Reflection Creates Direction
Reflecting on who you are as a founder makes navigating a startup easier
This is the fifth (and final) in a series of in-depth essays that describe our process for creating new startup ideas at INVANTI and the thinking behind it. You can read the first one on finding contradictions here (+ listen to us talk through an example here), the second on unlocking better tradeoffs here, the third on defining value here, and the fourth on defining the size of a problem here.
April Problem Sprint: In the month of April ‘23, we are running a 4-week Problem Sprint, to help founders define and validate the problem they are working on, based on a the writing we’ve done in the past two months. It’s open to anyone, free, virtual, and (mostly) asynchronous. You can sign up here - deadline is April 6!
Prelude
Even though this is the last post in this series of essays, it’s actually the first step we do with founders. We are writing it last for a few reasons. First, we think it’s easier to understand why it is important once you see how it shows up. Second, it’s not really a step, it’s a constant practice that proves useful over time. Notice a theme in these excerpts from the previous essays?
From It all Starts with a Contradiction:
Choose one
Once you have a set that passes the tests for a strong contradiction, it’s time to pick one. This is subjective and all about what resonates with you. Which are you most interested in? Which feels like it drives further curiosity? Which creates an emotional reaction of frustration or anger? There is no right answer here, but you should be able to explain why the contradiction you’ve chosen is a fit for you.
From Unlocking Better Tradeoffs:
Chose one
Once you have a set that passes the tests for a strong Opportunity Statement, it’s time to pick one. This is subjective and all about what resonates with you. Which are you most interested in? Which feels like it drives further curiosity? Which creates an emotional reaction of frustration or anger? There is no right answer here, but you should be able to explain why the Opportunity Statement you’ve chosen is a fit for you.
From Stick to Value:
Choose one
As always, use all the context you have to choose the one you think would be interesting to build a business model around.
From Big Enough, Small Enough:
Decide whether to move forward or not
Use your judgement (and gut feeling!) to decide if this is the right opportunity for you right now
This post is meant to help you build your own framework for making these kind of judgement calls. The kind that aren’t right or wrong, but rather aligned or not. As we wrap up this series, this might actually be the most important piece to the process - I hope you find it useful.
Speed vs. Velocity
Maria and I are engineers both by training and at heart (no comment on if we are actually any good at it). So whenever we see a headline like How Physics Explains Business, we get excited. It’s a great read and reminded me of a few times I’ve drawn similar comparisons. One of the ideas I’ve found applicable is the difference between speed and velocity. If you’ll rewind to high school physics, speed is distance per unit time. Velocity is displacement per unit time. The easiest way to think about the distinction is imagining the difference between walking around a track and walking a pilgrimage. If you complete one lap on a track, you’ve traveled a distance, but you have not experienced any displacement. Put another way, you’re right back to where you started. A pilgrimage on the other hand has an ending point that is different from the starting point. So when you finish, you’ve both traveled a distance, but also have experienced a displacement - i.e., you did not end where you started. Velocity has both a speed and a direction.
Why is this distinction important? In physics, it is important for analyzing bodies in motion relative to each other. The outcomes of two cars traveling at the same speed are very different depending on the direction they are traveling.
I think this has wide application in starting a company as well. Too often the word speed is used, when in reality, I think we mean velocity. Startups are about exploring new ways of doing things. We don’t just want to go fast, we want to get somewhere different than where we are today. Pushing people to go faster isn’t helpful if we don’t also help them decide in what direction.
Choosing Direction
There are a lot of questions about strategy when starting a company, but there are also important questions that aren’t. The difficult judgement calls often boil down to choosing direction when there is no right answer. Specifically, I’m talking about choices only the founder can make - and the only criteria is what aligns with the company they want to build. Friction arises when we are quick to get people into the act of entrepreneurship - the sprint to find product-market fit, the race to raise money, the treadmill of iteration - but haven’t prepared them for choosing directions along the way that align with who they want to be as a founder.
This is difficult to do because in order to make calls on direction, you need criteria - and to have criteria, you need to know something about what’s important to you and why you’re building a company to begin with. With so much of the “business” in the air - what problem you’re solving, what solution you’re building, what business model you’re using - any criteria related to those get quickly muddled. The obvious answers of “whatever has the highest chance of success” or “whatever will make the most money” are both impossible to know and are probably not the best questions to ask even if we did.
The criteria are actually highly personal. As we talked about in Big Enough, Small Enough, that can mean different things to different people. But that’s usually where the blogs and advice stop. What does it mean to actually know this for yourself, to be able to answer the question that we always try to start with - “What should you start?”
