Hurry up and wait
#CapitalAtRisk
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No, no, no, no…. yes
The mind of a startup investor can be a depressing place. We say ‘no’ more than ‘yes’ and have many reasons for the rejection. If you discuss a deal with another investor they’ll tell you even more reasons why it won’t work. The negative case is automatically the default as it’s very easy to think of things that won’t work when assessing an early stage startup. I try not to let that negative case dominate my perspective but I need to actively work on it. Once I think, “OK, this, this and this might not work” I set those aside and think about what things would look like if everything goes well — if this is a Star Founder and, with a lot of hard work, some luck and a following wind, then could their startup be a 100x investment?
Then you have to decide
You won’t be able to *prove* it’ll be a 100x or that you know what you’re doing until many years later when one of those obscure little startups you backed exits for 100x. And even then it’s likely no one will remember that you were one of the few to believe in it. But that doesn’t matter — the thing is you did. You thought for yourself and saw it through.
So you have to wait
Impatience is perhaps the greatest challenge of all — we’re all impatient to prove ourselves, no matter how disciplined we are. The best way to get comfortable with patience is to practice waiting — have the discipline to defer gratification of some sort, no matter how trivial. Perhaps take up a new (slow-to-progress) hobby that requires patience — how about knitting, horticulture or long distance running?
Any advice gratefully received.
Speaking of Seth
I’m a big fan of Seth Godin, have met him a few times and have even been on stage with him (shaky photo of that below — I was pretty nervous before I walked up there to talk about 9others).
Seth blogs every day (he’s done this since 2004 — two of my favourites are here and here) and the eagle-eyed amongst you will have noticed that I’ve written a Substack post every day this week.
I’ve often thought about writing a post each day but of course things get in the way. So here’s my aim for January: I’ll write a post each day, Monday-Friday throughout this month, how about that?
If that’s too much for you, just unsubscribe — no offence taken! (I don’t look at how many subscribers I have or who they are so I won’t even know — that’s a post for another time).
Actually, the only way I know if someone subscribes is if they reply — so please do that if you want to say hello, ask a question about startup investing or if you want to suggest a topic for a future post. Thanks.
Important: None of these posts are investment advice. If you are thinking about investing you should seek the advice of a suitably qualified independent advisor.
#CapitalAtRisk