Minimum viable product
I had the idea to distribute my mother’s collection of books and postcards in the midst of a bout of grief so deep that I am actually crying just thinking back on it. This was back in September and I had just re-homed her cat Lucy (she went to live with one of my mom’s clients - seriously the best case scenario), and I was just SO SO SO SAD.
I was crying while staring at a shelf full of over 500 books (yes, I counted) and feeling overwhelmed, and then out of nowhere I had a lightbulb moment where it all came together. The books + the postcard collection + the Little Free Libraries that are everywhere = a way to ensure that the books my mom loved so much could end up in the right hands.
The idea stayed as just an idea for the next three months - there were so many steps that needed to happen that I just didn’t have the energy for. I half-heartedly asked a friend to make a logo, but when she wasn’t available to do it immediately, I put it off. I bought a domain name but didn’t have the energy to figure out how to build a website. You get the point.
Finally, on the last day of my December trip back home to Boulder, I realized that I was being ridiculous and that I didn’t need all of the things to be in place in order to get this project started. I just needed to test it. [Side note: I literally work with entrepreneurs and I felt so stupid not taking my own advice up until this point!]
So I marched upstairs, pulled out my mom’s box of art supplies, found some thick watercolor paper which I cut into four pieces, and I handwrote something to the effect of:
“Hello reader! My name is Sarah and my mom passed away back in August, leaving behind 2,631 books (yes, I counted), and a collection of blank postcards. I am including a self-addressed, stamped postcard with this book and putting it a Little Free Library for you to find. This is just a beta test for what will hopefully become a bigger project, but if you find this book, I would love it if you would write me a little story about your own mom, or tell me why you chose this book, or what it’s about since I can’t possible read her entire collection. Thank you!”
My hand hurt after writing this message four times, but after I was done, I numbered the postcards (1-4), picked out four books, took a photo of the book/postcard pairing, set up a Google sheet to track them, and walked down the street to the Little Free Library and stuck them inside.
So now we wait.
