Founder mentality

A year of Clay

This marks my official 1 year anniversary at Clay.

Hard to believe it's already been that long. Everyone older than me always said that time passes faster as you age, but it's another thing entirely to experience it firsthand. I think it's natural to assume that, as your time on this earth increases, the individual significance of each waking second decreases.

Or as a great poet once said: "the years start coming, and they don't stop coming."

What have I learned?

I voluntarily left an incredibly cozy and lucrative gig at Google to join Clay. It's hard to enumerate all the things I've learned (there's a lot, especially regarding art and psychedelics), but one thing that sticks out is what I'm calling Founder Mentality.

What I've discovered leads to success in startups isn't your pedigree, credentials or your technical expertise. Though some combination of them are prerequisites.

It's your founder mindset. Your ability to envision the future- to identify what users want, before they can even articulate what's missing. Your ability to stay true to your beliefs even when no one around you can validate them. Your ability to press forward in the face of daily uncertainty and setbacks.

Above all, it's the borderline manic optimism you bring to the table, building something that is default-dead yet having faith in your ability to see it through. Even if the end result isn't what you expected (and it rarely will be) just doing is often the most important part.

You don't have to start a company to have a founder's mindset.

What am I missing?

I tend to get stuck in my head. I'm also not very optimistic. In fact, outside of being a reasonably good engineer (if I do say so myself), I started this job lacking most skills I've found to be valuable in it.

That sucks to admit. Especially when I used to be really good at my job.

That's the point

On the bright side, that's why I took this leap in the first place. Comfort breeds complacency, and complacency is a slow death. I've learned more in this year alone than I did in three at my old job.

And whenever I start getting stuck in my head, theorizing instead of acting, I just have to keep telling myself: just doing is often the most important part.