i got my harley davidson stuck in the palm trees by accident
Hey everyone. I need some advice from you, especially if you’re a founder!
I think my number one challenge right now with Zip right now isn’t the normal sorta startup stuff. Already I can acquire users (and almost always figure this out regardless of the product), I’ve proven I can monetize them (at a small scale), and I can even do a half-decent job at raising capital (a surprise to me) which means my company won’t die for lack of cash. I’ve managed to figure out a ton of this thanks to people like Furqan, Ivan, Tobenna, the massive repository content on Y-Combinator’s channel, and by continuously messing up/figuring it out for the last two years.
But, I actually think my number one challenge is keeping momentum.
This was not a historic week for Zip, meaning, we didn’t break internal records. And that’s bad. Every week that isn’t a historic week in my eyes means we either stayed the same or went backwards. Both are bad.
So then today I was like what the heck Farza, why wasn’t it a historic week? It wasn’t because I couldn’t acquire the users (because I could have if I actually went out to get them using channels that already work for us). And, it wasn’t because I’m not motivated (because I’m the most motivated I’ve ever been in my entire life these days).
So then what gives? Why did I fall flat this week? I can’t afford to have weeks like these. No early-stage founder can. Every week is precious.
I kinda went out of my way to find some answers. How do startup founders maintain momentum through the day-to-day in the early days? And, before you read on, reply to this email with your answer if you have one. I’ll compile the responses into next week’s email.
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There isn’t an answer I found to that question directly, but, the answer that did sufficiently answer my question made me mad because it’s so god damn simple that it made me feel stupid. It’s the advice that you get on Day 1 and thats repeated into your ear constantly.
Find the one metric you want to track, plaster that metric up everywhere, look at it daily, set goals around that metric, everything you do should revolve around that metric.
Everyone in startup lands know this already…I know this already…but obviously I don’t?
I’m stubborn.
I gotta prove it to myself. I gotta learn the hard way.
So, I looked back on my week and how I work.
I looked back on every task I did this week, and wow: nearly everything didn’t feel like it would directly shift the metric I cared about if I completed it. So then I looked back on weeks that were “historic” and bada-bing almost every task that week revolved around our core metric but it was all accidental by me.
Damn.
This is an interesting learning for me. One I’ll never forget. And one that will hopefully help me keep momentum up in future weeks :).
I look forward to other folk’s responses.
Back to work!