Part I: A New Obsession
Some of you may have seen it — I picked up a new hobby.
Aquariums. Or the fancier term: aquascaping.
It might look like a break from my world of startups, ESG, and digital assets. But of course, it isn’t. It’s still creation. It’s still design. It’s still systems.
An aquarium is a living startup in a glass box. You imagine it, you set the foundation, and then you get to watch it grow into something bigger than your blueprint.
Part II: Balance That Becomes Beauty
When I start a tank, I picture balance — plants rooted, rocks settled, shrimp moving through the flow.
When I start a startup, I picture balance too — the team in sync, the product humming, customers fitting into the rhythm.
Here’s the thing: in both cases, the real beauty isn’t in controlling everything. It’s in watching life take over.
The startup surprises you with customer use-cases you never planned. The aquarium surprises you with plants growing in ways you didn’t expect.
That’s not failure. That’s growth.
Part III: Stewardship, Not Control
The real joy in aquascaping isn’t forcing the system to follow your plan. It’s guiding it, nudging it, adjusting inputs so it can thrive.
The real joy in building startups is the same. You don’t own the market, or the team, or even the company once it’s alive. You get to guide it.
Both teach the same lesson: when you design for life, you accept unpredictability. You build the frame, but the system writes the story.
And that’s the reward — seeing something you imagined come alive in ways you never fully controlled, but always believed could grow.
Closing
Aquariums remind me why I build.
Not for the illusion of mastery.
But for the joy of creation, the challenge of balance, and the beauty of watching life expand beyond what I planned.
Startups and tanks share the same truth:
when you create the right environment, growth takes care of itself.
