I had a plan to buy the Fischer Group in under thirty-six months.
Just remember I said it.
We would see if it happened.
That was the entire email, plus a smiling emoji.
The plan did not come with a model, a financing structure, or any useful explanation of what “buy” meant. It was a marker thrown into the future. I had decided the idea was possible enough to say out loud.
This is pure Wolf of Williamsburg material.
I was still working at Shutterstock. I was looking at startup prototypes, helping friends with technical companies, exploring investments, and beginning to think seriously about buying an apartment. Apparently the family business belonged on the list too.
The distance between idea and execution did not bother me much. I liked putting a time box around something ambitious and then seeing whether reality could be bent in that direction.
Thirty-six months was specific enough to sound like a plan and far enough away to avoid explaining Monday morning. That combination has launched a lot of side projects.
Most ideas failed that test.
Some became companies. Some became property. Some survived only as an email with a subject line that made me laugh twelve years later.
The ones that survived usually started with the same unreasonable confidence.
This one matters because it shows the pattern clearly. I was always looking for the next thing to build, buy, improve, or connect to somebody who could make it real.
No deck. No diligence. No transaction.
A thirty-six-month plan and an emoji.
Remember I said it.