The hypermarket of solutions for getting things done
Founders are essentially on a path to getting things done. We know that. But we also know that they aren’t in it just to get things done for the sake of getting things done. It may be said that they want to get things done in big ways or cause an impact on the world. This sets them in a call to action, to do it faster. It’s natural because one way to achieve this is by getting things done more quickly. There is no trap in this approach, because the trial-and-error method aligns well with doing things faster if possible. We should also recognize that founders have, at their disposal, tools to learn from.
Well, it is unfair to put that way — tools to learn — because of a potential implied thinking that they carry a learning toolkit. I mean, I could go on and say that their learning and reflective methods are more or less influencing them — or hijacking them — by that force of getting things done, in particular the faster one, which could distract them from their own reflective capacity. I did’t say that.Because I know, that our ways to reflect-and-learn doesn’t work like that. I know, and we know, that we can escape from potential traps of being too fast, or too buried, or too involved. In other words, even an intense trial-and-error path gives us that, a chance to escape from that — to be strategic.
In this context, it matters the context — the thing that we are doing - which may and should involve vision or goals or mission or beliefs, you name it. Because of that we can fly to higher skies and look from above. And there we may be asking angels or others but in essence we are trying to look things from a new perspective. The startup situation, with its goals or aspirations, may offer that escape hatch. Paul Graham’s definition — that startup equals to growth — helps me to think of a characterization for startups that helps with that. The way he puts is that a startup is an entity designed to grow. With this perspective, the startup is not static; and it leads us to consider its evolutionary path. I mean, an entity that is formed, that starts with an idea or thoughts of purpose. And then, it changes as it materializes something — as a product or a service or as a functional entity — and such materialization changes and happens to produce interactions with the environment, offering value and establishing an exchange, like a business; and by that it may capture value as a consequence of a virtuous dynamics with the external environment — our world or the market or audiences. In other words, through stages and through new value it creates better conditions for the future and other greater transformations.
Now, back to founders, we can reorganize the situation as of one where we are in it to get things done by running our startups. That we are interested in being around while taking our startups into that path of growth through evolving. With just a little digging from that situation, we have to face our own growth, to evolve along. And this is challenging. And here is where our challenge gets warmer. A insighful image carried by Reid Hoffman helps to understand the characterization of that execution path. Reid says that to be there is like to jump off a cliff trying to assemble an airplane on our way down. That is quite intense, by the implied element of pressure given by the time, or gravity. This image tells me to figure a way to escape. Moreover, or more important, the saying celebrates the implicit situation that getting things done happens first and that to learn along happens after it. This is challenging.
But it gets warmer, or hotter, these ways, our ways. Because of our new environment of entrepreneurship, or how we perceive it. What is new may innevitably appear as great and may go along with the characterizations of our world, our new and busy world, or faster and accelerated world. Our world had gotten bigger and bigger, or warmer and hotter, or more interactive and iterative; impacting our ways of getting things done, in many ways. So back to the image, I can imagine myself jumping of a cliff and trying to assemble the airplane on the way. But it’s not that now the weather changes as we knew, out of the sudden, from sunny to rainy and storms. Now, through this view I see others in the same situation. And along with us a lot of other things in the air. Things that you and I can pick, things applicable to the task at hand.
In the real world, we know, many of these things are here to help us, it’s undeniable. None of them are evil, or at least a lot are, to some or greater extent, valid or applicable, so pragmatic to certain conditions. These things solve real problems. And many are cheap, easy to plug, and important too. And, sometimes, security seems fantastic. And, sometimes, some of them are required. In this new space, we are teased — not to say bombarded ,— by packages. Teased to check them, teased to taste, or to buy or to pick and then unbox them. We can be involved and these can be good thoughts (ideas, thoughts, methods), no doubt. And on top of these things, or on the side or underneath, there are other beings, like us or different. They are involved, they practitioners or advisors or experts, you name it. But they care, with us; they are not indifferent. And there are systems too. And sometimes I look at all and I sum all and I see superpowers. But no superpower is as powerful as not being alone; because, as Sam Altman once said if I am not mistaken, founders are lonely. And there is more, that our ways there are other interesting things which are platforms. These don’t appear to be falling when I look at. Relativelly, I see roads for taking off. And then we hear the calls, by these voices. I would not say that they are enchanting, because I do see solid narratives. I see coherence.
Again, not evil, no. When I ask if this space can be evil, I tend to see it as formidable or frightening, but not evil. It can’t be, although sometimes I get confused by the excess of brands — products, tools, methods, advices, you name it — giving me messages not 100% honest. So if I am here to cooperate, I rather think that most of these things are given, or a given. But I don’t say this in ways as in that these things were thrown at us by beings of other dimensions, no. We brought ourselves here. These are things we built, tools we build, building blocks given to ourselves by us. These are the things that we can use to get things done because these are the things done by others who went through getting things done.
But it is too, down to earth and in reality, that we might be walking in a sort of hypermarket. Here I hold my hands in the cart and see too many aisles and too many solutions and too many other shoppers — all doing the same. And all of these are packaged well, with colorful and interesting boxes, more or less good and some of them great in essence but most of them are bundled with great narratives. And again, to think of an evil is unfair. Because I see that many of these are actually proven, or regulated. I see that because I see others using it, and others validating it. Plus, many of these boxes carry proper descriptions, of its ingredients or characterizations, and warnings or advice. These are honest solutions, and the potential risks of use and abuse are being given.
And we should not forget — as we go digging through the whole — of the wholehearted people through the aisles. And that the music is nice and that the air conditioning is nice. And that free samples are given. But the most important thing to not forget is that we — founders — can be quite hungry when we enter this supermarket. Not like rabits, I didn’t say rabits. I said founders.
This essay was a draft and colorful illustration from some of the thoughts considered on the way of the the writing book Slow Down to Startup. Get in touch to help me launch this book.
