& Trial-and-Error Notes
Why we started
Notes from a loosely bound group of people who write down only what they have done themselves — plainly, without exaggeration or hurry. Just the trial and error, and the light of the north star, as they are.
A founding note
AI, and the age of
the small individual again
The Renaissance began in the small workshops of Florence. Painters and sculptors, clockmakers and anatomists lived mixed together on the same streets, watching one another work. Before the disciplines split apart, a single person could paint, design a machine, and dissect the human body. With no vast capital and no hierarchy, small individuals looked at the world directly and let human possibility bloom.
But that age did not last. As knowledge and craft were divided into ever-finer specialties, even to study or build something now required vast capital, many people, and long chains of organization. The room for a small individual to step in grew narrower and narrower.
AI is shaking that space open again. Through the trying, failing, and finding our way, there were plenty of voices around us selling bravado and FOMO — and things did not turn out the way they said. So we chose not to co-found a company, but simply to stand loosely together. Not a company, not a cooperative — perhaps a new shape of collaboration.
The age of the small individual, again. Loosely bound, we walk that path and write down the trial and error, and the light of the north star. That is why we named this North Star & Trial-and-Error Notes.
What we try to keep
FiveWe write only what we have done.
Instead of “this is how US tech does it,” we write “here is what happened when we tried it with Claude.” Not as observers but as people who did it — with the actual screens, wherever we can.
We don’t rush.
We try neither to stoke anxiety nor to overstate. And yet we don’t belittle how remarkable this technology is either. We look at it as it is — plainly, but in earnest.
Failure is part of the journey.
What didn’t work is not the end but one step on the way to making it work. We see it as it is, fix it, try again, and repeat until it works.
What won’t change, we write down.
The tools change every week. So do the models, the prices, the trends. Beneath all of that, we try to record the principles, the posture, and the place of the human that don’t change so easily.
Loosely, but together.
We hold remarkable tools, yet the tools alone were never enough. We pass the pen around, and each of us finds our own share to carry. Open, but a little bit our own.
The people
EightThe lead of _y Tower
Ten years in corporate planning and coordination at a large company’s head office — and now he has built his own legal, finance, and planning departments out of agents and skills. Zero employees, and the organization still runs.
Philosophy, governance, a study
A Korea- and California-licensed attorney with 15 years in corporate law. She builds up the world’s knowledge, philosophy, and business inside her own agentic space, alongside her companion AIs.
The rhythm of the field
At a US big-tech company he works shoulder to shoulder with AI every day, and in that rhythm he searches for what won’t change while preparing his own venture.
Twenty-eight times
Past a stint as a startup COO, he has built, launched, and recorded the results eighteen times. And now he is preparing the twenty-ninth.
Launching joy
A strategist who has played games to the very end. With a feel for people, he has shipped services that bring joy and happiness — and is preparing more.
Day 274
Not a single day missed, he posts “today’s work done.” Today makes day 274, and it’s still going.
Thirteen became one
He gathered as many as thirteen people to build with, but after scattering twice he was left alone. Taking AI as teammates instead of people, he won two awards in half a year, and now grows the product and brings on customers by himself.
Between theory and mass production
From a mechanical-engineering graduate who researched systems control and fault diagnosis to a product-development PM of ten years. He gathers information and drafts — tech trends, competitive analysis, development cost, supply chain — with AI, and leaves the call between “possible in theory” and “possible to mass-produce” to a human.
Publishing
Cadence
Every two weeks. Starting with issue №001, arriving biweekly.
Form
Newsletter → podcast → YouTube,
widening in that order.
Editor
Sophia
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