Advice to a friend dealing with their chaotic startup...

Startups are inherently chaotic. No chaos = no opportunity. Startups exist because there is uncertainty, and new things to learn. (1/7) #startup

During a period of rapid growth, all things (structures, processes, etc.) eventually break. Some chaos is self-inflicted, and too much chaos can cause collapse / chronic harm (2/7) #startup
Agility is solving today’s problem, while not limiting your ability to solve tomorrow’s problem. There’s always a temptation to solve tomorrow’s problems.

There are good ideas everywhere, and opportunities everywhere. So focus is hard (3/7) #startup
Startups require an almost supernatural level of focus. You have to focus, while knowing full well many things are broken, and need work. Nothing is truly repeatable or efficient at this point, even when we want it to be (4/7) #startup
And that’s hard...so we tend to load up on the good ideas.

Pursuing all the good ideas will leave you (and others) burnt out. Self-inflicted chaos (5/7) #startup
You always have to ask… “what’s the one thing?”. This level of focus is the antidote to feeling like you need to cut corners...asking “what’s the one thing?” and doing an awesome job you can be proud of (6/7) #startup
It’s the little steps, executed well, the little promises...kept, that help the company win (7/7) #startup

More from Startups

The Beatles wrote “Yesterday” in less than a minute.

Led Zeppelin wrote “Rock And Roll” in 30 minutes.

The White Stripes, “Seven Nation Army”, 10 min during a soundcheck.

The Rolling Stones, “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction”, 40min.

Making a startup in 24 hours is perfectly fine.


I worked on my first startup for 2.5years. It was an events app. Sunk in cost and expectations were so high, that I had to close it, despite getting consistent revenue.

In comparison, I wrote @CryptoJobsList in 2 days. And it's way more meaningful than what I've been doing in my events startup for 2.5 years.

When I let go of my engineering ego and let go of expectations that I need to raise capital and hustle for 4+ years — I started lauching fast and interating fast without any expectations — then I started coming up with something truly meaningful and useful ✨

12 startups in 12 months by @levelsio
24 hour startup by @thepatwalls
— are great challenges that make you focus on the end product value, iterate fast and see what sticks and ruthlessly kill what does not work.

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