How to Build When You Don’t Know What to Do
“You jump off a cliff and you assemble an airplane on the way down.” — Reid Hoffman
In the earliest days of Kano, we had a vision: A computer anyone could make. But no clue how to actually make it.
We had sketches, a manifesto, a prototype cobbled together from a Raspberry Pi, and much optimism. But no supply chain. No manufacturing partner. No playbook.
What we had was a hunch.
On my first trip to China, I remember landing in Shenzhen that first time. I’d read about it, of course - this "factory of the world" rising fast from rice paddies into megacity. But nothing prepared me for the scale, the speed, the energy.
Markets inside warehouses. Engineers who could turn your napkin sketch into a working PCB in 48 hours. Makers. Hackers. Hustlers. Young people with stars in their eyes and soldering irons in their hands.
In the West, we were told that China was where things were made cheaply. In Shenzhen, I saw something different: China was where things got made real.
I didn’t speak the language.
I didn’t understand the tooling jargon (although I did know the difference between injection molding and vacuum forming). What I did know was that if we wanted to build something meaningful, we had to start building something, anything - fast.
So we began.
Factory by factory.
Meeting by meeting.
Mistake by mistake.
We visited keyboard factories that ran 24/7 with two-hour shifts. We slept on trains between Guangzhou and Hong Kong. We met suppliers who laughed at our quantities - 1,000 units? Not even worth switching on the machines. We broke PCBs. We fried power regulators. We learned the hard way that a "1 mm tolerance" isn’t a suggestion - it's the difference between something fitting and failing.
And slowly, painfully, beautifully - something took shape.
A little orange computer. That clicked together like LEGO. That kids could build, code, and share. A thing you could hold. A thing that worked.
Here’s what I learned:
1/ You don’t need a master plan. You need a plane ticket. So many founders wait until everything is “figured out.” They want the roadmap before they take the first step. But the map isn’t the territory. In our case, the territory was 8,000 miles away - and we had to go there to see what was possible.
2/ Knowledge comes from movement. When you don’t know what to do, don’t wait. Move. Travel. Build. Ship. Talk to someone who’s built before. Try a version that sucks. Break something. Certainty isn’t the prerequisite to progress - it’s the result of action.
3/ The world is full of people who know more than you. And they want to help. What amazed me about China wasn’t just the industrial might - it was the generosity. Engineers, operators, and factory managers who’d seen it all, helping us learn. If you lead with humility and curiosity, you’ll be amazed how many doors open.
Building Kano taught me that real innovation doesn’t happen inside a Google Doc. It happens in a factory floor at 2am with a translator app, a half-dead prototype, and someone shaking their head saying, “This will never work - but maybe we try one more thing.”
We didn’t have the answers. But we had momentum. And sometimes, that’s enough.
So if you’re a founder staring at a blinking cursor, an empty Figma file, a pitch deck with more ambition than substance - it's ok.
You’re not supposed to know what to do. You’re supposed to go find out. The real journey doesn’t begin with knowing. It begins with moving.
Even if you don’t know what you’re doing - especially when you don’t know what you’re doing - Build anyway.
That’s how the future gets made.
Thanks for reading,
Yon
👋 Hello! My mission with Beyond with Yon is to ignite awareness, inspire dialogue, and drive innovation to tackle humanity's greatest existential challenges. Join me on the journey to unf**ck the future and transform our world.