✨ some hard truths about start-ups.

Or: things I've learned the hard way over the past 10 years.

Photo by Jonatan Pie on Unsplash

1. Only two things matter: how well you know your users and can solve their frictions, and the speed of your learning and building loops.

2. Anyone can be a founder. Truly. It's just harder for those who don't have easy access to early unlocks (technical skill, $$, users). So you have to do double duty - solving for those while also making progress on traction.

3. High growth means some kind of leverage - distribution, patent, tech. For most of us, software/AI makes it possible for the "little guy" to get leverage. That's why the focus on technical. It’s the path to high growth.

4. Don't outsource your leverage/source of growth. If it's tech, don't outsource dev. Yes it's incredibly hard to find a technical lead. Welcome to the work.

5. Build in the place that welcomes your weirdness and is lousy with the people who've done the reps in your chosen field. For renaissance painters that was Northern Italy. For fantasy series writers (CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien) that was Oxford. For tech founders that's the Bay area. Move here or don't. But find a way to spend a lot of time here because it's one of the easiest ways to increase slope and speed of learning. You have to live somewhere. If you’ve chosen to build a start-up as your life’s work, welcome to the hard choices.

6. Few hurdles are unsurmountable for true founders if you're really here to do the work. You really can reach anyone, do any thing - it might just take longer and require more resourcefulness than you ever thought. But that it’s possible? That’s all I’ve ever needed to hear.

7. You can absolutely have a family and a startup. Just be prepared to do both things on hard mode and follow no one else's playbook. Ruthless prioritization, leading by values and constant communication with your partner/team is the only way to make both work.

8. Most startup things are noise and ego and vanity - act accordingly. PR, conferences, networking events - they feel like progress but are only surface motion. Unless something will directly get you users, team or $$, don't do it. Anchor on your users, the problem and your team, not the product or press or investors. Obsess about the first three and the other three will follow.

9. It's the sacrifices that make it hard, not the work.

10. Guard your cap table like a fiend. No advisor shares or easy early party rounds. Build like you'll be doing many rounds and bridge financing. Don't lose before you’ve really even started because you gave away 50% of your equity before Series A. And choose your investors wisely - they’re like a team member only it’s very hard to fire them. Values matter more than you think.

11. No one can teach you entrepreneurship. When you're building the future, no one has ever done it before - there are no experts. Use accelerators and incubators cautiously - only if they unlock speed, access to deep technical expertise, access to $$ or hiring. Make sure you’re not doing them because it feels like a comfortable way to “do start-ups”. Ultimately not is not school or even a job. This is your vision, your company, your call. The only thing that matters is: how did you make your users’ lives better this week and how fast did you grow?

12. Ultimately, just find a way to stay alive. Ask yourself: what’s the thing that’s going to kill us next. And just solve that. Over and over and over.
    
    Find a problem you’d doing anything to keep getting the chance to solve for and then find a way each day to not die.