Origins #83 — Respect the Early Days
The context and timeline matter
In this series we are documenting the journey of building DULO, starting from Day 1. Every week we publish a new chapter that takes you behind the scenes of our process. With every article we want to provide value to you, the reader. We share the success and failures, the opportunities and the challenges that we face while executing our vision.
If you are new, check out our previous post.
A certain picture caught my attention recently and made me think of the importance of showing the early days of a business in order to set realistic expectations, a proper context of what it takes, as well as how long it takes, for anyone that might want to venture into starting their own thing.
For some reason, we naturally compare two things at the current point in time (now), even though both of them have traveled a different road, time and distance to get there.
An example could be looking at a fitness model’s Instagram account and feeling less secure about where you are with your fitness, losing track that that person might be training for 15 years, whereas you’ve been training for only 2.
In that case, it might be helpful to look at the same person’s pictures when they were 2 years along their journey, given that it would be somewhat more comparable to your CURRENT state and therefore encourage you positively to put in the work, believing that reaching your fitness goals is achievable as long as you put in those 13 extra years of training.
Same can be said when building a business. Speaking from personal experience.
We get bombarded daily (most people feel an urge to keep up with those types of news) with bombastic numbers of acquisition deals, revenues and/or sales figures.
Being at the beginning of an entrepreneurial journey you immediately (almost subconsciously) fall into that trap again and compare your CURRENT situation with the progress of a company that has been at it for a decade and/or started with a different set of resources (investors, previous businesses, network, experience etc.) to reach those goals.
That’s why I feel we, as well as anyone out there that is building something for the long-term, have a responsibility to document, share and be loud about our processes (not to mention sharing any lessons along the way that might be valuable for others), as well as the time and work that it takes to get something substantial off the ground.
This way, we can set realistic expectations and provide a proper context for anyone else out there that might be starting their own thing, preventing them from being discouraged and giving up early in their journey when comparing their start with someone else’s middle, thinking they are not where they should be.
The context and the timeline matter greatly!
Having said that, I am super happy that we started documenting building this company from day 1 and we will continue to do so, respecting and trying to be thoughtful of our own timeline and our own process.
P.S. Can’t believe I nearly forgot to also plug our podcast where we talk to other entrepreneurs about their early days :D
Originally published at weardulo.com, where we are indeed documenting our process, selling our products and hosting the Early Days Podcast.
