You’ve made the same resolution three years in a row.
This year I’m finally starting my company.
And then January ends.
Not because the idea isn’t good.
Not because you’re not capable.
Because nothing is forcing you to move.
So the idea stays where it’s safest.
In your notes app. Maybe a Notion doc. Maybe a folder called "app ideas" you won’t open till next December.
Resolutions are free.
They cost nothing to say and nothing to abandon.
There's a reason most people never start.
They never make the first thing that’s embarrassing in the moment and priceless in hindsight.
Here's something nobody tells you about founders who make it.
Decades later, after the exits and the losses and the things they can't talk about — they all keep something. Not framed press. Not the term sheet. Something stranger.
Phil Knight kept Bill Bowerman's waffle iron. The one Bowerman poured rubber into a waffle iron and changed running shoes.
Sergey Brin and Larry Page kept their first Google server. A mess of circuit boards and cables crammed into a case made of Legos.
Miyazaki has those early pencil boards — rough glider and wind and girl, long before Nausicaä ever hit a screen.
Wozniak has the first circuit board.
They aren't braver than you.
They aren't more special.
They just made the first thing.
That thing has a name.
Artifact.
Not a promise. A receipt.
Proof the idea left the head and hit reality.
Artifacts are expensive. They cost focus, embarrassment, late nights, and the risk that people will ignore what you made.
This January, you are at the same crossroads.
Make another resolution — the fourth, the fifth, the tenth — and feel the familiar optimism before February takes it.
Or finally make the thing you’ll be able to point to, decades from now, and say:
That’s where it started.
Artifact is five weeks at Fort Mason.
January 12 to February 13.
Ends with a showcase. Top teams receive up to $250K in funding + $500K in credits.
Accepting applications till December 31.
Early decisions by December 20.