The Startup Chef

Over the last 6 months I’ve become really interested in cooking. I’m by no means a chef but I do have a passion for it. It’s extremely inspirational, relaxing and creative. I just realised why:

I can see a lot of correlations between what we do when building startups and what a chef creates.

Iteration

When a chef is creating a dish, you’ll see a level of concentration and determination. Everything other than that dish is disregarded and 100% focus is forced onto creating perfection.

Elements are tried and retried to create the dish. If it’s not perfect, they throw it in the bin and retry. Not tomorrow, now. The passion has an overwhelming force to drive them into 3am and they’re still cooking.

The same is the resolve of a startup entrepreneur. Swap the chefs dish with your product and you have the same mentality. Move quickly and keep reiterating until you’re happy. Or nearly happy at least.

It’s a piece of you

When a chef puts something on the menu and watches the first customers try it, it’s a piece of their soul. When the elements are brought together and it’s placed on the plate, it’s a piece of art to the creator. An extremely fragile one.

The same is true for startup’s. When you’re first version 1 goes live, a piece of your soul went into that product. You watch from a distance as your product goes out in the world for the first time.

Sometimes it wins, other times you need to learn from it and drive forward.

Extreme Passion

Both creating a product or creating a dish take extreme levels of passion.

You need to create it because you simply don’t have any other choice. Your mind and body and forcing you towards it. Embrace it and enjoy the ride.