Reflection Creates Direction
My friend John Garry often reminds me that action creates information, which is why a “default to action” mindset is so imperative as a founder. But only having a default to action mindset is akin to only having speed - we also need direction. This is where reflection comes in: if action creates information, reflection creates direction. This loop - action → information → reflection → direction - is a fundamental motion of starting something new. I get frustrated when people only focus on the “default to action” element, especially while dismissing anything that looks like reflection, assuming it to be in conflict with speed. But just like speed is to velocity, having a default to action isn’t wrong, it’s just incomplete. The great founders have this and have a skill for reflection - transforming the information they’ve created into a thoughtful direction for their next action. They don’t find themselves going in circles. Reflection doesn’t detract from speed, it enhances it.
Reflect on what?
Reflection is not a new concept. Design thinking, the OODA loop in the military, or other decision-making frameworks, all have a reflection or synthesis stage. These are useful frameworks, however they are often used for discreet projects or strategic efforts. It’s much less common to see them used for the “big” decisions (one exception being the Design Your Life series).
We advocate for making reflection an intentional practice for the questions that only you can decide as a founder. Early on, these questions will be like the ones shown at the beginning of this post. What opportunities are interesting to you? What point of view do you want to take on the problem at-hand? Who do you want to serve? What kind of company do you even want to build? Later, they become even more complicated. How are you going to think about the values of the company? How will you know your team is doing a good job when the results can be so unclear? What do you want in a co-founder, teammates, investors, or advisors? Should you raise money or bootstrap? Do you want to have a remote, hybrid, or in-person team? You’ll find advice and “best practices” for every one of these - but for every one, there will also be a counter example. Those counter examples illustrate a fundamental fact about building a business: the only thing that really matters is whether you can make it work or not.
One way to think about business is that you really only have to satisfy one condition - don’t run out of money. There are ways to do this that are better than others. We can debate models, strategies, power, and everything in-between, but at the end of the day there is a craft to building a business. There are variations, and will continue to be, each with their own quirks, strengths, and weaknesses. Ask any founder and I bet they have at least one opinion on how they are doing things differently. That’s the beauty of it - you don’t need to ask permission, you just need to find a way that works for you and your team.
Maria calls this dynamic the “privilege of designing the company you want to work for”. That privilege comes with responsibilities. It demands confidence, humility, and self-awareness. It demands leadership, clear values, and reinforced culture and mindsets. And maybe most importantly, it demands an articulation of what you want out of starting a company in the first place.
Why start with reflection?
I love this quote:
“This just in: You can’t take the same actions as everyone else and expect to outperform.” - Howard Marks, I Beg to Differ
It’s both obviously true and annoyingly difficult to do. The reason it is difficult is because it can be really hard to have the confidence to be different. There are a lot of different opinions about how things should be, but most actions say otherwise. Being different starts with a strong sense of self, values, and goals. In preparing to start a company, where inevitably you’re trying to do something differently, having a foundation of these elements makes it easier to be different in that ways important to you, and quickly decide to not be in the areas that are not.
In startups, most people want to start with action. We think it’s a competitive advantage to actually start with reflection. Having a sense of who you are, what your purpose for starting something is, and what is important to you regardless of the specifics of the business are what makes it easier and faster to make decisions about direction in the future. And the faster you can make decisions about direction, the more likely you are to find something that works. We don’t expect these to be static. Building the practice and muscle for continually reflecting is the advantage.
Two outcomes happen if you remove reflection from the equation:
Indecision: When faced with uncertainty, you fail to make decisions quickly, or at all
Veering Off Course: You make decisions about direction, but not grounded to anything, leading you into areas and versions of the company that aren’t aligned with you.
Starting with a hypothesis of what matters to you gives you a foundation as you enter a world of uncertainty. Decisions are just a little bit easier to navigate with something to tie back to - even if those criteria evolve over time.
Doing your own Founder Reflection
When potential founders join INVANTI, the first thing we do is a founder reflection exercise to build their own criteria for choosing direction during the rest of the process. We split this reflection into four parts:
Reflect on your History as an Initiator
Goal: Build a grounding and confidence in your ability to start things, the experiences that make you unique, and remind you of the importance of feedback
Reflect on your Growth Matrix
Goal: Think through how your past experiences have taught you about skills you have, and the ones that give you energy to use. This proves useful as you think about the type of business you want to be in, as well as how you may fit in with co-founders, teammates, and advisors in the future
Reflect on your Values, Habits & Mindsets, Goals, & Constraints
Goal: This is the basis for designing the company you want to work for - how do you want to make tough decisions, what’s the ideal culture of your team, what do you want out of starting the business, and what needs to be true for you to actually take on this risk
Reflect on Founder-Impact Fit
Goal: Brainstorm different areas that align with your interests and the impact you want to have - whether that is who you want to serve, unmet needs that frustrate you, skills you want to deploy, or partners you want to be involved with. This forms the basis for what we explore to find contradictions
(If you’re interested in the workspaces we use in the Founder Studio to do the process outlined below, click here and we can send you a copy you can use.)
