PSYCHONØT: My Next (Ad)venture

Almost exactly 8 months ago today, I left Catch Co. after 12 years. At the time of my departure, I felt so worn down that I couldn’t even worry about what came next. I simply needed a break.

Soon, reality set in and I started to feel the pressure accumulating in the back of my mind. But every time I contemplated the idea of starting something new, a rush of doubts filled my head. Did I have the energy to start something from scratch? Did I still have the skills to build a brand out of nothing? Would I find something interesting to do, or would I settle?

People often assume that those who’ve started businesses stop worrying about these things. In fact, it had been so long since I started something that I actually forgot what most of these familiar fears felt like (they had been replaced by new worries). Every time these thoughts came up, I managed to brush them aside and reassure myself that I needed more time before doing anything.

Like many entrepreneurs, vacant space in my mind doesn’t remain unfilled for long. I couldn’t help but think about new business ideas. I thought about building a modern fishing lodge in the Northwoods of Wisconsin or a psychedelic retreat center. I thought about creating a family-focused screen time app (that actually worked). I thought about consulting for start-up founders, and many other things. But none of these had that familiar gravitational pull that you feel when you know you’ve found a calling.

Over this period of unwinding and rejuvenation, I spent an increasing amount of my free time in the cryptocurrency ecosystem. It’s a space I had dabbled in since 2017 as a side-hobby. As someone drawn to early internet technologies and cultures my whole life, my activity and attention continued to deepen as I found more time to explore.

Soon, I had a crypto Twitter account with a growing following. I built a few free tools in my spare time, wrote articles, helped relaunch a project’s website, and created a free meme Ordinal collection (NFTs on Bitcoin) that gained a bit of attention. I learned the ins and outs of the ecosystem and met some very awesome artists, creators, and builders at a conference in Nashville.

As my involvement grew, it became clear that the skills I used to start my past companies were still sharp—even if somewhat repressed (I used them less and less as Catch Co. grew). I rediscovered aspects of my creativity that I had not experienced in years. This gave me a wave of energy that I thought was long gone.

However, I still didn’t have a clear direction on how exactly to channel it into a business. Then, it happened—that moment when you start to see something emerge off in the distance like a fuzzy figure approaching from the hazy horizon. I knew this feeling from long ago. 

My idea started to materialize into a more complete shape. It pulled from concepts I’ve written about here, including psychedelic consciousness, searching for truth, the implications of tech, the nature of reality, media abstraction, mindfulness & spirituality, and many others I have yet to write about.

It leveraged my creative strengths, my love of writing, my interest for cryptocurrency and the Bitcoin ecosystem (which is only in its infancy), my understanding of social media and internet communities, my passion for art and music, and my desire to build great brands.

In short, it was me. It was not something I felt compelled to do for income or for investors or employees. It emerged fully from within.

My idea is called PSYCHONØT. I’m building it with my long-time design partner, Vince Lusardi. While the figure on the horizon is still a bit blurry, it’s becoming clearer day by day as we begin to experiment.

Here is a brief overview on my vision…

In short, PSYCHONØT is a brand that creates and sells NFTs (aka digital art), physical goods (apparel, etc.), and content that helps preserve our humanity.

I don’t exactly know where this (ad)venture will lead. I’ve learned so much from my path to get here that I feel excited and optimistic about the future. My plan is to take it slow and try and build something meaningful; something that shifts the way people think about themselves and their place in the world; something that pushes people to reflect in hopes of bettering their lives and the lives of those around them; something that helps me better my own life along the way.

If you’re interested in is this experiment, please consider following PSYCHONØT on Twitter/X and Instagram (website/email list coming soon).

As always, thank you for reading.