Some early stage stress

T = week 10

Yesterday afternoon, I went for a stress-run. 

Most runners know the difference between a run and a stress-run. Sometimes the stress-run works: you arrive back home, covered in sweat and serene in the thought: “my body still works; the world is wide; it’s all going to be ok.” 

And sometimes the stress-run doesn’t do the job. For example, yesterday.

The first few miles were great. Stress stomped back into the New York sidewalk with every stride. But towards the end, I saw a dark blur in front of my face and then felt a distinctly large and powerful insect enter my mouth. 

I should have just kept my mouth open, and let the critter out. After all, our interests were completely aligned: we both were hoping for a smooth exit. 

But my stress-run hadn’t worked all its magic quite yet. So I panicked, hacking and coughing until I produced a large bumblebee on the sidewalk in front of a pink-haired leather-jacketed woman smoking a cigarette. But not before the bee stung the back of my throat. 

A better person might have just been glad to see the bee population returning so robustly (New York pollinator colonies have declined 50-70% over the last several years). But I had no such noble thought as I clutched my throat and staggered the 5 blocks and 3 stair flights to my apartment. 

Standing in the kitchen with an Advil in one hand and a spoon of Ben and Jerry’s in the other, I realized something very important for all start-up founders: there’s no reason to stress-run when you can just eat Chocolate Therapy. 

Obviously, I’m joking. After the ice cream, the swelling reduced and I actually did feel a little better physically. But the underlying stress remained. 

The stress isn’t all related to my start-up work (I’m moving out of NYC next week!). But today, I want to tell you about the start-up stress, which I always knew would be a part of my experience but hadn’t felt so intently until this past week.  

For those just joining: I’ve spent the last ~2 months researching the “ultra-remote” or onshore-offshore collaboration space. I’ve interviewed over 70 people including US consulting managers who work with teams in India, executives who run “shared service” groups for Fortune 500 companies, “fixers” in the Philippines who set up offshore centers for mid-size businesses, professional service leaders who have decided not to offshore work, and former colleagues in Gurgaon. 

But after all this... I am not sure I am on the right path. The more I learn, the more challenging I find the market structure.  

For example, on a corporate priority list, building and developing offshore teams is frequently pretty low. And because offshore teams are nearly always seen as cost-savers, spending appetite is often as deep as a bird-bath. On top of that, there is rarely a true “owner” whose career lives or dies based on the development and performance of offshore teams. New products and processes only create “unforced errors” for these decision-makers. Simply put: “satisfactory” is often good enough. 

I won’t enumerate all the other issues, but the research has planted large pumpkin seeds of doubt in my head. This doubt is stressful because it demands a decision.  

In one part of my brain, I know that testing hypotheses means that those hypotheses can be proved wrong. And the words of Warren Buffett ring in my ear: “The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.” 

This part of my brain tells me, “Your research gave you an answer. Go find another problem space with a better market structure. Do this same hypothesis-research exercise continuously until you find the right problem space.” Fail fast. 

But the other part of my brain wonders, “Is the critical trait of a successful founder that they push through this sense of impossibility?” 

So: stress. My brain has both parts. And they are constantly firing contradictory thoughts that all seem eminently reasonable and defensible. 

I see a few routes forward:

1. Pivot to explore a different problem space: Acknowledge that the expected return on time, effort, and capital isn’t high enough in the offshore space to justify pushing forward. Remember that sometimes the smart move is to “pass” on an investment, even when that investment addresses something you care a lot about. 

2. Go deeper in the problem space with consulting: Try to sell a consulting project in the hopes that getting even closer to the problem will illuminate a diamond of insight, an opening in the woods that you have somehow missed. 

3. Push through with continued design + iteration: Keep building prototypes and interviewing potential users. Trust that building a great product can change the market structure and justify the effort. 

I’m leaning to 2 and 3 at least for the coming month. But my point in writing this is not to explain a well-wrought decision tree. That tree’s nuances and risk assessments are too complex for this post. 

I simply want to note that this decision feels high stakes, and therefore psychologically challenging. It makes me worry; it makes me stress-run; and this week, it nearly made me swallow a bumblebee. 🐝

Ankur Nagpal 🔥🔥 @ankurnagpal

I've tried lots of stuff for better sleep: - Blackout curtains - @eightsleep (which i <3) - No screens in bedroom - Giving up booze - Consistent bedtimes But you know what's worked better than all of the above combined? No longer running a startup I sleep great now 😚