Just build the dang thing

We all know LinkedIn is mostly a cesspool of wannabe’s but depending on who you follow you might get some interesting insights. I recently came across one: one of the indicators of early startup success is the speed of your replies to inquiries. The insight was probably accurate, after all speed of reply probably indicates hard working hours and a deep sense of urgency. However, the insight was not actionable, at least not in the way that people thought: “I should be prompt in replying to inquiries.” This is 100% the wrong take.

I could not tell you the amounts of conversations I’ve had with entrepreneurs who try to adapt their working style to give the image of success while lacking to focus on what matters most which is just building the dang startup. The truth is that there’s a big spectrum of successful entrepreneurs, some of which get so deep and sucked into building the product that they fail to check their email regularly — and by the time they get to it there’s 200 unread emails. Meh. Who cares if you reply quickly to some random inquiry in your email. If that’s your style you do you. But the one thing that does matter is having a deep sense of urgency into building your startup — which is what presumably the author of the post was alluding to — “replying promptly to inquiries” being an indicator of it.

Forget VC’s. Just build the dang thing.