My friend, Reagan Pugh, wrote a great post almost a year ago about the things you know to be true, but seem to constantly need to relearn over and over again. This simple concept of ‘Relearnings’ has stuck with me ever since.
It seems to me, the challenge is rarely knowing the right thing to do, the challenge is doing what you know to be right.
Why is it so hard to do the things we know we should be doing?
I believe that the answer is, as it is to so many questions, structure. We fall back to well-worn paths of least resistance even when we know the outcomes are sub-optimal.
We maintain the friendship that we know is a net-negative on our life.
We continue to eat things that make us feel horrible an hour later.
We escalate fights over inconsequential things.
We stay quiet in the meeting when we know that we really should speak up.
Knowing the right thing to do is really only half of the battle. Yes, it takes a level of self-awareness and wherewithal to realize which actions lead to long-term negative outcomes, but that knowledge won’t ever do you much good if you continue to take the same course anyway.
In an effort to try to curb this tendency to regress from the path I know to be best for me, I have started maintaining a list of my ‘relearnings’. Here are a few of the things that I know to be true, yet still sometimes struggle to implement day to day. I have found that the best way to frame these relearnings are as endings to the statement: “It’s in my best interest to…”
It’s in my best interest to get more sleep. I feel so much better and productive when I am getting close to 8 hours of sleep every night
It’s in my best interest to exercise daily. If I am going to be at my best mentally and emotionally, it as absolutely a prerequisite for me to do something active.
It’s in my best interest to start working on my blog Saturday morning instead of waiting until Sunday afternoon. Leaving it for Sunday leads to anxiety and a lower quality product. (Full transparency: I started this post at 5:08pm on Sunday.)
It’s in my best interest to be more productive. I am happier and less anxious when I avoid procrastinating and get tasks off of my to-do list.
It’s in my best interest to do something more enriching than simply watching TV after work. Cooking, cleaning, learning. Just spending 15 minutes doing something productive makes all the difference in the world.
It’s in my best interest to track my food intake. The benefits I get from increased awareness of what I am eating far outweigh the few minutes it takes me to input my food for the day.
It’s in my best interest to prioritize my faith daily. The more I focus on deepening my faith, the better every other aspect of my life is. I’m happier, more fulfilled, less-anxious and there is a 1-1 relationship with the more time I invest in my faith and the more harmonious my relationships are.
Startup Relearnings
I don’t think relearnings are contained just to personal growth. It seems like the entire startup industry is currently grappling with many of the same lessons that should have been forged years and years ago. In an attempt to help us all learn from our mistakes and be better equipped next time we are starting, working at, or investing in a company, I’ve come up with a few entrepreneurship-focused relearnings as well.
It’s in a startup’s best interest to get its unit economics right. How did we forget this one? If you don’t get your unit economics figured out early, pouring fuel on the fire is only going to exacerbate any problem that exists. Startups need to grow to succeed and if your unit economics are messed up, suddenly growth becomes the enemy. That is a bad, bad place to be.
It’s in a startup’s best interest to go slow to go fast. Figuring out unit economics falls within this, but I think it is worth its own bullet point. The name of the game when building a company is speed of execution, but that doesn’t mean everything should be done as quickly as possible. When it comes to hiring, fundraising, developing a scalable economic flywheel, and getting to know your customers’ needs, it really does pay to measure twice and cut once.
It’s in an entrepreneur’s best interest to raise the right kind of capital. Venture capital is not right for every company. Be honest with yourself about the kind of company you want to build and pursue the capital strategy that is aligned with that vision. Bootstrapping, grants, venture capital, traditional debt. One isn’t inherently superior to the other. They are different and they fit best with different kinds of companies.
It’s in a startup’s best interest to be disciplined when it comes to cash burn. Cash is oxygen. Cash is at-bats. Whatever metaphor you want to use when cash hits zero the ride is over. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. The more disciplined you can be when it comes to cash burn, the more chances you have to make something happen. Building companies is about a lot of things going against you. Successful companies stick around long enough for one or two big things to fall their way. You will find startup graveyards littered with promising companies that never made it to that one or two big things falling their way because they just couldn’t keep their burn under control.
It’s in an entrepreneur’s best interest to be picky when it comes to investors. The marriage metaphor is cliche, but it’s used so often because it is a good one. If your company is going to be successful, taking money from an investor means that you are going to be embarking on a multi-year long relationship. You don’t have to be best friends, but if you have serious question marks about your ability to work together, you are better off continuing your fundraising process. If your only option is to saddle up with someone undesirable, maybe you need to look in the mirror and ask yourself why you are having trouble fundraising. There are great companies that struggled to fundraise, but more often than not, the best ideas are able to find capital, no matter where they are based.
It’s in investors’ best interest to remember that capital is not a sustainable source of competitive advantage. Money is like alcohol. It’s an amplifier. If you are a jerk sober, you are going to be a huge jerk drunk. If you are funny sober, you are going to be a comedian drunk. If your company is a well-oiled cash-burning machine, throwing dollar bills at it is only going to allow you to accomplish that purpose even more effectively. If there is one lesson that the world of tech and entrepreneurship has been in the process of learning over the past year it’s that cash, in and of itself is, is not going to win you the day.
These are a few relearnings that I could come up with. What lessons do you believe the startup world is just refusing to learn? What are some relearnings you are working on making stick in your own life?
Till next week. (Hopefully Saturday morning)