As the acquisition of my last company closed, I told myself I wouldn’t leave safe harbor until I couldn’t stop thinking about a different company that I wanted to build.
I’ve had the opportunity to receive counsel from a number of others much more experienced than me. Of the various pieces of advice, there was one that I latched on to and took to heart (whereas “taking time off between things” I could not personally fathom, oops.). As a somewhat experienced founder, my biggest risk is not necessarily of failure, but getting locked into a new venture for 4-5+ years and lacking not product/market fit, but founder/product fit. It will be easier to raise money as a founder with a successful exit, they warned, therefore not as much diligence will go into “is this the right problem to solve.”
As these conversations continued, my mind shifted away from “what company do I want to build next” to “what problem am I ready to spend the next ten years of my life on?” That ended up being a much stronger question for me to ask, as it allowed me to search both outwards and inwards on what I believed is the most optimal problem space.
It’s also given me the discipline to to divorce passion for the problem from the solution I’m pursuing at any one moment. That’s been extremely helpful, as it’s further allowed me to approach everything we’re doing as a hypothesis. As humbling as it may be when something you’re pursuing for weeks/months doesn’t work out, I can fall back on my passion for the space, and this being a small learning experience over a ten year timeframe.
One of our root challenges is to understand which problem in the world is meant for us to solve. As I stand here today, I feel convinced enough that of the many problems in the world, how we build relationships, communities, and an overall sense of joy and belonging is the mission for me.
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