Timing is a Grace — Why We Are Building Pollar

Weather, Not Strategy

Bill Gross once said that timing beats the team, the idea, and even the business model. For a long time, we treated this like a catchy quote on a slide. Today, we treat it like the weather. You don't argue with the weather – you prepare for it, and when the sky opens up, you have to move.

For years, we had a sketch in our minds: stop treating news like a stream of headlines and rebuild them as events – facts with time, place, sources, and context that you can return to. A sketch is not a company. It is a promise deferred until conditions change. In the last year, conditions changed. Language models crossed the threshold: quality high enough to trust initial drafts; cost low enough to operate in reality; search mechanisms good enough to anchor claims. The sketch became software.

Anger Pays the Bills

Meanwhile, media incentives have flowed in the opposite direction. In Poland, most internet users use adblockers. This shrinks the pool of monetizable page views, making the remaining attention more expensive. Headlines harden into hooks, hooks into thorns. Clickbait turns into ragebait because anger sells the click, the click sells the view, and the view pays the bill. The public square is losing its temperature. It’s not loud. It’s indifferent.

The Unit, Not the Manifesto

Building an alternative is a big phrase that hides a small discipline: define the unit, make it useful, repeat. Our unit is the event. Not an alert full of adjectives, but a short card with five things: what happened, why it matters, who is involved, when and where, and sources you can evaluate yourself. No drama. No mystery box. Enough context to get oriented, and a path back if someone wants to go deeper.

Fifty People Return

That is exactly what we built: Pollar. The service is already live. The first signals are modest but real – about fifty people return at a rhythm that matters to them. This isn't a vanity metric; it's a pulse. The immediate goal is clear: a thousand returning users and proof that simple context has a place in the daily routine.

Time as a Resource

Timing is not an excuse, but a commitment. If technology finally allows us to do mindful things at the speed of the internet, you don't wait for the perfect moment. You release, listen, cut what's redundant, and keep what helps. That’s why we are applying to a Warsaw accelerator – because time is also a resource that can be acquired: compressed months, sharper feedback, fewer wrong turns. We are also talking to investors – not for the fireworks, but for the runway that will allow us to do a small number of essential things well: hire a co-founding engineer and a product-minded designer, strengthen content acquisition and moderation processes, and keep the lights on while we learn what "returning" really means.

A Different Path, the Same Sidewalk

We don't believe that outrage will disappear. We believe it will lose its monopoly when calmer alternatives become easier to use. Easier – that’s the keyword. People are busy. They tolerate noise because the path of least resistance is already paved and nearby. Our job is to lay the concrete for a different path: shorter steps, fewer decisions, less spectacle, more signal. If it works, it will be boring in the best sense – like a clean kitchen counter that you don't think about, you just use.

What We Don't Promise

We won't promise everything. We won't promise to fix polarization. Software doesn't fix culture; at best, it stops breaking it. We won't promise the magic of models. They are powerful and blunt at the same time, requiring rails, citations, and human judgment. We won't promise virality. We are aiming for habit – slower, but more durable.

What We Do Promise

We promise temperament. We will measure twice and send once. We will choose clarity over brilliance. We will show sources and updates when it matters. We won't prey on attention we haven't earned. If we make a mistake, we will do it quietly and fix it. If we are right, the proof will be simple: a thousand people who return because the product brings them back to reality without taking anything away in the process.

Let’s Meet

If you are an investor who understands that timing isn't fireworks, but weather – and you want to fund a focused sprint to the first milestone – let’s talk about what is needed and what to avoid. If you are a creator – an engineer or a designer – and you want to work on the technology of calm in an open space, with real users and sharp constraints, let’s meet.

You can evaluate our work where it makes sense: at pollar.news(https://pollar.news). Try a few events. See if the room gets quieter. If it does, get in touch. If not, tell us why. That too is timing – the moment you hear something that needs to change, and you change it.