The competition

I lost that night. Turns out I didn't.

I pitched The Q at a Founders Live 99-second competition in Chicago. That night, I lost.

Months later, I ran into the guy who won. He asked whether the competition had ever gotten back in touch with me. Confused, I asked why. He explained that he'd had people at his office logging in and voting for him that night. Essentially, he cheated. He was disqualified for it, which meant I had actually won. Nobody ever reached out to tell me.

The story

A pattern, not a product.

Most failed projects are failures of will. The Q is the opposite. Fifteen years of starts. A handful of mockups, a few prototypes, one TestFlight build that crashed on launch, and a Notion doc that has been re-organized more times than I'll admit. The idea won't leave me alone. So I keep showing up.

1. 2010First sketches on the back of a napkin in a Chicago coffee shop.
2. 2013Built a v1 in WordPress. Killed it after three users signed up.
3. 2017Native iOS attempt. Got to TestFlight. Crashed. Quit.
4. 2020Pandemic rebuild. Got 80% there. Lost the will, not the vision.
5. 2024Pivoted toward Digital Guidebooks (which shipped). Q stayed on the shelf.
6. 2026It's whispering again. Maybe this is the year.