## The journey (2019-2025) - **2019**: [[Coliving is one big shared house, cohousing is families with adjacent houses|Cohousing]] meetups with [[Archive Mafia|Archive]] friends, looked at $35M project, too scary - **Archive Village pivot**: Started with one cohousing project → pivoted to **[[The Neighborhood|square mile Neighborhood]]** concept (what if an entire square mile filled up with friends?) - Built map + hosted meetups - Went viral within our community - ~50 people moved in first year, ~150-200 by end of 3rd (?) - **Raised $500K grant from Eric Schmidt** - **Helped start The Commons**: found location, colaunched Kickstarter, secured loan, recruited 1/3rd of initial community - **Started quarterly [[The Neighborhood|unconferences]]** → ran **4 unconferences**, spun out **3 [[Coliving is one big shared house, cohousing is families with adjacent houses|coliving]] groups** and **1 cohousing community** - **Got real estate license** (June 2024), mentored by a RE investor, validated an investment thesis - **Got AI job**, now saving **85% of income** - **Timeline**: 2-5 years until I buy, depends on partner and property - **Watching for lots** (5000 and ideally more than 7000 sq ft), multifamily zoning Why'd I stop the Neighborhood? - I'm a builder! Not a real estate guy - Lost conviction in building cohousing in SF proper, RE is too expensive / hard to modify - Poverty and AI FOMO - Building community for others ironically not as helpful as you'd think for building for myself --- See also: [[Why cohousing?]] • [[What is my concrete vision for a cohousing house?]] • [[What inspires me?]] ## Changelog ### [[2025-10-13]] Exploration of cohousing journey and pivots