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The Founder's Lie About Comfort Zones

klinger.io

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Re: The Founder's Lie About Comfort Zones

#11

Post by mittermayr »

as others have mentioned, you have absolutely identified a core issue that can be validated everywhere, everyday. people love adding features instead of improving/validating the core (guilty) and they sure love chatting with other founders/the "scene" about their startups and where they're headed instead of spending their time with finding/growing actual customers. and yes, I even believe most spend too much time at hackathons and events getting feedback from peer entrepreneurs instead of actual customers.

the flip-side of this is important though. I totally agree that most people involved in startups are way too busy 'living the startup-life' and forgetting about the essence and true face of it all, namely that it still is "hardcore business". it still requires picking up the phone, ramping up customer after customer, smart investment of resources and selling 'to the person' and not just tweet about it, and so forth. but, as said, flip-side: if all startups were to face the most traditional form of doing business every day, most would simply not find it fun enough to dedicate their passion to this. so we get a little leeway so we can move around our actual duties and it's all good. there's just this super-fine-line that most of us overlook eventually, where people forget about the essence of what they're supposed to do and just enjoy the lifestyle a tad more than it might be healthy to the mission.

great article, definitely one i'll be coming back to for a refreshing read every once in a while in the future.

Re: The Founder's Lie About Comfort Zones

#12

Post by louischatriot »

andreasklinger wrote: post #2

Guys - OP here. I know the article sounds like blunt rant but it's a topic very dear to me as i regularly mentor startups. Many of them hide in the mentioned patterns. If you know good articles / links on how to prioritise your work and assess missing skills in your founding team please be so kind and share them here. I will add them to the article afterwards. Thanks!

Very accurate points, in my opinion. The money quote: "In general whenever a X-guy enforces solving a problem with X everyone should step back and try to analyse it objectively".

All three of us at tldr.io are coders, so we indeed jumped in the code and built (what we thought was) a great product. We thought the product would be viral, and of course it wasn't. So now we are in a two weeks long "no code" period, and this forces us to go outside of our comfort zone.

Re: The Founder's Lie About Comfort Zones

#13

Post by mittermayr »

redguava wrote: post #7

Great article but I think it's a fine line. I am so much more productive when I am doing something I enjoy. Let's say I am 5 times faster working on what I love to do, but it's only 50% as effective for my business as what I should do. Well it's still better than being 5 times slower to do something that's only twice as important. The hard part is working out those numbers and knowing what wins, but being aware of th…

well the 'fine line' you mention is the essence of the article that might be lost with a lot of new entrepreneurs i think. you got it exactly right, it's super motivating to do stuff one enjoys, and it gives us enough momentum to do things we might not enjoy as much. but there's this slow transition into self-reassuring ourselves back to cozy comfort zones, in which we're often less productive that we might want to admit we could be, on the long run.

Re: The Founder's Lie About Comfort Zones

#14

Post by andreasklinger »

mittermayr wrote: post #11

as others have mentioned, you have absolutely identified a core issue that can be validated everywhere, everyday. people love adding features instead of improving/validating the core (guilty) and they sure love chatting with other founders/the "scene" about their startups and where they're headed instead of spending their time with finding/growing actual customers. and yes, I even believe most spend too much time at…

Thanks for that. Great and valid points.

I didn't focus on the developer/hackathon vs getting customer aspect.

I believe you are right about it - when it comes to myself 1000% spot–on. But i know the same pattern with biz-centric founder teams, even with balanced founder teams. People just hide in the comfortable skill-zone and wait/blame/hire for the rest

Re: The Founder's Lie About Comfort Zones

#15

Post by forgottenpaswrd »

I think the article starts great, "people will fill their time with what they love to do if you let them", but does not provide a solution.

In general the work of a manager is precisely that, find the people that will love to do what is required(know about people), understand what is required(know about the needs of people and your customers) and remove all the blocks they could find doing it(know about execution).

Not as easy at it sounds, they are also "naturals" at it.

Doing 90% of your best time in live before dying something you can't be great at because you don't appreciate it is not sustainable in the middle and long term.

Re: The Founder's Lie About Comfort Zones

#16

Post by [deleted] »

andreasklinger wrote: post #2

Guys - OP here. I know the article sounds like blunt rant but it's a topic very dear to me as i regularly mentor startups. Many of them hide in the mentioned patterns. If you know good articles / links on how to prioritise your work and assess missing skills in your founding team please be so kind and share them here. I will add them to the article afterwards. Thanks!

[deleted]

Re: The Founder's Lie About Comfort Zones

#17

Post by andreasklinger »

forgottenpaswrd wrote: post #15

I think the article starts great, "people will fill their time with what they love to do if you let them", but does not provide a solution. In general the work of a manager is precisely that, find the people that will love to do what is required(know about people), understand what is required(know about the needs of people and your customers) and remove all the blocks they could find doing it(know about execution). N…

Yes definitely. Absolutely agree.

I tried to focus on that by explaining that founders tend to think of themselves as executors while they are at the same time managers (of themselves)

Ad "solution": As you said - i don't really provide many of them - if you got good links to recommend please post them - i will add them!

Ad "naturals": I am unsure if managers are born or trained. I know a lot of people who grew in that role.

Re: The Founder's Lie About Comfort Zones

#18

Post by mittermayr »

andreasklinger wrote: post #14
mittermayr wrote: post #11

as others have mentioned, you have absolutely identified a core issue that can be validated everywhere, everyday. people love adding features instead of improving/validating the core (guilty) and they sure love chatting with other founders/the "scene" about their startups and where they're headed instead of spending their time with finding/growing actual customers. and yes, I even believe most spend too much time at…

Thanks for that. Great and valid points. I didn't focus on the developer/hackathon vs getting customer aspect. I believe you are right about it - when it comes to myself 1000% spot–on. But i know the same pattern with biz-centric founder teams, even with balanced founder teams. People just hide in the comfortable skill-zone and wait/blame/hire for the rest

the fact you write about this shows that you're at least able to self-reflect from distance, so that's big. but there's so many who only learn this through failure, and even then often resort to blame it on other things.

this is where a ceo or manager usually excels or completely fails. the best managers i've had, especially in the US, were able to find the sweet-spot. they kept me out of comfort most of the time, but with just the right reward settings, so you will be constantly surprised by your new-found potential and always feel the world is requesting a bit too much from you but you still manage to work it out, all the time, magically.

Re: The Founder's Lie About Comfort Zones

#19

Post by GFischer »

andreasklinger wrote: post #2

Guys - OP here. I know the article sounds like blunt rant but it's a topic very dear to me as i regularly mentor startups. Many of them hide in the mentioned patterns. If you know good articles / links on how to prioritise your work and assess missing skills in your founding team please be so kind and share them here. I will add them to the article afterwards. Thanks!

When I was reading this article, I thought "that's why startups need mentors".

I should have guessed you are one :)

I'll definitely get a mentor when I get started (fortunately there are several mentoring program over here in Uruguay), some are global programs like Endeavor and other are sponsored by the local chambers.

Re: The Founder's Lie About Comfort Zones

#20

Post by GBKS »

Personally, I try to balance this by dedicating Monday mornings to the things I don't like doing - to get them out of the way for the week. I also try to have weekly "themes". So one week might be dedicated to a new feature, the next to marketing/support, the next to optimization, etc. That way you have a defined range of activities to focus on each week and you're less likely to stray off into the comfort zone.
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