You may not have immediate answers to all of these reflections. That’s ok - you can revisit, revise, or leave them blank. This is meant to be a living document that changes over time as you learn more about yourself as a founder. The rule of thumb is that some reflection is better than none.
Reflect on your History as an Initiator
Make a list of things you started or were involved in starting - they don’t have to be companies, they could be clubs, podcasts, events, non-profits, projects, etc. For each one, answer the following:
What resources did I attract to it?
Why did I start it?
What did I learn?
Make a list of the most impactful or important professional and project experiences you’ve been involved in. For each one, answer the following:
What was my role?
What did I learn?
Make a list of the times you’ve gotten or solicited impactful or important feedback. For each one, answer the following:
What did I learn from the feedback itself?
What did I learn about soliciting and accepting feedback?
Make a list of the experiences that you think make you unique (personal, professional, or both). For each, answer the following:
What perspective did I gain from this experience?
Reflect on your Growth Matrix
For this reflection, we are going to categorize skills that you have (and don’t have). They can be professional or personal, but that you feel may be relevant to starting a company. We have four categories, determined by two dimensions - strengths/weaknesses and gives/drains energy. Brainstorm skills that fit into each category:
Sweet Spot (Current Strength, Gives Energy): These are things you love doing, are currently good at, and enjoy constantly improving.
Supervise (Current Strength, Drains Energy): These are things that drain energy for you to do, but that you are skilled in doing.
Areas for Growth (Current Weakness, Gives Energy): These are things that you love doing or wish you could do more of, but aren’t the most skilled at yet.
Fire Yourself (Current Weakness, Drains Energy): These are things you dread doing, do not have a lot of skill in doing, and are not excited about improving.
As you can tell from the titles, this is a way to think about where you can play a role as a founder. That said, to start with, you will have to do things in all four categories. But the idea is to be self-aware enough that over time you know where to fill gaps (Fire Yourself & Supervise) and where to invest more time (Sweet Spot & Areas for Growth). For bonus points, have a close co-worker answer the same questions about you and compare your answers to theirs.
Reflect on your Values, Habits & Mindsets, Goals, & Constraints
This reflection is a major component of designing the company that you want to work for.
Values: List the values you want your company to have. We frame this as asking yourself, what do you want to fall back on when you’re facing a really hard decision?
Habits & Mindsets: Imagine you have team aimed at building something you all care about. What are the habits and mindsets that would define a team you’d love working with day-in and day-out?
Life/Company Alignment: Finish the following sentence: I want to build a company that makes it possible for me to…” (Feel free to have multiple answers)
Practical Considerations: What practical constraints or requirements do you have to be able to pursue a company full-time?
Reflect on your Founder-Impact Fit
This reflection is aimed at identifying areas that you may want to explore to start a company. You may not have answers for all of them - spend time where you feel the most connection and curiosity.
People: What types of people or organizations would you be excited to serve? For each, answer: why?
Unmet Needs: What types of unmet needs would you be excited to work on? For each, answer: why?
Skills & Experience: What skills or experiences would you be excited to leverage? For each, answer: why?
Partners: What types of people or organizations would you be excited to partner with? For each, answer: why?
Once you’ve completed these reflections, it can actually be really valuable to get feedback on them from people who know you well. Share the prompts and your answers and ask them what stands out and what seems like it’s missing. Once you feel comfortable with it, use it as a starting point to start hunting for contradictions and to make decisions about directions as you navigate our process.
This wraps up our series on how we think about starting a company from scratch. We hope you’ve enjoyed it. One of our mindsets is that feedback is a gift - so if you have any for us, we would love to hear it. Look out for most posts in the future about topics and frameworks relevant to the early stages of starting something!
If you’re interested in the workspaces we use in the Founder Studio to do the process outlined above, click here and we can send you a copy you can use. Better yet, if you’re interested in working with us to do it together, apply for the Founder Studio here.
Written in Lex
Works cited in this essay:
How Physics Explains Business, Nathan Baschez
I Beg to Differ, Howard Marks
Other works that influenced this essay:
The Founder Trap, Nat Eliason
“The secret to being productive is to work on the right thing—even if it's at a slow pace.”, James Clear
Earnestness, Paul Graham
Mercenaries and Missionaries, John Doer
Every article listed in this thread by Alice Bentinck of Entrepreneur First:
Mimetic Traps, Brian Timar
The Most Precious Resource is Agency, Simon Sarris
Startups are an act of desperation, Elad Gil
Climbing the wrong hill, Chris Dixon
Notes on “Taste”, Brie Wolfson
The Ambition Trap, Alex Crompton