In 2021, Distill, the highly regarded publisher of interactive machine learning articles, announced a pause that sent ripples through the scientific and tech communities. As someone who has navigated multiple industries, I immediately recognized how this reflected broader challenges within niche efforts to blend innovation with scalability.
Distill had built a reputation for publishing beautifully formatted and interactive content about machine learning. Articles that stripped away jargon and made complex topics clearer were their hallmark. Despite their groundbreaking work, the journal entered a hiatus caused by a mix of editorial tensions and unsustainable workloads. This situation mirrors dilemmas faced by many early-stage startups. Balancing quality, innovation, and time often leads to moments when scaling feels like swimming upstream.
Here’s what the hiatus can teach all of us, especially those building something new from the ground up.
1. Mentorship as a Double-Edged Sword
Distill didn’t just publish articles; they mentored authors deeply through the publishing process. While mentorship often leads to higher-quality results, it comes at a cost: time. Some Distill editors reported working over 50 hours on a single article, which became unsustainable.
In my own startups, mentoring every team or collaborator on an individual level has dramatically improved project quality but delayed timelines. Setting boundaries is critical. One method is creating templates or guides that help collaborators achieve quality results without your constant involvement. This is why Distill’s open-source templates for their interactive articles are such a valuable legacy tool.
2. Self-Publication and Distributed Review Are Growing Trends
The hiatus also highlighted the popularity of self-publication. Increasingly, authors are releasing their work directly on platforms like GitHub or custom websites. Distill’s own template is freely available for others to use in building polished, interactive work, even outside the journal.
This is a pattern I’ve seen especially in tech startups where decentralizing processes produces unexpected benefits. Letting individual team members experiment and publish ideas internally mimics the distributed review model. Some people fear losing control with this method, but the upside is creativity and speed.
3. Burnout is the Silent Construction Cost
What stood out most in their announcement was the burnout among Distill editors. Volunteer-driven initiatives, even with lofty ambitions, buckle under unclear limits. Burnout isn’t an abstract concept. You lose time, team members, and momentum. In my own ventures, I have felt the weight of small teams pushing beyond their limits, so now I actively build slower, more consistent management cadences into projects.
Adopting automated tools where possible also plays an important role. Distill, in its mentoring process, might have succeeded longer with resources aimed at minimizing human workload.
Common Mistakes to Avoid (For Founders)
Learning from the journal’s challenges brings up some red flags to avoid:
- Stretching the vision too thin too soon. Providing resources for mentorship, publication, and editorial rigor strained Distill.
- Not outsourcing if possible. Certain Distill processes, like peer feedback, could have benefitted from external partnerships.
- Overseeing too many tasks directly. Founders often take on too much. Distill’s editors doubled as mentors, which created inefficiencies.
To anyone managing a team or launching a business, the key is setting non-negotiable boundaries to avoid turning passion into fatigue.
How to Make Your Project Self-Sustaining
Distill’s hiatus offers valuable lessons for avoiding bottlenecks and ensuring your project stays sustainable. Here’s how:
- Create reusable templates. Whether it’s code snippets, article frameworks, or systems design notes, templates save hours for every new creation.
- Experiment with distributed feedback. Financially constrained teams should lean on community-driven feedback or beta groups.
- Prioritize clarity over polish. Distill’s high production values were great, but if they had reduced these, more content might have been possible.
- Outsource non-core strengths. Freelancer platforms can cover specialized or repetitive tasks frequently performed by the core team.
- Use time-budgeting methods. Dedicate fixed times to mentorship or free-flowing creative projects so they don’t overwhelm other priorities.
Takeaways from Distill’s Legacy
Despite challenges, Distill demonstrated how alternative publication and communication methods could elevate an industry. The journal didn’t just communicate their hiatus; they left blueprints, like their rich GitHub archives, for how similar work could continue.
Entrepreneurs should always consider this: when something stops, leave enough behind for it to potentially restart or inspire spin-offs. Your work is never wasted if properly archived and shared.
Understanding Distill’s hiatus is ultimately about understanding the fragility of idealism when put into practice. Burnout, unclear direction, and resource mismatches may halt what would otherwise be brilliant projects. From my perspective, success is not creating something “perfect” but ensuring it grows sustainably and serves as inspiration long after you’ve moved on.
