Understanding the contradictions in the platitudes around startup life

Context

In the age where attention spans are down to shreds, there's a push to capture attention with short-form content. Talking about the premise of the post - within the tech blogosphere, there's an undercurrent to sound profound with 6-8 words. Not a word more.

Yours truly has been the susceptible consumer of all this content in the last few years. And at the end of it, having worked in different places and scenarios, have come to realize that most of the gyaan shared is contextual, applicable only in a few situations.

In this article, I will take a few themes that are generally recycled in LinkedIn posts or Twitter threads and share how even the opposite ends of the arguments are true. This is to push forward the idea that while consuming sound bites over social media, it's important to understand that the maxims being shared are far from the capital T truth.

FYI - For the folks unaware of the word - gyaan - it roughly equates to preachy platitudes/maxims.

To be a specialist (or) To be a generalist

There is a school of thought that promotes the idea that the "successful" people are mostly specialists. We chance upon those narratives every now and then in some article, book, or sappy LinkedIn posts. That we need to go deep into a problem for years and devote ourselves to it.

There are a bunch of timeless quotes as well - The fox knows many things but the hedgehog knows only one thing.

And sure enough. There are credible examples to that end as well. Bill Gates for revolutionizing the PC industry, Jensen Huang for Nvidia, or Noubar Afeyan from Moderna. These are people who from very early in their career focussed on one problem and became deep experts to create a career in it.

At the same time, there are tons of examples of generalists that have gone to build companies in sectors wildly different from what they had worked in before.

Charles Babbage (not cabbage) - the person credited as the father of computers - used to in the business of silk weaving from where he was able to derive inspiration to build a computing device.

Radhakishan Damani - founder of DMart used to sell ball bearings and was a stock trader for decades. He was quite far away from the mechanics of offline retail. It was only at 47 years old, that he started DMart which has become a darling of the stock market.

Ramdev, the self-proclaimed yoga guru, and a full-time snake-oil salesman .... is, of course, a lot of faces. He has managed media, became a populist yoga teacher, and scaled Patanjali which is a retail company. I'm not advocating for his dubious methods but just highlighting the examples where we see the generalists working well too.

There are also people like Jonny Kim - who happens to be a former SEAL, physician, and NASA astronaut. Talk about the "range" the guy has.

When a generalist succeeds somewhere - we craft the narrative of - Hey, so since this person came from "outside" the industry, s/he brought in innovation and wasn't bound by the myopia of the insiders.

Eg: if we looked at Slack, we'd say that hey these guys reimagined business software because they didn't come from the industry as the founders were originally working on a gaming project.

However - when a specialist (someone who has spent years or decades) does well - we craft the narrative of - Look because so and so spent decades and years on this, s/he was successful.

Eg: if we looked at Zoom, we'd say that Zoom succeeded because Eric Yuan knew the video conferencing space from the back of his hand from his experience at Cisco.

The bottom line is - that this idea of "success" - as amorphous and subjective it is - isn't bound as much by if someone chooses to either be a generalist or a specialist. And all this force-fitting of the narrative is mostly cherry-picking the instances in which our worldview fits to.

To bet on the team (or) To bet on the market

This is a classic problem for investors.

A lot of the VCs pitch themselves to be founders first, betting on the people and not necessarily on the validations around the market. If there's a clear validation on the market, it's icing on the cake. However, the absence of a clear market size doesn't invalidate their bet. Matrix Partners in India takes this stance in their public views as well.

At the same time, a lot of VCs pitch themselves as the market first. They have a thesis that even mediocre teams can probably lead to a good outcome in a great market and great teams fail in tough markets. Here's an excellent post by Sajith Pai - a VC with Blume Ventures on this particular prompt.

While market-first or founders-first isn't always an either-or situation and folks betting on either philosophy would still want to have the checks and balances ensured - the bottom line, similar to the last example, is - Contrasting philosophies work.

To build marginally incremental products (or) To reimagine industries like iPhone or Tesla

There's another contrast?here where one school of thought banks over improving the products one pixel or one nut bolt at a time while another school of thought indexes on reimagining products.

The whole industry of A/B testing has one of the tenets around the worldview of incremental improvement - like play around with different iterations of product pages in an e-commerce platform. This leads to "local optimization" - optimizing the current offerings by tweaking things here and there. Some of them turn out to be quite impactful, but most of them either fail or have minimal impact. It's considered part of the process.

And then there's a view of completely reimagining the industry or the product itself - sometimes without the luxury of A/B testing every detail. For eg - there was no A/B testing done when Musk decided to start SpaceX. It's the pure conviction to realize a dream backed by principles from Physics. Or when CZ decided to start Binance, he didn't do an AB test. Zooming out, starting Binance itself was the AB test for CZ as starting out SpaceX for Musk

Product decisions without AB testing may lead to step changes - either good or bad but sometimes you don't have the luxury to test every detail.

