evan baehr

Our willingness to fail gives us the ability and opportunity to succeed where others may fear to tread. I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.
—Michael Jordan

Luscious scenes from a short vacation at Hotel Saint Cecilia.

Historic scenes from Telluride, Colorado.

The Best for the Least for the Most

This feature length documentary about iconic American design power couple Charles and Ray Eames is a beautiful window into design, innovation, and creativity. They spent years working on a manufacturing method of bending plywood in order to create molded, wooden furniture. By history and necessity, they began manufacturing leg splints for the US military–a seeming distraction that proved the critical exercise for perfecting the wood molding process. Part of their inspiration for designing beautiful furniture was to create the best for the least for the most - a fascinating motto seemingly closer to the worldview of Walmart founder Sam Walton than of most elite designers. There is something powerful and beautiful about a democratic vision for design: that what they (we) build ought to be designed to shape how thousands, millions, even billions of people live. Now that’s a reason to get out of bed in the morning.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. –Theodore Roosevelt (Paris, France on 23 April, 1910)

From a delightful visit to Tillery Street Nursery in Austin, TX.

When you store things digitally, you actually lose them

Over the last twenty four hours I read Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, which left me concerned that, despite degrees from Harvard, Princeton, and Yale, I am on a path toward a brain that doesn’t work.

The idea. Marshall McLuhan, author of Understanding Media and partly the inspiring philosophy of Carr’s work, argues that our tools end up numbing whatever part of our body they “amplify.” The power loom left weavers without manual dexterity. The mechanical plows left farmers with no tactile understanding of soil. Carr explores the next application of this thesis: if computers and the internet are meant to amplify the brain, do they also numb it?

Chick-fil-A and the Business of Story Listening

Consumer-facing businesses have a unique opportunity to touch millions of real lives in a personal way every day. Put on your consumer hat for a minute and think through your day: the coffee shop barrista, the cashier at McDonalds, the sales associate at Target, the attendant at the gas station, the waiter at your restaurant, and on and on. Indeed we have conversations with several people every day–probably dozens a month–in the context of retail businesses. Retail employees are amazingly prevalent in our lives – a prevalence surpassed only by our friends and family members. That consumers spend so much time and even emotional energy interacting with employees creates a real opportunity for businesses to go beyond traditional roles of sales and customer service.

‎”If you sell your expertise you have a limited repertoire. If you sell your ignorance, you have an unlimited repertoire. He was selling his ignorance and his desire to learn about a subject. The journey of him going from not knowing to knowing was his work.” – Richard Saul Wurman, founder of TED, about Charles Eames’ approach to life.

One of our favorites in Austin: Lucy’s Fried Chicken, home of the fried deviled egg.

Scenes from the world’s greatest city: New York City.

A window into how we build business model theory

Tribeza Magazine 10 People to Watch: Evan Baehr

Evan Baehr\Co-founder, Outbox

From Princeton, Harvard and Yale to Facebook, this visionary is taking postal mail digital from a home base in Austin.

What is Outbox?
Outbox makes all of your postal mail digital, so you can get rid of junk mail, keep important things organized and never have to go to your mailbox again. Together, our company and users are working to make the planet greener and life easier. On November 5, we launched in Austin, our incubation city before we launched nationally. In the first week, hundreds of users signed up all over Austin, from Lakeway to Mueller, and have been gushing with positive reviews.