FAQ
1. What is Distill?
Distill was an innovative journal dedicated to explaining complex machine learning ideas through interactive and visual content, pushing the boundaries of scientific communication. Learn more about Distill Journal
2. Why did Distill announce a hiatus in 2021?
The hiatus was announced due to editorial tensions, workload challenges, and burnout among the volunteer editorial team. Read the Distill Hiatus Announcement
3. What is the role of mentorship in Distill’s model?
Mentorship was deeply embedded in Distill’s process, with editors dedicating extensive time to guiding authors, resulting in high-quality publications but also contributing to burnout. Explore mentorship lessons from Distill
4. How did burnout affect Distill’s editorial team?
Editors experienced significant burnout from balancing mentorship, publishing tasks, and upholding high standards, making the workload unsustainable. Read more about burnout and its impacts on Distill
5. What publishing tools did Distill make available?
Distill developed open-source templates for interactive articles, allowing authors to self-publish polished work independently of the journal. Check out Distill’s publishing templates
6. How did self-publication trends influence Distill’s hiatus?
Self-publication and distributed peer review have grown in popularity, offering faster and more flexible alternatives to traditional journals. Learn more about self-publication in machine learning
7. How does Distill’s legacy continue despite the hiatus?
Distill left behind open-source tools and a community approach to publishing, ensuring its impact persists in scientific and technical communication. See lessons from Distill’s legacy
8. What can founders learn from Distill’s challenges?
Founders can learn the importance of setting boundaries, avoiding burnout, streamlining processes, and building sustainable workflows from Distill’s experience. Explore startup lessons from Distill
9. What are alternative venues for Distill-style projects?
Projects inspired by Distill’s methodology can explore venues like VISxAI, which accept interactive and exploratory publications. Discover VISxAI for Distill-style work
10. How does Distill’s template encourage innovation?
By making its interactive article template freely available, Distill has empowered authors to experiment with new forms of scientific communication. Access Distill’s contribution on GitHub
About the Author
Violetta Bonenkamp, also known as MeanCEO, is an experienced startup founder with an impressive educational background including an MBA and four other higher education degrees. She has over 20 years of work experience across multiple countries, including 5 years as a solopreneur and serial entrepreneur. Throughout her startup experience she has applied for multiple startup grants at the EU level, in the Netherlands and Malta, and her startups received quite a few of those. She’s been living, studying and working in many countries around the globe and her extensive multicultural experience has influenced her immensely.
Violetta Bonenkamp’s expertise in CAD sector, IP protection and blockchain
Violetta Bonenkamp is recognized as a multidisciplinary expert with significant achievements in the CAD sector, intellectual property (IP) protection, and blockchain technology.
CAD Sector:
- Violetta is the CEO and co-founder of CADChain, a deep tech startup focused on developing IP management software specifically for CAD (Computer-Aided Design) data. CADChain addresses the lack of industry standards for CAD data protection and sharing, using innovative technology to secure and manage design data.
- She has led the company since its inception in 2018, overseeing R&D, PR, and business development, and driving the creation of products for platforms such as Autodesk Inventor, Blender, and SolidWorks.
- Her leadership has been instrumental in scaling CADChain from a small team to a significant player in the deeptech space, with a diverse, international team.
IP Protection:
- Violetta has built deep expertise in intellectual property, combining academic training with practical startup experience. She has taken specialized courses in IP from institutions like WIPO and the EU IPO.
- She is known for sharing actionable strategies for startup IP protection, leveraging both legal and technological approaches, and has published guides and content on this topic for the entrepreneurial community.
- Her work at CADChain directly addresses the need for robust IP protection in the engineering and design industries, integrating cybersecurity and compliance measures to safeguard digital assets.
Blockchain:
- Violetta’s entry into the blockchain sector began with the founding of CADChain, which uses blockchain as a core technology for securing and managing CAD data.
- She holds several certifications in blockchain and has participated in major hackathons and policy forums, such as the OECD Global Blockchain Policy Forum.
- Her expertise extends to applying blockchain for IP management, ensuring data integrity, traceability, and secure sharing in the CAD industry.
Violetta is a true multiple specialist who has built expertise in Linguistics, Education, Business Management, Blockchain, Entrepreneurship, Intellectual Property, Game Design, AI, SEO, Digital Marketing, cyber security and zero code automations. Her extensive educational journey includes a Master of Arts in Linguistics and Education, an Advanced Master in Linguistics from Belgium (2006-2007), an MBA from Blekinge Institute of Technology in Sweden (2006-2008), and an Erasmus Mundus joint program European Master of Higher Education from universities in Norway, Finland, and Portugal (2009).
She is the founder of Fe/male Switch, a startup game that encourages women to enter STEM fields, and also leads CADChain, and multiple other projects like the Directory of 1,000 Startup Cities with a proprietary MeanCEO Index that ranks cities for female entrepreneurs. Violetta created the “gamepreneurship” methodology, which forms the scientific basis of her startup game. She also builds a lot of SEO tools for startups. Her achievements include being named one of the top 100 women in Europe by EU Startups in 2022 and being nominated for Impact Person of the year at the Dutch Blockchain Week. She is an author with Sifted and a speaker at different Universities. Recently she published a book on Startup Idea Validation the right way: from zero to first customers and beyond, launched a Directory of 1,500+ websites for startups to list themselves in order to gain traction and build backlinks and is building MELA AI to help local restaurants in Malta get more visibility online.
For the past several years Violetta has been living between the Netherlands and Malta, while also regularly traveling to different destinations around the globe, usually due to her entrepreneurial activities. This has led her to start writing about different locations and amenities from the POV of an entrepreneur. Here’s her recent article about the best hotels in Italy to work from.