The pursuit of excellence and humility are often-at-odds. Here’s why it can be dangerous for people’s hearts.
From my personal experience of building Sene.
Excel or die
Peter Thiel, founder of PayPal, has a well-known “10x Rule”, which states that a startup needs to build a product with 10x more value than any comparable substitutes.
And so it’s critical for teams to pursue the best of the best — whether that’s talent, features, investors, brand experiences, etc. It’s not a nicety, it’s critical to a startup’s survival.
The challenge I’ve personally found is that when this pursuit is what you live and breathe 80–100 hours a week, it can become your identity. And it becomes hard to think of people in a contained way, but in an absolute way. Some examples:
- For anyone delivering mediocre work quality, I might think of them as an inferior person instead of recognizing that they are incredibly valuable people outside of that specific work setting
- Or those who excel in their given professional area, I might elevate them beyond what they should be treated
- For those with more power/leverage (i.e., investors, partners), I may unduly elevate them because I see them as essential for establishing the identity I desire
Renewing my mind
I’ve learned that conventional startup wisdom (e.g., only take mtgs that will help you with your objectives) is helpful but should be taken with a massive pile of salt. Because while our startups can add value to the world, they are not ultimate.
Here are a few examples of other folks that have inspired me to do things differently:
- Eden Chen, my childhood best friend, now runs Fishermen Labs, one of the top digital product dev shops in LA. Eden and his wife intentionally chose to move to South Central LA (people always think he’s joking when he says it) and is investing in the local community. Fishermen Labs normally takes massive clients but took on Suitable early on when it made no business sense and has continued to take care of us.
- Mark Chou, who used to run marketing at ONA and now runs digital marketing at AWAY (seems to prefer brands with all caps in their name), has been very generous with time and giving marketing advice
- Richard Hu, a close friend who runs international at Kamcord (YC-company), offered up monthly phone touchbases just to be helpful and advise in various aspects of the business
For me as a Christian, a lot of this comes down to building my identity in the fact that I am loved by a God who laid down his life for me. That all the success I desire has actually already been accomplished —because the most important being in existence has called me His own. That’s pretty awesome, and it should free me up to pursue all these things without the need to prove myself.
