drawing the map vs. driving on it

Most startups build inside a system.
Someone already mapped the world. You just build on top of it,
like Waze building on Google Maps.

You’re solving for efficiency, speed, optimization.
It’s hard, but it’s also the “easiest” kind of hard.
You know where the roads are. You figure out how to help people move through them faster.

But building the system itself…that’s different.
That’s Google Maps before Google Maps existed.

You’re not improving navigation. You’re defining geography.
You’re deciding what counts as a road, what’s private, what’s public,
and how billions of people will orient themselves to the world.

That’s what building a standard feels like.
Before you can offer a solution, you have to map the entire ecosystem:
ie: regulators, platforms, brands, creators, consumers,
and figure out how each one moves, overlaps, and collides.

You’re not just writing software, recruiting talent, driving sales, etc.
You’re encoding trust.
Turning abstract values like transparency and good faith
into something measurable, verifiable, and operational.

That’s not a sprint.
It’s cartography.
And once it’s done right, everyone who comes after…
every Waze, every Uber, every “innovation”
depends on the map you made.

Building inside the system rewards speed.
Building the system itself demands patience.
But if you get it right, you don’t just make progress.
You become the coordinates that progress runs on.

Kaeya