Before convincing investors or employees, founders need irrational self-belief. The first and most important person you must sell on your vision is yourself. Your conviction is the foundation for everything that follows.
A startup journey mirrors a five-day test match: a long grind with an uncertain outcome. Instead of focusing on the distant victory, concentrate on "winning" small, discrete blocks of time, knowing that these small wins accumulate into a decisive result.
Startups aim for non-linear outcomes yet often default to conventional, linear compensation bands. To properly incentivize breakthrough performance, founders must reward employees who have a disproportionate impact with equally disproportionate pay, breaking from standard practices.
Many founders become too attached to what they've built. The ability to unemotionally kill products that aren't working—even core parts of the business—is a superpower. This prevents wasting resources and allows for the rapid pivots necessary to find true product-market fit.
Boston's tech culture has historically over-indexed on protecting intellectual property and taking non-dilutive grants. This defensive mindset, focused on holding a large share of a small pie, stifles the aggressive, value-creation-first approach necessary for hyper-growth.
For businesses with high Net Dollar Retention potential, like infrastructure SaaS, enforcing long-term contracts is counterproductive. By "winning the business every day" and allowing customers to leave, you build trust and ensure your user base consists only of happy, growing accounts.
In a rapidly evolving field like AI, long-term planning is futile as "what you knew three months ago isn't true right now." Maintain agility by focusing on short-term, customer-driven milestones and avoid roadmaps that extend beyond a single quarter.