References

Changes to typical western diet can improve life expectancy by up to 10 years

If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is

Some simple wisdom from Kurt Vonnegut: notice when you’re happy.

“My uncle Alex Vonnegut, a Harvard-educated life insurance salesman who lived at 5033 North Pennsylvania Street, taught me something very important.

He said that when things were really going well we should be sure to NOTICE it. He was talking about simple occasions, not great victories: maybe drinking lemonade on a hot afternoon in the shade, or smelling the aroma of a nearby bakery; or fishing, and not caring if we catch anything or not, or hearing somebody all alone playing a piano really well in the house next door.

Uncle Alex urged me to say this out loud during such epiphanies: “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is”

Kurt goes on to say:

"So I do the same now, and so do my kids and grandkids. And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”

Perhaps needless to say, so do I.

II YouTube II Instagram II Print Shop II

The deeper into winter darkness we go the brighter the stars seem to shine.

I am writing this for a friend joining an early-stage breakout startup (year 2; $200M+ valuation). I wrote it as bullet points as it was meant to have an audience of one. He suggested that I share it here as well so that it is more widely available.

About this format: Normally, people write multiple paragraphs with stories and repeating examples to drive home “a point”. In contrast, the format of this blog post is a bit more “raw”. So please feedback me and let me know what you think.

Disclaimer: The advice is meant for anyone joining the early stages of a hypergrowth team (15-150 people; multiplying in revenue, investments and/or headcount). Usually in the first 1-3 years of a startup. Most of the advice I would not give in larger, more established teams. I also did not try to sugarcoat nor glorify things. It’s just a download of my “recommendations” i would give in a 1on1 discussion.

Who am I

Worked for multiple hyper-growth companies in different stages

Was founding team at producthunt.com; led product & engineering project teams at coinlist.com and angel.co.

Currently leading the product engineering team at beondeck.com

Invested in multiple breakout startups of the last year

As always: Everything is IMHO & YMMV. 🙏

My advice to people joining hypergrowth startups

Your mindset

Say; Do

people rely on you; don’t drop; don’t backtrack

before you make promises take time to think about stuff if needed

speak up if there is an issue

Don’t think in “roles”; but understand problems and apply skills

be the person everyone wants to ask to fix something

go in; fix/create/setup/improve; hire someone better; move to next

first in a weekly rhythm; then monthly; then quarterly; then yearly

Example: In my first startup, the job title on my business card was “CWTFO” because my job was to establish or fix areas of the company.

In reality, every job in a fast-growing company is – with different degrees of variance – a CWTFO role.

Everyone is in every role interim

the best early people will have ten defacto roles in 2 years

sometimes titles will sound lower; don’t worry

hire better people than yourself; find something else you are impactful in

Example: Leaders should avoid throwing around titles but instead use comma titles

Instead of “Head of XYZ” – do “Operations Lead, XYZ”

Solve problems

You are hired to fix problems; not to point them out

most problems your company faces are not hard

there are just lots of them

you are not hired to point them out but to solve them

A half-fixed problem is a not-fixed problem

it’s easy to implement the 20% of the solution

don’t drop stuff there

make sure stuff gets adequately finished either by you or someone else

it’s done when it’s solved

Example: I frequently worked with people who were good at spotting problems, coming up with a solution, but then not pulling through.

You can barely reuse a 20% approach if the originator isn’t leading it. You start from scratch

Nobody is hired to “point out obvious solutions” - most problems we face are not that hard - just too many.

Have default solutions

have a solution for every problem you bring

don’t hand over problems upwards

bring solutions you want feedback on

Stress and Chaos

Stuff is stressful

but remember

stress is you losing control; not you working too much

you can burn out, barely working at all

being overwhelmed is ok; temporary; if you can stay in control

Example: managers frequently burn out people by letting them face the consequence of rapid changes without shared control over reasoning nor impact on them

Example: when you feel stressed:

regain overview/control

or decrease boundaries of authority/responsibility

Build order and structures

early stage can be chaos

bring process and structure

just as much as needed; not much more

improve as it’s needed later

Example: Processes are not chains of bureaucracy.

They are expectations made explicit. It can be 1-step actions.

Processes allow you to scale as you don’t need to discuss continuously one-offs.

Stuff is urgent, important, critical, stressful

know the differences and how/when to handle differently

stuff will go wrong; that’s normal

risk mitigation is important

have paths to fix things

move forward

compare the cost of waiting

to how much better

or less risky

the future solution most likely will be.

Example: Can you revert your change? Can you avoid brand damage if it goes wrong? Is the potential damage manageable?

