I hate talking about how being a founder is so unique and the challenges of it. Although I know it is.
Being a founder is a massive privilege.
A lot of the time it’s not one big leap of faith you have to take, though. There are lots of little ones and then some big ones along the way. This trains your optimism muscle like nothing else. But this also means living off the edge of the cliff most days, weeks, months.
So how to actually manage living off the edge off the cliff and not losing your mind?
Off the edge of the cliff is where all possibility is. That’s a fact. Paths unknown, not walked by others is where you find most satisfaction, opportunity, creativity. Like the black parts of the map that turn green in Age of Empires , if you are old enough to remember the game.
Below is my short list of tips on how to make living like this more bearable, more fun and in fact more productive.
- This is your choice. Daily reminders that you have chosen this route are quite practical. They are key. Maybe it is choosing the broader idea. Maybe it is the choice of a specific go-to-market motion or the people you work with or even your board and investors. Can be the market, the copy of your website. You can zoom in or zoom out infinitely. Once you do this, you become more intentional and being intentional makes taking jumps more controlled, hence they feel better.
- Stay curious, but avoid the what ifs. Curiosity is why we are all here. When you stop being curious, you age. Not to be agist, but you come closer to an ending. However what ifs can be all-consuming and they are not productive. What if you did not hire a certain person or hired earlier, what if you chose a different feature set, what if you started fundraising earlier? Again you can zoom in and zoom out as you will. These are toxic. Instead, if a what if is bugging me a lot, I tend to design curiosity driven mini experiments that won’t take much resource but will get me my answers. If you are building, you are constantly looking for answers. Negative, positive. You need signal.
- Seek negative signal. Seek no-s. Sounds counter-intuitive. Most people will tell you that you have to be ok with no-s, that you do not have to take them to heart. I would say you should proactively seek them. Because when you are making large bets you need to assign probabilities and count for uncertainty. Getting to no-s narrows down focus. Focus is what wins you the pieces of the pie and the whole pie in the end.
- Assign probabilities and plan around them. This helps with emotion control and damage control when you are taking bets. Reward yourself for the right guesses and refine the art of measuring what is to come. In the end you become exceptionally good at figuring out what is to come and/or at making it happen.
- Do not take yourself too seriously. This is a key part of the culture at my company, Ntropy. Once you start to take yourself seriously, living off the edge becomes not feasible. What if you fall and lose everything? What would others think? What would you think? I think this is a known technique to fight fears, and I have been personally deploying it since I was very very young. Imagine the worst case scenarios. If you are like me you will picture even a couple of them, you can paint every detail, then get over it and move on. It is not that bad. You are not that important.
Would love to hear how others make it off the edge and what you have learnt along the way.
Living like this is a lifelong commitment, with parameters that get slightly adjusted depending on where you are and what you are doing.
