Nervous Energy

For all the posts I have written, startups I have talked to, and entrepreneurs I have met, advised, invested in (mostly from the perspective of a product manager and someone who has scaled products), I have never been an entrepreneur myself. In many ways, my career has been an copybook big company management track. I have seen entrepreneurship from close quarters though and that allows me a certain perspective on what could work and what might not. And I suspect that my kind of entrepreneurial journey is a little different from someone who are at the start of their career. For one, I have the benefit of an ecosystem of friends and supporters who are keen to work with me, and help me succeed. I can’t be grateful enough to them.

However, for all the years of work, companies I have been a part of, products I have helped build, starting something from scratch feels like being on the ground floor again. There is a sense of humility in how little we know; there is a persistent sense of nervousness, of an uncomfortable ambiguity of plunging into the unknown. All of the success (and failures) of the past mean little. In some ways, the past experience is a shackle. What if we end up doing something that is ‘less successful’ than the gigs of the past?

In the end, you have to let go of your ego. This does not feel logical, you can probably make more money and possibly have more impact with another exec job. But perhaps this isn’t about those things. Perhaps its about growing as a person. The rest will happen if it has to.

Successful executive careers do not imply entrepreneurial success. Just like great entrepreneurs can be awful at running large companies. Whether I end up building something, or go back and take another job; whether it takes a couple of months or a couple of years to find the right product-market fit; one thing is guaranteed: I will learn new things, and hopefully grow. And that is more than anyone can ask for from life.

This nervous energy is what makes it all worth it.