I stumbled onto Altamira during my usual daily web surfing, though exactly how I can’t quite remember nor discern from my browser history. What I do remember is that I was there for In The Dark. Rocket was a delightful surprise. It’s not hard to discern from my previous writing that I think Marc Tarpenning is a smart fellow. I was quite excited to discover another opportunity to hear what he has to say. I’m also a sucker for bespoke hardware, e-ink screens, and reading books by people you’ve met.
After reading, I can affirm that Rocket is an altogether pleasant experience. The fundamental insights about “measure twice, cut once” that I have already written about apply just as well to NuvoMedia as they did to early Tesla: Tarpenning writes that they “never varied the plan” for what they were going to build. His focus on business models—later important to proving that a market for high-end electric vehicles might exist—is also present, reflected at NuvoMedia in the discussion they had around the role of publishers and internet distribution in the world of e-books.
Rocket places a stronger emphasis on a specific method for narrowing down addressable problem-space than the talk of his that I attended. The methodology is described succinctly as follows:
Our thesis, if you will, was looking for products that didn’t exist, that the technology was just getting good enough to enable.
The examples Tarpenning provides illuminate fun alternate histories that never quite made it.
The form that this book takes is also quite notable: it is barely longer than 50 pages in total, heavy in font but light and thin in the hand. It would not be out of place as an article or a blog post somewhere on the net. I am a strong proponent of the pamphlet as an art form, so I don’t begrudge the physical manifestation of Rocket. I did not, however, enjoy the layout: were the Federalist Papers written in interview format?