Founders

Something I learned from @fehrsam that has stuck with me constantly is not doing side quests as a founder

Time and attention is scarce, you'll get invited to endless things / opportunities as a founder but vast majority just pull you away from the most important parts of building the company so keeping focus is key

This was the most important thing YC drilled into me.

No side quests - social media, talks, conferences, bd and corp dev are dangerous distractions. 

Talk to customers, ship code, grow your primary metric, stay healthy. Repeat.

Technowatermelon. Elder Millenial. Building Farcaster. 

nf.td/varun

co-conspirator @ /moshicam /gallery /djs • prev coinbase • my casts are endorsements, financial advice, and reflect my employer's opinions

bro you literally nerdsniped me on a side quest last week

core dev Kakarot zkEvm, ex protocol engineer PolygonID.

I avoid them unless they’re essential to the main quest

So, how to do you keep up with being nerd sniped with new things?

i.e new frameworks, languages etc coming up? Or they don't count as distractions to u?

Software Engineer @ Cadence Design Systems. B4: Stanford EE / Illinois ECE

They story as PG told us during YC was that they did it to raise 50k for their startup which would have been dead if they didn't do it because no one else would fund them.  

I would say that's main quest on death march difficulty.

Didn't YC fund AirBnB because Brian Chesky & Joe Gebbia created Obama O's cereal boxes? That seems like peak side quest

TogetherCrew.com | single parent x 4 | seeker of adventure | survivor of chaos | host /togethercrew /kbc /single-parenting
seemore.tv/free/fc/kbc

This advice only applies to high growth startups.

What if the company just about covers your fixed costs?

Opportunity cost is real.

I’m a big fan of tipping out of balance for periods of time.

Loading your synapses with endless info points often leads to the deep insights needed to create special outcomes.

Not forever but for a spell.

Not ideal for personal relationships long term. Well suited for pre or post family.