The comfort game, energy, and what are you trading off
Some musings on the metagame of entrepreneurship
I have two all-time favorite quotes about entrepreneurship, each of which has influenced me deeply and I still think about often.
The first is by Naval: “Startups don't die when they run out of cash, they die when the founders run out of energy.”
The second is by the inimitable Jane Woodward. I had the good fortune of taking a class with Jane and some other all-star instructors on climate startups, and one thing Jane said really stood out to me: when you’re an entrepreneur, you are in the comfort game. Your job is to make people around you comfortable – customers, employees, partners, investors – when you are a no-name company, working out of an apartment, with a half-baked product. You are in the comfort game.
When I first heard this, I nodded along with the rest of the students, but I didn’t fully understand what Jane meant until months later. Whenever something bad happens – a cofounder decides to leave, a prospective customer withdraws, etc. – the bad thing doesn’t happen right then and there. It builds up over time, and it does so because there is a lack of comfort that was left unaddressed. Your job as the entrepreneur is to uncover these and provide comfort.
The job of a founder: energy and comfort
Engineers code and designers design. Founders also code the product and generate sales and build the company, but in a meta sense, I would argue the true output of a founder is energy and comfort. I believe that in any organization, the pace is set by a small number of people, sometimes even one person. But someone has to do it. And that’s the job of the founding team – to set the pace, paint the vision, and keep pushing towards it.
I’ve always wanted to start a company because I wanted the ownership and impact. But there’s a tradeoff to everything, and I realize now the tradeoff is that you’re required to provide the energy and the comfort, even when sh*t hits the fan. It’s not easy, but it’s not supposed to be — otherwise why would you deserve that level of ownership and impact?
Keep it up Alex!