San Francisco — you got me back

In August 2024, I made one of my best decisions ever, which led me to experience a first-of-its-kind event that has affected my decision-making ever since.

That year, an awesome maker called @Farza was running a six-week program called Buildspace. It was a place to work on any idea for six weeks straight and ship some progress at the end of each week. Those ideas could range from a hobby project combining a disco light with an automated plant-watering system to really good ideas that could turn into million-dollar startups. The program was not focused on the impact your idea could have, but rather on making progress by shipping whatever you had each week.

At the end of this six-week program was an in-real-life (IRL) event in SF, where all builders came together who had successfully committed to making progress every week. There was not a huge agenda for those three days in person. It was just sharing a desk with some strangers and working on your idea. On day three, there was an open demo day that was accessible to the public, too.

I experienced a level of motivation and energy to build something that I have never seen in one place since then. I still draw from that energy to this day.

Since then, SF has been a special place to me and always will be. Not ultimately because it’s Silicon Valley, but because I learned what an impact this place can have on your journey as a builder, maker, entrepreneur, founder — whatever you call it.

One habit stuck with me: continue shipping things. Over the last few months, I shipped something for myself every week. Sometimes I stressed myself a bit too much to achieve this, but looking back, I know I continually made progress, even if it’s not a finished product yet. But when building something alongside a full-time job, you need a system to move forward.

When building something big that can’t be launched as a minimum viable product because of legal compliance requirements, heavy groundwork, and capital needs, this system ensures I stick to my dream.

In 2025, it brought me back to SF for a work trip. I remembered how it started at the Fort Mason Center and was very happy with how much progress I’d made on my dream.

This year, in 2026, I will be back in the city to get some creative fuel again by attending Figma Config, an event where the greatest creatives in the industry will come together. A perfect place for my animation-, UI-, and UX-addicted brain.

It’s this year that my dream will come to life, and Planaway.com will be a real thing.

The story will continue…