Repeat after me, ‘I am more hardcore than you’
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When the tide goes out…
I’ve noticed a shift in the attitude and behaviour of the founders I’ve met this year. It’s a shift for the better: There’s a return to straight talking, no nonsense focus and getting things done. The rewards are for growth and money in the bank, not ideas and hype.
I find this shift and the more hardcore founders exciting. I’ve been waiting for this for years and it reminds me of a blog post I read in 2012, not long after I began working in VC. You can read the whole post here, but the following line is the one I always remember:
“Repeat after me, ‘I am more hardcore than you’. Hold this in your mind for a minute and feel a little competitive adrenaline rush”
Danielle Morrill, Co-founder of Groupthink.
What would [x] do?
When founders are facing an issue or a big decision, or they’re being backed into a corner I often ask them, “What would Travis do?”. Obviously they’re not perfect, but at the very least going through the thought exercise of what Travis, Elon or Jeff would do can be really helpful (and it can work by asking what Barack, Mrs Thatcher, Beyoncé or anyone else who has achieve unreasonable success would do1).
Another way to frame this is to ask how you want to change your field and specifically, in what way would it be unreasonable for one person to do so?
In other news
If you pre-order ‘Find your 9others’ and show me your order & address I’ll post some 9others merch to you.
You can pre-order the book from Amazon here.
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.
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