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The Takeaway: Don’t let critics destroy a great idea. The three women behind the THINX, a fashionable underwear line designed for a woman’s menstrual cycle, wanted to launch an untested idea in a field dominated by corporate giants like Hanes, Fruit of the Loom, and Victoria’s Secret. After a few years of perseverance and research, THINX products are beginning to hit store shelves, and early sales have already eclipsed this year’s projections. Here’s the scoop.

The Takeaway: Don’t let critics destroy a great idea.

The three women behind the THINX, a fashionable underwear line designed for a woman’s menstrual cycle, wanted to launch an untested idea in a field dominated by corporate giants like Hanes, Fruit of the Loom, and Victoria’s Secret.

After a few years of perseverance and research, THINX products are beginning to hit store shelves, and early sales have already eclipsed this year’s projections.

Here’s the scoop.

Passion Projects Done Right: Rainn Wilson Ponders The Runaway Success of SoulPancake The Office’s Rainn Wilson wanted to create a personality-packed place to intelligently debate life’s big questions. SoulPancake-both a passion project and a brand with a higher purpose-does both. Wilson, whom you probably know from his role as “crazy dork” Dwight Schrute on The Office, decided to make a place for people who want to debate (intelligently) about life’s Big Questions. It’s also extremely popular, drawing more than a million views a month. There’s a best-selling book with glowing Amazon reviews. They’ve got SoulPancake meetups, a dedicated YouTube channel, and a deal with Oprah. “You need to go a little deeper than “How can we make money” because there’s 68,000 people out there who are saying ‘how can we make money on the Internet,’” Wilson robot-voices. “If you can follow your passion and fill a need then you will eventually make money and you’ll be successful, but more importantly, you’ll be fulfilled.” The Takeaway: You’re weird. So are other people. Make something for them—and for you—and the money will follow. You can read the full story here. [Image: Flickr user John Lambert Pearson]

Passion Projects Done Right: Rainn Wilson Ponders The Runaway Success of SoulPancake

The Office’s Rainn Wilson wanted to create a personality-packed place to intelligently debate life’s big questions. SoulPancake-both a passion project and a brand with a higher purpose-does both.

Wilson, whom you probably know from his role as “crazy dork” Dwight Schrute on The Office, decided to make a place for people who want to debate (intelligently) about life’s Big Questions.

It’s also extremely popular, drawing more than a million views a month. There’s a best-selling book with glowing Amazon reviews. They’ve got SoulPancake meetups, a dedicated YouTube channel, and a deal with Oprah.

“You need to go a little deeper than “How can we make money” because there’s 68,000 people out there who are saying ‘how can we make money on the Internet,’” Wilson robot-voices.

“If you can follow your passion and fill a need then you will eventually make money and you’ll be successful, but more importantly, you’ll be fulfilled.”

The Takeaway: You’re weird. So are other people. Make something for them—and for you—and the money will follow.

You can read the full story here.

[Image: Flickr user John Lambert Pearson]

“At one level, [Home] is just the next mobile version of Facebook. At a deeper level, I think this can start to be a change in the relationship that we have with how we use computing devices.” -Mark Zuckerberg at the Facebook Home announcement address.”

Reading Between The Lines Of Mark Zuckerberg’s Vision Statement

Home, Facebook’s new Android app-slash-skin, is worth investigating. It runs along a new axis of user experience, un-cordons the app, and shows how Facebook is becoming less of a product and more of a service.

But beyond being immersive, low-friction, and whatever other buzzword descriptors you’d like to attach to it, Home is a recognition a subtle and profound paradigm shift.

See our Takeaways from his address here.

From our section THE TAKEAWAY: How Jack Dorsey’s Lifelong Obsessions Became World Changing Companies Jack Dorsey wasn’t your average kid in St. Louis. He had a speech impediment. He loved maps. He studied trains. He listened to the emergency dispatch center. And he noticed something interesting: Everybody was talking with short bursts of sound. “They’re always talking about where they’re going, what they’re doing, and where they currently are,” Dorsey recently told Lara Logan on 60 Minutes, “and that’s where the idea for Twitter came.” The Takeaway: The dots will connect. Like Dorsey’s fascinations brought him from St. Louis to New York to Silicon Valley, entrepreneurial energy has a way of taking you into unexpected—and fitting—places. Read the full story and see the video here.

From our section THE TAKEAWAY:

How Jack Dorsey’s Lifelong Obsessions Became World Changing Companies

Jack Dorsey wasn’t your average kid in St. Louis. He had a speech impediment. He loved maps. He studied trains. He listened to the emergency dispatch center. And he noticed something interesting: Everybody was talking with short bursts of sound.

“They’re always talking about where they’re going, what they’re doing, and where they currently are,” Dorsey recently told Lara Logan on 60 Minutes, “and that’s where the idea for Twitter came.”

The Takeaway: The dots will connect. Like Dorsey’s fascinations brought him from St. Louis to New York to Silicon Valley, entrepreneurial energy has a way of taking you into unexpected—and fitting—places.

Read the full story and see the video here.