Of Time & Intensity

The World Athletics Championships currently taking place in Budapest inspired me to walk (actually racewalk) down memory lane. In this article, I reflect on the similarities I have encountered in my journey as founder at Dokin with my experience as a national-level athlete in my teenage years.

Racewalking

If you have known me for a while you probably already know my dirty little secret.?

If you don’t, here it is: I used to be a national-level racewalker during my teenage years.?

If you have no idea of what racewalking is, let me clue you in. It’s that weird sport that pops up on your TV while you are watching the Olympics, made of shaking hips and locked knees, making it a weird mix between running and samba dancing.

For a better explanation, and a good laugh, you should check out this Malcolm in the middle episode (I wish I had Hal’s same outfit, sigh).

“It’s like watching the Gods return to the Olympus” LOL

If you are actually intrigued by this challenging sport, check out history and rules on the Olympics website.

I wasn’t necessarily what you would call a champion, but I competed at national level in Italy, with a silver medal in the 20K and a bronze in the 10K on track. The level of the competition was fairly high. The Italian champion of my category, Massimo Stano, kept on going and became the Olympic champion in Tokyo 2021. I am proud to say I shared a podium with him once.?

Racewalking is a weird sport, and doing it in your teenage years while at high school is a real challenge for many reasons. Everybody makes fun of you and your sport. “You look so gay!”, it’s the most common slur you would hear from random strangers, for no reason, while you were training. And yes, you have to train. Hard. Everyday, for hours. At an age where most of your friends are out partying, creating the first basis of social life, you are spending hours outside, in the blister or sun, following a strict and specific diet, and burning the soles of your shoes.

All of that for a sport where making it to pro levels does not make any economic sense.?

I eventually quit racewalking once I turned 19, as I felt I had attained the objectives that I had been chasing for a while and after realizing I wasn’t going to make a living out of it, and that it wasn’t necessarily the life I would have wanted to live. However, I cherish those 6 years of my life as they allowed me to meet great friends, and learn the meaning of working as a team and overall contributed greatly to making me the man I am today.

As I sit back reflecting on my first few months as a scrappy startup founder, I find it impressive to re-live similar sensations to those I felt when I was putting in the hours to succeed in that weird and disregarded sport that is racewalking. And funnily enough, many of the skills I had learned at the time are extremely transferable during my current attempt at entrepreneurship.

Startups and Racewalking

Indeed, launching a startup is not much different from a long-distance, cardio intense sport. Hear me out.

For start, entrepreneurship is not a sprint. It’s a long-distance and tiring game. Just like in a marathon, things can go south really quickly. Not too mention, that both in racewalking and in startups, people around you wonder why the f**k you are doing what you are doing.?

"Why are you giving up your salary? Why are you training (or working) on a Saturday? Your chances of making it to pro (or to a successful founder) are basically 0".

In addition to that you meet plenty of people, experts, investors, previous founders (or athletes) who all have advice to share on what you are doing right or wrong. And while some of it is spot on, most of the time they do not really have any idea of how their experience applies to your specific case. It’s a lonely road; you and your team against the world. Only some specific people can really help you. You need to find a really good coach that knows how to help you and guide you. And you gotta put in the hours, drip sweat and tears, knowing that you are in an unfair game, where playing by the rules doesn’t necessarily lead to success. It’s a continuous roller coaster, filled with dark moments and small victories.?

But it all comes down to two factors: time and intensity.

Time and Intensity

In both sports and entrepreneurship, there are very few examples of overnight successes. Though some athletes or entrepreneurs are blessed by talent and luck, it takes time to build a champion. In sports, it’s a matter of training, conditioning and rest. In entrepreneurship, it’s a matter of learning, testing, pivoting, innovating, and building. Succeeding requires putting time into it.?

On the other hand, intensity is perhaps the most important factor. Intensity is what allows us to go further and faster when we take on ambitious endeavors. As an athlete, it might be pushing through the pain of lactic acid buildup in those last few sets or the countless weekly competitions aiming for the podium. As a startupper, it could be dealing with users' churn, multiple rejections in your attempts to secure funding, or staying up until the early hours of the morning to finish a project. Intensity is the driving force behind our discipline and focus, and with every increase in intensity comes a greater likelihood of success. To put it simple, how much do you sweat after a training session? Though sweating levels change based on our bodies, it is on average a good indication of the intensity of a workout. One year at level 5 intensity, achieves greater than 2 years at level 1.

And again, it’s an unfair game. You may be putting the hours, growing your skills and improving, but if the market doesn’t want your product, or on race day you twist your ankle, you just aren’t going to make it.

“So many times it happens too fast, You trade your passion for glory”

While time is a factor that depends on multiple conditions (age, place, economic sense…) at the core of intensity lies passion. Passion is the fuel that sustains the will to invest the intensity necessary for success, and the consistency to do it over time even when it doesn’t seem to make any of the above sense. Without it, there would be no way to keep up the intensity for lengthy periods of time, and the time investment would become too burdensome without the reward of passion. It is passion that allows you to keep going when the times gets rough and when your result make it so that is?

The above lyrics from Eye of the Tiger by Survivor probably best describe the underlying notion of each one’s art. Glory and money are very bad motivators. When I was at BlaBlaCar, in the midst of the “Great Resignation” where employees all around the world felt they could get whatever they wanted, with better pay anywhere else, I attended a management training where the mentor, to answer to some colleagues asking whether simply increasing salaries wouldn’t have solved the issue, shocked everybody by saying “money is a very bad motivator”. While some misunderstood the answer for the cliché and banal “money doesn't buy happiness”, that answer really had a deeper sense.

Money-focused motivation is the perfect recipe for unhappiness. If the only or main thing motivating you to join a new company, starting a business, a sport or learn a skill is money, then you are in trouble. When things start getting tough and de-motivating, you’ll need some other force to push your intensity further.?

Starting a business doesn’t make economic sense, really. You need to invest a lot of time and resources before being able to see even the tiniest form of economic benefit, and the thirst for money may and will make you quit very soon. Before being able to see them.?

A lot of things in life don’t make economic sense. In most cases, these are the ones that are most thrilling to live. And though it’s way easier to sit on the side of rational reasoning, passion doesn’t answer logic. A founder shouldn’t be listening to statistics or caring about the odds of success, cause by this logic, they wouldn't bother trying since most time these are going to be against them.

It’s all a weird mix of passion, foolishness, vision and market understanding. It comes down to the remaining words of that Survivor lyrics: “Don't lose your grip on the dreams of the past, you must fight just to keep them alive”.

P.S.: This is my first article. I'm looking to write one like this every month. Wanna show me some love ??? Follow me, Jacopo Proietti, on LinkedIn to stay up to date and follow my journey building Dokin.