If yes: move forward

Your goal is not to work “a lot” but fast & effective

extra work time won’t compensate for you not scaling yourself

Find ways to recharge

family, sport, hobbies, passions

whatever works for you

actively make time for those

fast-growing work and related problems will otherwise use up every crank of time you have

establish boundaries

Scale your work

Never wait; never get stuck

switch quickly between issues if stuff is stuck

make sure balls don’t get dropped

never “wait”

consider if you can do a good-enough solution by yourself

consider what alternative thing is most impactful instead

Get autonomy through transparency

be publicly transparent in what you will do

docs, posts, tasks, etc

to make sure people don’t need to feel they need to check-in

it creates trust; this creates autonomy

Acknowledge sync; solve async

people are nervous

acknowledge stuff asap; even on the weekend (early on)

do it async whenever you can fit it in unless urgent

Scale yourself

automate

hire

empower

Your Team

If you lead teams

hand problems downwards in your team to share authority

but you are responsible

every success is the success of people in the team

every fail yours

treat people like adults

give them information

trust them to make decisions

trust them even if you feel they make mistakes

ensure people have a fair setup

keep information and power differences in mind

[Sidenote: Management advice will be a separate blogpost]

Hypergrowth teams compensate half-done products with effort

no balls dropped when it comes to customers

extra effort whenever possible

early on, that’s required

later on, you want to establish process, automation, and solutions to avoid those one-offs

Differ between frustration with a situation and a person

treat those separate

by default, you are frustrated with the situation even if it doesn’t feel like it

typical exception: situations that happen repetitively

Your coworkers are not your therapists

never load your stress on “people below you”

avoid loading stress/frustration to people “beside” or “above you”

telling/sharing is ok

but “handing over to solve” is typically useless

they don’t have the time nor competence

most likely, they just end up frustrated too

most likely, they do this the first time too

if you share also have a default solution to avoid “passing the burden”

get a coach

Your career

Do a tour of duty

you won’t be there forever

people who fit in well early don’t fit well later unless they level up a lot into top management (most don’t)

most founders don’t want to work for large bureaucratic companies

so they “instead” end up creating large bureaucratic companies by themselves

but it’s a large company they have power in and can stay longer term

other early people not necessarily

plan 1-3 years of a strong learning experience

Optimize for equity

not because it’s worth more

that too

but because its easier to get a salary boost later on

equity increases are hard as the company valuation increases

Disclaimer: This is only true for early-stage companies

Have fun

don’t take yourself or anything else too serious

never sacrifice long-term health

never sacrifice family-time

you can’t get back, neither

I hope this is useful to others as well

– as of January 6th, 2020

1. It is a human trait to want to organize things into categories. Inventing categories creates an illusion that there is an overriding rationale in the way that the world works.

2. Surfaces that are “easy to clean” also show dirt more. In reality, a surface that camouflages dirt is much more practical than one that is easy to clean.

3. Maintenance takes time and energy that can sometimes impede other forms of progress such as learning about new things.

4. All materials ultimately deteriorate and show signs of wear. It is therefore important to create designs that will look better after years of distress.

5. A perfected filing system can sometimes decrease efficiency. For instance, when letters and bills are led away too quickly, it is easy to forget to respond to them.

6. Many “progressive” designs actually hark back towards an ideal of something lost – for instance a more “natural” or “original” form.

7. AAmbiguity in visual design ultimately leads to a greater variety of functions than designs that are functionally fixed.

8. No matter how many options there are, it seems to be human nature to narrow things down to two polar, yet inextricably linked, choices.

9. The construction of rules is more creative than the destruction of them. Creation demands a higher level of reasoning and draws connections between cause and effect. The best rules are never stable or permanent but evolve naturally according to context or need.

10. What makes us feel liberated (and consequently more creative) is not total freedom, but rather living in a set of limitations that we have created and prescribed for ourselves.

11. Things that we think are liberating can often become restrictive and things that we think of as controlling can sometimes give us a sense of comfort and security.

12. Ideas seem to gestate best in a void—when that void is filled, it is more difficult to access them. In our consumption-driven society, almost all voids are filled, blocking moments of greater clarity and creativity. Things that block voids are called “avoids.”

13. Sometimes, if you can’t change a situation, you just have to change the way that you think about the situation.

14. People are most happy when they are moving forward toward something not quite yet attained. (I also wonder if this extends as well to the sensation of physical motion in space… I believe that I am happier when I am in a plane or car because I am moving towards an identifiable and attainable goal.)

15. What you own, owns you.

16. Personal truths are often perceived as universal truths. For instance, it is easy to imagine that a system or design that works well for oneself will also work for everyone else.

17. Thoughts are “designed” just like everything else around us.

18. The easiest way to establish a new desirable habit is by bundling it with an already established habit or pattern. For instance, I remember to feed the dogs and cats while I am waiting for water to boil for my morning tea. Or, I water the plants when I am waiting for the bathtub to fill.

19. Demands are more oppressive than restrictions. A to-do list is an example of a demand – you become so caught up in the list that you lose the ability to actively prioritize what is most important at any given moment. Restrictions, however, create parameters that limit certain activities in order to allow room for other things that are often hard to find time for (reading, listening to oneself think, crocheting sweaters). In other words, it is better to restrict yourself from doing certain activities than it is to add more things to your to-do list.

20. Space can’t be “made”, instead it is denoted by boundaries, divisions, walls, compartments, etc. In essence, space is created by the physical boundaries that we build to contain it.

Solvitur ambulando

This phrase from the Greek philosopher Diogenes translates more or less to ‘it is solved by walking’. And, indeed, there is something about walking that helps both clear the mind and think clearly.