Solo Pursuits

John Gill is widely considered the inventor of modern bouldering, an offshoot of rock climbing performed without equipment at heights typically less than 20 feet. Boulderers perform a sequence of moves combining atypical finger strength, balance, and foresight, as their routes usually arise from small cracks on otherwise smooth rock walls. Gill, also an American mathematician, started out as a rock climber, but broke away from climbing — and the climbing community — to pursue bouldering as a discipline on its own.

Gill describes the break:

When I first recognized the tremendous force of a mainstream perspective, the tremendous force that a climbing community can exert upon your climbing experience, I realized that I wanted to experiment with climbing, that I wasn’t interested in making my climbing fall into a category, walking in someone else’s footsteps, or obeying a set of informal rules, even if unwritten rules. I decided that an easy way to avoid the restrictive mainstream perspective was to climb in solitude. I simply found it to be very, very difficult to experiment while climbing with other people, or even while staying at a climbers’ campground. When I climbed in solitude I discovered that I had marvelous inner adventures.

Previously, bouldering was seen as a training activity for longer climbs. Climbers defined success as “climbing higher than anyone else” or “climbing where no climber had gone before.” But Gill defined success differently. He was interested in smaller, but more complex “problems” (as they’re called in bouldering).

In his solo pursuit, Gill borrowed strength and balance training from gymnastics. He’s credited with introducing chalk from the gymnastics world to the climbing world. He trained for finger strength using a makeshift wall of nuts and bolts. He introduced dynamic movement to move from one sketchy hold to another and prized elegance over simple efficiency. He employed different tools and techniques for bouldering, and then introduced the traditional climbing community to those practices and tools.

In defining something new, whether a startup sport or a startup company, Gill’s approach offers a few lessons:

• Reset the goalposts — the startup equivalent of “climbing to new heights” is surely “money raised” and “hyper-growth rate.” But for companies that are truly charting a new path in a new market, success early on may look dramatically different. It may be adoption or endorsement by a very narrow set of individuals, or integration into an esoteric workflow that lays the foundation for future adoption. Focusing on traditional success measures may work against the company’s ability to achieve these early validation points.
• Employ different tools — a founder’s climbing chalk may be non-scalable professional services, specialized hardware, or time-consuming collaborations. These are often slow, capital-intensive, and difficult for outsiders to appreciate. But they just might be the only way to break into a new customer’s workflow or earn credibility early on. Determine which tools are essential to your unique definition of early success.
• Step out of the echo chamber — like Gill’s experience of the climbing community, the startup ecosystem has unwritten rules that govern people’s expectations and behaviors. These communities shape the identities of their members. There’s an approved consensus about nearly everything, whether it’s raising money or hiring or spending. Without a doubt, founders charting a new path need to tune out conventional wisdom on these topics, at least for a period of time, and find partners and investors who can get on board with that.

Some of the best founders I’ve worked with have either come from outside the traditional startup ecosystem or found a way to exit the hivemind from time to time. They’re brave enough to define success differently. They can go slow when the ecosystem around them is moving fast, and raise just what they need, even when large sums are being offered.

The unwritten rules of startups have shifted dramatically this past year, but they still seem overpowering. The consensus is reinforced by an unprecedented volume of startup-related media and online connections among founders. Community connections and expertise are essential, but it will take solo climbing to define the next generation of world-changing companies.

Solo climbers are encouraged to get in touch via sara@spero.vc!