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Blogs and newsletters alike can often feel like an onslaught of unsolicited advice, mildly taunting readers with lessons they should learn versus sharing what the author has learned or is learning. Over the next three to four posts, I’ll share a few lessons that have resonated with me over the past ninety days as an investor and that I come back to over and over again — in work and in life.
“If you spend too much time working on good things, then you don’t have much time left to work on great things. Understanding opportunity cost means eliminating good uses of time. And that’s what makes it hard.” — James Clear
One of my favorite conversations recently was with a founder who switched directions by abandoning his original business, selling all of its assets and assuring investors that they would be made whole through a new venture targeting a category that had previously been largely ignored by other founders and investors in the space. It was bold. It was risky. It worked. Realizing very early on that while the prior business model worked and could succeed, it would be an enormous effort resulting in what could only be a good business, very unlikely a great one. There is tremendous value in speed and the overall willingness to act, quickly, when better information is available.
One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned is that time is not binary. There is a measure of opportunity cost often forgotten when we advise others, or ourselves, to “Persist, no matter what”. Persistence on a road to nowhere should not be considered a point of pride. Alternatively, the term “Fail fast” can ignore the inevitable tipping point on a perfectly sensible path. I’ve learned there is magic somewhere in between. What matters most in execution is honesty and self-awareness about both desired outcome and resource availability along with a line of sight into what each incremental progression down a particular path costs in the form of time, money and stamina. If it is absolutely clear that a better path (and by better path, I do not mean a shortcut) exists, persistence for persistence’s sake down the wrong one is a costly mistake, not a virtue.
See you in blog post #19.