3 Takeaways from 'How to be a Founder'
I borrowed 'How to be a Founder' by Alice Bentinck and Matt Clifford from EF's shelf. I probably wouldn't have read it if it wasn't free to borrow from the office but I'm glad I did.
Here are my favorite (most relevant to me) lessons:
1. Founders can't plan to fail
'If you start to focus on what will happen if it doesn't work then you will never succeed.'
As someone who's played a lot of strategy games (chess) and spends a lot of time solving maths problems, this concept was initially unintuitive to me. I've always optimised my decisions to maximise EV, which means I always have a plan B. It's second nature for me to plan out a scenario if things go wrong. I also think that having a plan B makes it easier for people to follow/trust you when you're leading a group.
However, I think that building a startup is one of the few scenarios where having a plan B works against you. If you're not putting everything you can into building, then you're NGMI. Having a plan B means you have the option to become complacent and not put your heart into building. If you're not 100% set on building, then someone else, who is, will beat you. This line of reasoning is probably true for any extremely competitive environment with an objectively low probability of success.
2. Be a Missionary and a Mercenary
'You need to be missionary enough to care but mercenary enough to respond to signals from the market.'
Missionaries are out to solve a problem.
Mercenaries are out to make a lot of money.
EF basically believes that the best founders are missionary enough to visualise the problem they're solving but mercenary enough to be willing to pivot when they're heading in the wrong direction.
I found this part of the book particularly relevant to me because for a long time I believed that I wasn't 'missionary enough.' Having attended rationality camps like ASPR and being around EA-adjacent people made me feel like the only reason to build a company was to 'make the world a better place' or something. One friend made me feel particularly bad when I said I wanted to make a lot of money. While I've always wanted to solve an important/difficult problem, I probably wouldn't bother starting if money and status weren't side effects of solving said problem. I feel like there are few people (almost all of whom are at EF) that I can really talk to about these internal motivators without feeling a bit uncomfortable.
This was my favourite part of the book.
3. Run into Spikes
'Don't hang on to the idea and protect it. You are not your idea.'
This is probably the most important part of the book. It's human nature to avoid uncomfortable scenarios. You likely engage in this behaviour unconsciously every day. This is extremely problematic when building a company because you're basically hiding from truths that can kill your start-up.
It's better to find out that your idea is shit early on versus later on, and therefore you should actively be trying to run directly at the scariest and thorniest problem with your idea.