6 THINGS I LEARNED IN 6 MONTHS AT A START-UP.

I’ll preface the following by saying I never had any intentions of working for a start-up. It took me by complete surprise when I had my (now) boss on my podcast and after the conversation was over, the opportunity serendipitously came up in conversation. It’s crazy to think how much life has changed over the past 26 weeks. These are just a few thoughts that have been at the top of mind for a while now:

1. Business is a sport. And you can come back in the 4th quarter to win.

In start up land, you’re surrounded by other entrepreneurial thinkers. But what makes an entrepreneurs brain different from traditional ‘workers’, is that we work as if we’re competing against ourselves. So naturally, every morning when we wake up it feels like the start of the first quarter (or half for all the soccer fans). We’re driven by the obstacles in front of us and the process to get to the end - not the end itself.

So as the day goes on and we run into challenges, our mission is to keep driving solutions. I’ve witnessed multiple projects now where we have roadblocks consistently day after day after day, and then all of a sudden a breakthrough idea happens. And that is the moment I’ve learned to really appreciate. For all our Boston friends, we all remember Super Bowl LI… 28-3 at the start of the 4th courter and you can come out with a win. Just have to keep going.

2. Enjoy the micro wins.

Running off point 1 - - I can’t stress this one enough, and I don’t want it to seem like we take massive L’s all day either, but enjoy the wins. There’s always more to do. There’s always another project. There’s always another call or opportunity to take. You get lost in the sauce. There have been stretches of time that have lasted weeks where I’ll finally come up for air, look back on those 10, 14, 20 days that just went by, and say to myself ‘fuck, that was a lot of work’. But in that reflection you can find micro wins all over - from landing a collaborator meeting you’ve been pushing for, to your samples arriving on the exact day you needed them, to even catching two green lights driving home in a row. There is always a positive extraction from each of our work days.

3. When everyone is aligned on the mission, you can move mountains.

We get the question about how we’re able to execute so many projects in such a short time all the time. Since I joined, we have designed (from scratch) and gone to production on 3 separate sneaker models. When you talk about an industry that relies on an 18 month model, it blows my brain out of my face how fast we work.

So what’s the secret? Every single one of our team members has the exact same mission. We want to be the greatest brand in the world - we act like it and we sure as hell work like it. You sit around a (virtual) round table every day, discuss, and go execute.

From my perspective, the reason this doesn’t always happen at larger organizations is a lack of purpose. Employees are missing ‘reason’ to be there. Reasons greater than going through their to-do list. What does the product or service do for the world? Are they impacting lives? Are they helping someone on their team go through a personal challenge? Give employees greater purpose, and you’ll see greater results.

4. Vulnerability leads to authentic opportunity

No one likes someone who’s completely fake - but rather people tend to appreciate someone who is genuinely human. When you’re able to open up about a life experience, like you have to cancel a meeting to take care of a sick family member, it gives real context to the other person. We care about an honest interaction because the conversation can bring up something that we can relate to. Even writing this article - my voice, my opinion, is put out there for anyone to judge. If you find something relatable in here, that would make our relationship that much greater. More specifically, it gives us a sense of purpose to work together.

In the web3 space, the majority of interactions are through DM’s or Discord messages. Its even more critical to build real with the people behind the screen. Im a big fan of all my twitter DMs where I interact with people I’ve never met but simply just send them a message based on a tweet I saw and ask if they’re doing OK, or if they need anything. You never know how you can impact someones life that way.

5. You have to be obsessively consistent.

No ones coming. No ones setting your alarm for you. No ones going to motivate you to do your job.

You have to do that. You have to show up every day for yourself and execute against your passion to build the life that you want for yourself. There isn’t enough time in the day for everyone to go around the table and pat each other on the back. You have to be the one to push through every day and execute.

And if you are obsessed, you need to compound efforts daily and not give up. You need to be strategic about how youre using that energy day in and day out cause otherwise it’ll lead to burn out, very quickly. 1% better each day goes a long way. I recently read the below stat about doing nothing at all versus making small consistent efforts.

(1.00) to the 365th power = 1.00

(1.01) to the 365th power - 37.7

Compound small efforts = large results. Start with today, and then go do it every dam day.

6. I don’t need you to believe in me. I need you to believe that I believe in me.

People are going to doubt your decisions in life. They’ll raise up concerns like lack of 401k, or health insurance, or the volatile market. They’ll say things like ‘but you had a stable job’ or ‘no one knows of that brand’. And everything they said was true. But what they don’t account for is that the more energy and hours you put into the start-up, the higher the ceiling goes. There’s something beautiful about being an underdog and continually building brick by brick. Every chance to get on a microphone, create a social media post, or sell one more sneaker to someone new is a chance for us to tell our story. And I don’t want to stop until we impact millions of lives through our products. And that’s why you don’t need to believe in me. Believe that I believe in me.

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If you’ve read this far, thanks for doing so! Appreciate any and everyone whose been supportive of my career thus far. Its been a fun ride.

Always open to other ideas or perspectives so share them in the comments or send me a DM on your thoughts!

Much love,