I Hit a Major Milestone

This is week 20 of the year—a couple of weeks from the midpoint, but it's a significant milestone for me.

As someone who doesn't fully subscribe to setting New Year's resolutions, I still decided at the start of this year to incorporate one of my long-time goals into my 2024 resolution: to write one article every week.

Why Did I Embark on This?

The answer is simple. After years as an operator, startup advisor, and ecosystem developer, I realised I hadn’t written enough about my experiences. I know my journey differs significantly from what most people post on LinkedIn, so why not write about it?

Let us side-track a bit:

I understand my privilege: being a 3X founder, working as a program manager within a prestigious global entrepreneurship education and investment company, serving as an investor relations professional, supporting first-time fund managers in defining their thesis and introducing them to potential LPs, sitting on the boards of exciting investment vehicles and startups, serving as a judge in globally recognised programs, and mentoring in some of the world's most prestigious programs and institutions. I've done all this across several countries, regions, and continents, which gives me a unique perspective that might be less common compared to those who have mastered only one area. There's still a lot I'm learning, but I recognise this privilege.

Back to it:

When I started this ambitious journey of writing one article per week for a year, my goals were to refine my writing skills, improve and structure my knowledge, and share some “unpopular perspectives on the startup ecosystem,” hoping that readers would find them valuable. But the truth is, I was resolved to keep writing whether anyone read it or not—because why not?

It's now been 20 weeks, and this article marks number 20 (I was delayed in publishing one, so I’m making up for it with this one). Here is what I have Learned from 20 Weeks of Researching and Writing Consistently (No, I Promise It's Not the Usual "What I Have Learned", I hate those too)

1. What You Think You Know, You Don’t: The most humbling experience has been realising how little I know. There are many nuances to entrepreneurship, and as I research daily, my perspective keeps shifting. This has made me more cautious about how I interpret occurrences in our startup space. Writing consistently has kept me humble!

2. It’s Therapeutic: I've heard people talk about how keeping a journal has helped their mental health. I tried it myself but never really felt what they felt. However, over the past weeks, writing has become my ultimate escape. While I don’t write about how I feel every day, I now understand when people say it improves mental health.

3. You Are Not Writing for Everyone: This was a hard pill to swallow. I believed by now, LinkedIn would have made me go viral (be honest, it's a common feeling). But the more I write, the more I realise I'm doing myself a bigger favour than anyone reading. However, I've seen that a few (maybe less than 20 people) consistently engage with my articles; these are the people I write for. I've come to accept that I'm not writing for everyone, but for those who consistently read my articles, I should keep going.

4. Consistency is Very HARD: Can you imagine how many times I wanted to quit? Think about it: you wake up one morning and think people care about what you have to say, and then off you go on a writing journey. There have been times when I felt there was no reason to write because nobody cares, weeks when I say to myself 'If I quit now, nobody would notice'. But in those moments, one thing stood out for me— even if nobody cares or notices when I quit, I would. And I've learned the biggest sense of disappointment is the one you have in yourself, so I've kept going.

5. Planning is Important: When I resolved to write every week for a year, I wrote down all the topics I wanted to write about and why they were important first to me and then to others (for the other part, this is where research came in). I also established a system to keep myself accountable and identified people whose posts on social media or conversations would fuel me. And off I went. Planning does help a lot.

I know this is a long article, but I am very proud of myself for reaching article 20 of week 20. I wanted to share a bit about how things have been and thank all of you for reading—especially you, the very consistent few.

Here’s to the next 20! I hope you hold me accountable for them.