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
Milly, thanks so much for being on the show. So you run this
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
wonderful community called Generalist World. Tell me what
is sponsored by acquire.com. More on that later. And now
here's Milly.
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: Words be successful, right?
Milly Tamati: Yes
Arvid Kahl: You think other people are stuck in their
Arvid Kahl: Yeah, right
Milly Tamati: If you think back, I mean, I ran a workshop for the
fields. Do you consider this to be? Or is this something that
keeps people from even allowing themselves to be generalist is
London School of Economics last week and I was speaking to 100
to feel this need to have to be specialized to be a meaningful
16-year olds. And one of the first things I asked was, who
contributor to the society
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
Arvid Kahl: To establish some kind of relationship
Milly Tamati: Yeah
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
Milly Tamati: Wow!
Arvid Kahl: It is just one of two things that I've scheduled
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.
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:
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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,
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so much for listening. Have a wonderful day and bye bye.