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Welcome back to the Launch Key 🚀

Nobody starts as a professional … in anything. And too many times we use the term ‘amateur’ as an insult.

The opposite may in fact be true – your amateur idea could well end up being the most successful thing you do.

Let's get into it.

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Table of Contents

• Pull to Eject

• Modern Tools

• Old School Wisdom

• Recommendations

• Visual Crapshoot

Pull to Eject

The word amateur comes from the Latin "amare," which simply means to love something.

An amateur isn't someone who lacks skill—they're someone who does something out of pure love for it.

Doing what you love might be the differentiation needed for the next thing you add to your career portfolio. When you love something enough to pursue it without guarantee of success or recognition, you're operating from a place of authentic motivation that professionals often lose over time.

Amateurs work on things they care about.

Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham riffed on the power of amateurs 2 decades ago in his now famous Open Source essay (below). Millions of people read his essay, and witnessed the overvaluation of professionals come true as the internet allowed us all to publish and create. Y Combinator has since invested in more than 5,300 startups led by passionate amateurs.

If professionals have training and experience, why do amateurs sometimes succeed where experts fail? The answer lies in what we might call "beginner's advantage."

• Fresh Perspective: Professionals often get trapped by industry best practices and conventional wisdom. Amateurs ask naive questions that lead to breakthrough insights.

• Authentic Passion: When you love what you're doing, you'll push through obstacles that would stop someone who's just collecting a paycheck.

• Freedom to Experiment: Without professional reputation to protect, amateurs take risks that lead to innovation.

• Genuine Curiosity: Amateurs learn because they want to, not because they have to. This intrinsic motivation drives deeper understanding.

As an experienced professional, you might think your amateur days are behind you. Actually, you're in the perfect position to harness amateur energy while applying decades of wisdom.

You have something young amateurs don't: perspective. You understand business, people, and markets. You know how to solve problems and work with others. When you combine this experience with amateur passion for something new, you create a powerful combination.

How do you identify what you love enough to pursue as an amateur? Start by paying attention to what captures your curiosity outside of work.

What topics make you lose track of time when you're reading about them? What problems in your community frustrate you enough that you wish someone would solve them? What did you love doing before adult responsibilities took over?

Your amateur passion might be hiding in plain sight.

What if you stopped waiting for the perfect time or credentials and started pursuing what genuinely excites you? What would you attempt if you knew that being an amateur was actually an advantage?

You don't need anyone's permission to start something new. All you need is curiosity, willingness to learn, and enough passion to keep going when things get challenging.

Your amateur status isn't a weakness—it's a superpower waiting to be unleashed. While others worry about protecting their professional reputation, you have the freedom to experiment, fail, learn, and try again.

Your unique combination of life experience and amateur passion for something new creates possibilities that don’t exist today.

In a world full of professionals, being an amateur who truly loves what you do might be exactly what sets your idea apart.

Now go launch something 🚀 

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Modern Tools

Here is a fantastic AI use case.

Sarah has her voice back after living without it for 25 years. ElevenLabs and an old VHS tape made it possible.

Old School Wisdom

One of the most colorful and provocative writers of his day, Chesterton was iconic. He adds to the defense of amateurs with his famous quote, “If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.”

Recommendations

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🤖 AI Report : Learn AI in 5 minutes a day. We'll teach you how to save time and earn more with AI. Join 400,000+ free daily readers from Tesla, Apple, A16z, Meta, & more.

Visual Crapshoot