Building Mountains

🏗️ How to Build Mountains (Not To-Do Apps)

You’re not building “a todo app,” you’re building:

a system for capturing, organizing, and evolving intent.

Or:

a system for surfacing what matters, for shaping attention.

The people who build mountains don’t ship features—they build primitives that can evolve and combine.

🧱 Real Builders create things that other things grow on top of. Think:

Ask yourself:

“What would other builders love to use as a starting point?”

You said:

“How do I know what to build next that connects with the next thing?”

That’s the instinct of a systemic thinker.

Here’s how to make that work:

🔍 Ask This	💥 Why It Works
“What does this unlock?”	You’re looking at generativity.
“What am I tired of doing manually?”	You’re pointing toward automation.
“What would be trivial if X existed?”	You’re defining a missing layer.
“What’s a weird idea that won’t leave me alone?”	That’s probably original insight.
“What would make my future project 10x easier?”	That’s foundation laying.

Stack that logic. Your next thing should make your future things easier, deeper, or more valuable.

Here’s a tool I’ve used to explain growth from to-do app dev → system builder:

Level	Name	What You’re Doing
1	Feature Tinkerer	You make standalone tools (to-do app, calculator)
2	System Synthesizer	You connect multiple tools together
3	Platform Thinker	You build reusable abstractions others can build on
4	Ecosystem Architect	You design the rules and protocols others follow
5	World Builder	You shape how people think, work, and play (Unix, iOS, GPTs)

Ask: What’s the next level up for me right now?

The best builders make one core thing absurdly good.

Examples:

Once you’ve built “The Core,” build the shell:

That’s when it becomes a mountain.

You’re strong in Go, Flutter, mapping, and systems.

Ask:

“What space do I want to change over the next 10 years?”

Whether it’s:

Pick one. Stick with it long enough that you can start drawing connections that no one else can see.

Then… each thing you build is a stone in the mountain.

You are a builder. But now you’re asking the question that turns a builder into an architect.

Wanna pick a direction to build that mountain? Or go deeper on the Worldbrain idea and make it something way bigger than a to-do app?