What does it take to build things 💪🏼
Assorted thoughts on how building works, mostly from my experiences building products and companies.
Earnestness or curiosity is the starting point of building. You get interested in something for its own sake, which gives you the unnatural determination to persist with it when probabilities are against you and that makes you win.
It generally takes 2x more cost and time than planned to get things done in early stages.
In the moment, it always feels like things aren’t working until you zoom out and look back.
RICE framework is a stupid way to make decisions, there are rarely wins that look high ROI on paper. You win by going after the max benefit with full force. No point chasing small wins.
You can always prioritise better. Corollary: you can always simplify things. Not many people have the patience to go through the complexity to come up with something simple.
Things have their own natural pace. Doesn’t mean you sloth, but don’t expect overnight changes also.
Things happen together. So linear model of thinking doesn’t work. Somehow, so many smart people don’t really understand it. Helps to look at things as a whole or system and tweak rather than just a small part.
Things often fall apart at the last moment, and then come back together in another form. You start from 0 again so many times, but each 0 is different as it has the intuition of the past built in.
Things don’t happen by themselves. People make things happen. The world is a museum of passion projects that have come to life only when someone persisted through.
How long will the building take is the wrong question. If it takes much longer than I project, would I still keep building is a better question. Do I forget time when I’m building is an even better question.
There is unfortunately no correct answer to when you should quit building. You’ll know it when it’s time.