Everyone has their mental models and super powers that make them unique. While I’ve written about my more specific skills like getting attention, one of my other super powers is a bit further down the stack.
I think I have a naturally immunity to the friction of inertia. The slow stickiness of life doesn’t seem to impact me as much as the average person. Generating momentum is my natural state. I guess this means my X-Men doppelgänger is the Juggernaut.
Startups suffer particularly from inertia around them. The world pushes back actively against changes. Think of inertia like eddies in the stream of linear time. You must get unstuck or you will circle forever alongside the stream, never getting anywhere while watching as others get ferried down the currents. That’s why I recommend to startups that they simply do whatever is necessary to generate momentum. Get the fuck out of the eddies of inertia.
When you are pushing against existing reality to make something new, you already need to significantly reduce friction just to get a shot on goal. You need to change opinions, learn new skills, bring together a team, work well together.
And that doesn’t even mean you will make the goal, even if all preparation work that goes right. All of that momentum you generated simply to have an opening. Yeah even then you can still fail. The market, your underdeveloped skills, your competitors, sheer dumb luck all have a chance to block your goal. That means you need to be undeterred by failure. You need to overcome friction consistently.
Overcome the inertia and the friction to keep taking more shots is your best chance. Probability likes your odds from five shots better than one.