founder’s journal #3: Learn fast, slowly
I.
I had a strategic conversation with M (our head of marketing) today about the go-to-market strategy for our next two products (to be launched in 5 and 10 days respectively).
It was A LOT of thinking and executing to be done. As a startup, we must set an audaciously ambitious goal, while being pressed for time, money, and human resources. Because “mediocre success” is worse than failure.
As Abraham Thomas once wrote:
The point of startup experimentation isn't success or failure itself—it’s the learning. You don't really care about the sales revenue generated by your first two reps; you care whether this is a strategy that you can scale to dozens and then hundreds of reps, or whether you need to use a completely different strategy.
Mediocre successes don’t give you any learning.
We want to see whether we will break or breakthrough. No in-between.
II.
It was a lot to take in and comprehend. The challenge ahead is a crazy one, for me - an “all-the-time” employee who thinks, eats, sleeps the company.
So I can only imagine: It must be soooo overwhelming for my teammate - a 3rd-year university student, studying away from home, trying to figure out how to grow the business AND herself.
I can see it in M’s eyes. A combination of information overload, workload overwhelm, and a little bit of action paralysis.
“Where tf do I even start?”
III.
I know exactly what she feels like. Because 2 months ago, when I started. It felt like that.
There are so many things to do, with so little time, and I’m so under-educated to perform these tasks.
Should I make time to learn? But that will take time away from executing.
Should I execute based on my intuition? But that won’t be very effective.
Should I hire someone to do this? But you don’t have the money or process.
But the scariest question of all is:
How can you lead, if you don’t know (yet) what you’re doing?
IV.
This question is scary, especially to a first-time founder who’s fresh out of college like me, because it touches the core of insecurity: “Inexperience”. When this happens, you’ll start to think:
I should have probably stayed in a more structured learning environment where someone could guide and mentor me. Why did I put myself through this ridiculously hard learning process where the result isn’t guaranteed? Actually, where the default is failure.
Should have learned more skills, gained more knowledge, and built a stronger network. - you think.
But the reality is: you are already here, building, struggling, and losing hair :))
So the “should-have-s” aren’t so important anymore. What you can do is:
Identify the business goal
Identify what you need to learn to get there
Learn it as fast as possible
Execute
(Step 3 and 4 usually overlap because as a founder, you have to learn a lot on the job.)
V.
But here’s the catch: the pressure to learn as FAST as possible can break a lot of people. Speed can be very dangerous to learning.
My great friend and co-instructor (Tuan Mon) says it perfectly here:
Unlike Speed, Mass takes time to grow. You cannot master a skill after one course, write a novel in one night, or grow a jungle in a few weeks.
Also, Mass is rarely linear: progress equals a lot of trial and error, and often such experience will transform the original subject into something completely unimaginable.
(…) Things that decelerate us in this era of speed like books, arts, or poetries, are secretly transforming the trees inside us to become a jungle.
VI.
Understanding the stress that comes from an unrealistic expectation of “FAST LEARNING” my teammate M was feeling, before bidding goodbye, I told her:
I want you to take a walk after this meeting. Don’t jump straight into strategizing and thinking about what we’ve just discussed. Don’t be stressed out, thinking that you have to master everything all at once.
We’re going to learn and figure things out together. We’re in for the long game. So I’d rather we grow slow but consistently. Okay?
I’m proud of you, and confident in your ability to learn and lead.
And this is what she wrote down in our meeting minute:
M thanked me for reassuring her.
I did it without realizing that I was actually saying those words to myself as well:
Tung, you don’t have to master everything all at once.
Tung, you’re in it for the long game.
Tung, I’m proud of you and confident in your ability to learn and lead.
VII.
To all the founders who share this pressure that you have to learn and master everything so quickly, I hope this post will remind you that:
Progress takes time, consistency, and is never linear.
Start learning as soon as you can. But be patient with the results.
Impatient with action.
Patient with results.
- Naval Ravikant
Be patient with yourself.
