Week 3 in SF

This week I fell into the trap of focusing too much on external successes.

Fell into the trap of listening to a 100 different AI companies pitching at events, accelerators and thinking what I’m focusing on isn’t big enough -- I should be focusing on other things etc.

The classic shiny syndrome problem.

Here’s my “therapy” kind of call with Josh and my notes.

If there’s one takeaway -- its that you can’t connect the dots looking forward, only looking backward. Like that one Steve Jobs quote.

Also, when I’m not “working” on my startup, I should be focusing on ensuring my 'mood' is good.

Doing things/hobbies that reduces stress, makes you feel more present in the moment.

Because, a lot of the times doubt comes in when you’re working for a vision only you can see.

The goal isn’t to get rid of the doubt but to not let that doubt cloud your vision.
 
A lot of the times when I pull myself out of these self-doubt spirals, I end up realizing I was focusing on the right things from the get go. So when in doubt just default to optimism and confidence.

The only way I’ll actually realize if I'm doing the right thing is by either failing (and learning) or succeeding and keep doing it. Not by “thinking it through”.

Cliche advice but highly underrated.

My notes from the call and a clip I really resonated with 👇

P.S - the real magic happens in 15 min calls then end up going on for 2+ hours

• Don’t care about the external stuff

  • survivorship bias - you don’t see the failures

  • external stuff - monetization, revenue, exit etc is stuff to think about after starting

• You learn the details of something through the process of actually doing it. Ask yourself how can you start today. Seems too simple but that’s why its underrated it — everyone overlooks it

• you can’t decide the end point if you don’t have enough reference points

• you don’t know what you don’t know.

• Optimize for learning not success.

  • you don’t have to be successful with everything you’re doing. At least not right now.

• Everyone gives advice but its mainly noise because they don’t have skin in your game

  • what do they lose other than some few mins of their time if their advice doesn’t work out for you

  • they leverage their won reference points and project it onto you when you have to figure it out yourself

• Make decisions because you deliberately thought it through, not just because someone else advised you to do it

• Doubt comes in because you don’t have enough experience to have a strong opinion on something

  • doesn’t mean you should listen to other people that just “seem more confident”

• Worst question is asking how do I not waste my time or what should I do

  • instead, ask what i don’t want to do

    • at least 3 things you realize you don’t want to do are signals

• my goal is whether I’m learning or not

  • metric is how uncomfortable i’m feeling, how often i feel like an idiot

• no such thing as stupid questions. everyone assumes shit

  • super imp in teams to ask stupid questions

  • you literally become smarter by asking a stupid question and getting it answered

  • almost be selfish and entitled to have your questions answered

  • if you place a high value on not looking like an idiot then you’ll never learn

• you truly fail when you stop learning

• learn to trust your gut

  • a good signal is when you lock in on things that no one asked you to do

• Josh only realized he loved venture building in his 3rd startup

• if you’re not an expert in anything you can just go and learn it

  • for his biomedical wearable, he printed all textbooks and pdfs from the library on embedded systems, textile, supply chains and learned the inside and outs

• first time founders focus on product, second time founders focus on distribution

  • you absolutely don’t have to build to sell

  • but you do have to build to retain

• live like a hermit in the early stages

• no one’s gonna care more about your successes/failures than you do

🎥 Clip

Thanks for reading as always ❤️