What founders struggle most with when launching startups is getting used to the right mindset.
For most founders, it's not a business, product, or operations issue.
The key is to keep it simple in the early days.
Making decisions confidently in a risk-filled environment filled with unknowns is a daunting task at first.
Keeping it simple seems impossible when you're mind is diverging into a million pieces.
Every decision should move you one step ahead.
There just isn't enough time and resources to map out every single scenario in advance.
I never saw any founder who could execute a 5-year business plan. They all fall apart in weeks!
You have to make decisions in a maze of opportunities and risks.
🔴 It's easy to get sidetracked by the next shiny thing when marketers are day-trading your attention.
🔴 It's easy to get stuck in planning mode instead of just getting started.
🔴 It's easy to get emotional and resistant when your idea gets criticized, your launch flops, or your assumptions get crushed.
The tools and mindset that you acquired at your university or a high-paying job almost never work.
That's why many MBAs, enterprises, and consultants overthink and under-deliver at early-stage startups.
Resilience is the key to navigating this maze.
Enter the Triad of Resilience.
The 3 mindsets that enable resilience at this stage are:
🟢 𝗔𝗱𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲: Thrive in changing circumstances and respond effectively to new situations. When founders say they'll figure it out this is what they mean.
🟢 𝗔𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗢𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗱: Quickly take initiative and prioritize progress over perfection to get things done fast. The startup motto for this is "Get Shit Done".
🟢 𝗥𝗮𝗽𝗶𝗱 𝗜𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: Quickly test ideas and learn from failures aka. "Fail Fast".
Nothing about this is new.
We have all done all of these at some point.
Yet you are rarely told that these values are actually what truly matters at this stage and you need to STICK WITH THEM.
All three of them are equally important to keep the momentum of learning and building.
All your team members in the early stages need to get this.
Getting used to these concepts, as simple as they are, will require changing your mental and physical habits.
You will have to go through a process of self-reflection and mindfulness.
It helps a lot if you have friends and teammates who can help you focus.
Even though I worked with startups my entire life, after working with scaleups and enterprises in the last 3 years of my career I had to go through this "cleansing" process myself as well to get back to the simplicity of startups.
The Triad of Startup Resilience
Founders who are new to the startup grind often get lost not because they are not disciplined or don't have a good idea. Most often it's because they lack the mindset to remain resilient and keep momentum.
