're so focused on community building with other generalists because there are probably quite few generalists around you?
Milly Tamati
That's a great question. And I think I've never, never really made that connection. But perhaps I think I've been working in building, working in tech for, say, eight plus years. And so then moving to this island, like, yeah, there is no technical anything. We have like a Facebook group. And I'm not joking. That's kind of like, the height of the tech. Yeah, it's a very active Facebook group, in our defense. So I think that probably is part of it. I think that when I first started building this, from this little island, I was kind of convinced that it was going to be a disadvantage. Like, I'm not in London. I'm not in a big city, where I can just like, go to meetups every night and pitch my things. But I think what I'm really good at is just playing the hand I'm dealt and I've just really, you can either be like, oh, no, I live like a day away from literally anywhere. Or you can use that to tell a really great story. And be like, I am a female founder building from this island with 178 people and loads of sheep. And I built this global, like profitable business from here. Hello, that's a story to tell. And the more I lean into that instead of and it's the generalist thing. If I just tried to be like everyone else, oh, my God! You're just, how do you stand out? Right? So I think this day and age, it's really, really hard to stand out. And if I think the more that you can just lean into being who you are, that comes across like loud and clear. And if you do have these unique things, like you might live somewhere different, you might be approaching life or business different. It's good to be different. Like I think that is a string and since we're, you know, little kids, we're kind of in the system where it's like be the same and don't make too much noise and don't make too much fuss. Just follow that straight line. But I found that building from the Isle of Raasay, which is where I live, has given me opportunities that I wouldn't have gotten otherwise. And yes, it may have been a disadvantage at times. But I think net like I think overall, it has been a massive strength.
Arvid Kahl
That sounds like you are leaning into the whole intersectionality of all those different identities that you are part of and that you carry within yourself. And you talk about it. I think that you could be on that island and build something and nobody would ever know probably would be bad for your success potential. But the moment you start talking about it, the moment you share it and the moment you make this a thing for other people to resonate with because they themselves they see their own potential in you or they see similar stories from their past in yours, right? That the moment you put yourself out there, you built this in public and you share your journey as you're on it, that is the success story. That is like both the success itself and facilitating even more of it. I think this is so cool. And I will follow your journey for a long, long time. You can be quite sure of that. I might actually take a little visit to your community because I feel after this conversation in particular, this is kind of me, right? Like as a creator, as somebody who's come from a very tech specific field but has found that I can write for more than machines, I can write for people, I can, you know, make people go places that they themselves never thought they can go.
Milly Tamati
Yeah
Arvid Kahl
Like that's my capacity. And it comes from all these different things that in my life can intersect in who I am right now. Well, if there are more people like this, I can probably learn from them even more as well. So that's super exciting. If people want to find out more about you and your community, where should they go? Because I know that a lot of generalists have like, really perked up their ears right now.
Milly Tamati
Yeah. What I always say about Generalist World is that the beauty of it from like a product perspective, is that people are either hot or cold. Like, you'll hear the spiel. And people will either be like, where do I find out about this? Or they'll be like, no idea what she's talking about, not for me. And from a product perspective, you don't want lukewarm, right? So
Arvid Kahl
Yeah, that's right.
Milly Tamati
If you're listening to this and you're one of the ones screaming saying stop talking Milly. Just give us the link. Generalist.world and my name Milly Tamati. I believe I'm the only one in the world. So it's really hard to drop find me. And yeah, thank you.
Arvid Kahl
That's awesome. Yeah. Do follow Milly. That will be very, very easy because she's unique in many different ways. I really, I adore your story. It's really cool. I see a lot of my own experience in there so I can relate to it. But I just admire the way you are and the way you communicate and what you do because it's really important and helps so many people closeted generalists, for sure, be more open about this. So thank you so much for sharing all of this today with me and the people listening and watching. It's been quite eye opening for me and I thought it was for other people too. Thank you so much, Milly.
Milly Tamati
You're welcome and Arvid, can I be cheeky? And can I give a little shout out of something that is completely, no one knows about it yet? It's been happening very quietly within the community. There has been something that people have been asking me and I mean, I have lost count of the number of times I've heard this and it seems very appropriate to share it here with you and with your audience. People like where's the podcast? You know, you've got you're absolutely dominating this newsletter, you've got the community, you've got the social media. They're like Milly, where is the podcast? We want to go deeper. We want to hear the stories like what happens when you put microphones in front of generalists. I am so excited that we are officially launching a podcast.
Arvid Kahl
Awesome!
Milly Tamati
The kind of the trailer launch is going to be mid October with our first episodes coming out in January. So tune into that.
Arvid Kahl
That is so cool. Oh, I will, like if you give me a URL to something right now, I'm gonna put it right in. That is so cool. I love this because I cannot imagine anything more diverse and more exciting, but just giving people who have in themselves every single one of them this wide range of experiences and transfer of knowledge. That's gonna be awesome. That's so cool. Thanks for announcing this. This is amazing. I'm looking forward to that. That's gonna be a great show.
Milly Tamati
Thank you so much, Arvid.
Arvid Kahl
Well, thank you for being on. That was a wonderful conversation. It was really nice to chat with you. Thanks so much.
Milly Tamati
Absolutely. Chat to you soon. Bye.
Arvid Kahl
Bye.
And that's it for today. I will know briefly thank my sponsor: acquire.com. Imagine this: you're a founder who's built this amazing product, you acquired customers and it's generating all this amazing monthly recurring revenue. The SaaS dream, right? Problem is something isn't working. You're not growing for whatever reason. Maybe it's lack of skill, you don't know what to do, can't focus or you're just not interested anymore. You're just feeling stuck. You're feeling stuck in your business and with your business. So what should you do? The common story that anybody would like to hear is that you buckled down and got it going again, right? You reignited the fire. You work in the business, on the business, all of these things. You built like a massive audience, you market to it, you do sales and six months down the road, you made a lot of money, you tripled your revenue, and you have this super successful business that everybody wants to buy. That's the idea. Everybody loves that. Everybody tells you how great you were for building this business. Reality unfortunately is not as simple as this. The situation that you might be in is different for every founder in this particular situation. But too many times, the story here ends up being one of inaction, stagnation, until the business itself becomes less and less valuable over time or worse, completely worthless. So if you find yourself here already, we think your story is likely headed down a similar road. I would consider a third option, that is selling your business on acquire.com right now because capitalizing on the value of your time today, it's a pretty smart move. acquire.com is free to list. They'll help you with everything. They've helped hundreds of owners already selling their businesses. So go to try.acquire.com/arvid and see for yourself if this is the right option for you and your business today.
Now, thank you for listening to The Bootstrapped Founder today. That was a fun conversation, glad you were part of it today. You can find me on Twitter and Milly, too, I guess. But I'm on Twitter @arvidkahl. And you'll find my books and my Twitter course that too. Hey, if you want to support me and the show, please subscribe to my YouTube channel and get the podcast in your player of choice. And please, please, please leave a five star rating and a really good review by going to (http://ratethispodcast.com/founder). It makes a massive difference if you show up there because then the podcast will show up for other people. And that's what really helps the show. Thank you so much for listening. Have a wonderful day and bye bye.
