Benevolence and Core Problems

Two principles I believe in from this talk from Paul Graham at Startup School 2008:

• Benevolence and helping people can parallel profitability (and improves your morale)
• Work on core problems, make something people want

Go here.

Long Term Confidence, Short Term Stress

I’ve recently summarized my current status many times as “long term I’m very confident, but tons of short term stress”.

This probably characterizes most startups and entrepreneurs.  If you’ve given up on the long-term confidence, the battle is probably lost.  Phrased this way, short-term stress can be alleviated by what an entrepreneur does best, producing results, en route to long term realization of that confidence.  It requires two skills:

• Ability to push through short-term stress to get to long-term success
• Ability to spot when your long-term optimism is simply delusion

Notice I call them skills, instead of abilities.  Skills of most stripes can be learned, abilities are more innate.  It’s the subject of Seth Godin’s The Dip.  It’s not a new subject, but perhaps still underrated as required skills of succeeding.  If you don’t acquire and possess BOTH, your chance of success is truly reduced.