The bottom line being is - Both the approaches (AB testing or not AB testing) work in different situations and depend on the world views of the person driving the decision-making.

d) To go all-in without a backup (or) To have a Plan B & Plan C

This is another hotly debated topic with opposite views.

A well-known founder in the Indian startup ecosystem posted his view a few months back - where s/he took the stance of having backups.

However - Will Smith (one of the most popular actors and a recent meme culture subject) had taken the opposite view:

There are a lot of people who also take an either-or stance around keeping backups. Personally, I'm on the have-backups camp.

Research is also scarce on this. Sometime in 2016, there was an article in Scientific American where the argument was that having a Plan B could be detrimental to the success of the original plan. However, it's still not conclusive.

The bottom line is - two contradictory philosophies could be true.

Trust data and analytics (or) Trust gut and intuition?

Data, as useful as it is, is a proxy for deciding through consensus. Say you survey 100 people for a certain product or feature and if 90 say they don't want to use it - we sometimes consider that as a goodbye for the product or feature

However, what people say they need ≠ what people do (ref: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/first-rule-of-usability-dont-listen-to-users/)

So how do you build products in such situations? Clearly, no study from Gartner or McKinsey could have predicted the need for an iPhone or a Tesla. Most of the market research revolves around extrapolating what already exists and growing or decreasing that by certain percentages. Market research data generally has a poor record of envisioning step function changes.

Hence, you have this duality where local optimization is done on existing products through data and dashboards but global maximization is done through imagining and building new products that shift the paradigm. An example from Naveen Rao from Databricks being a proponent of envisioning new products rather than overtly relying on user interviews

A penny saved is a penny earned (or) Penny-wise, pound-foolish

Growing up in Jharkhand, saving each penny was the lesson inculcated in us. The purse was tight and financial prudence was a key goal. Also anecdotally, in a lot of Marwari families in India - there's pride associated with being the most efficient in saving money. So we use jugaad, haggle and negotiate for hours to save an extra 10 INR on the grocery purchase.

That's the lesson I grew up with - A penny saved is a penny earned. I'm sure a lot of you would be able to associate with it.

However, there's another line of thought that emphasizes more on evaluating the opportunity costs. Say, you would be able to save INR 50 by finding a coupon online if you devote 2 hours to it.

Should you do it? If you're in a life stage where you focus on - a penny saved is a penny earned - you go for saving that extra 50 bucks.

However, if you could have invested that 2 hours into yourself by upskilling or resting - that potentially has much more value than INR 50 - that's a loss. So penny-wise, pound-foolish?

There's no one-size-fits-all answer to this scenario as well. For someone who's time-rich, money-poor, INR 50 could be a decent sum to spend two hours on. So a penny saved is a penny earned.

For someone who's money-rich and time-poor, it's a no-go. So penny-wise, pound-foolish.

Bottom line: Contradictory philosophies work

Build and they will come (or) Distribution is King

When it comes to product development, there has been a discussion around indexing on Distribution or just quietly building the product, heads down.

Some side on - Keep building and they will come. This typically entails razor-sharp focus on product development, and strong feedback loops but maybe not so much work around marketing and distribution.

However, there is also been a discussion on why Distribution is more important than just building the product. Essentially - put efforts into getting the product into as many hands as possible. Here's a good repository of takes on evaluating Distribution v/s Product.

Please note that I'm not advocating for an either-or situation here. One could have both a great product and great distribution.

But the bottom line is - contradictory philosophies work

Patience is a virtue (or) Move fast and break things

There's a line of thought that you should move fast and break things to find the PMF. There are variations of this philosophy with "breaking old rules to create new ones" or how experimentation leads to insights and discovering things you enjoy the most. This philosophy, when talking about companies, was popularized through Facebook. Given it worked out well for them, there were a million thoughtboi posts on Medium about how it's the holy grail.

Then there's also the line of thought that places value on the importance of patience and giving things their time - even if they don't seem to work out in the short to medium term. Builders and founders sticking to their core vision, the grit, and the archetype of - grinding away at the same thing - to finally bask in the glory. One can consider Elon Musk to fit this bill with years of toll, and failures at both Tesla and SpaceX. Admittedly, there must be millions of thoughtboi Twitter threads extolling this philosophy as well. Even Apple is probably on the opposite side of "move fast and break things" which is known for shipping features that are lagging by years compared to Android.

But I ask you as the dear reader, is one of the above philosophies, necessarily the only truth?

OpenSea - the NFT marketplace - was founded in late 2017 and lived through crypto-winter for 3-4 years before becoming a cool-hipster crypto punk destination. While there must have been tons of experimentations during 2018-2020, the core vision was steadfast, despite the headwinds.

But take the example of ClickUp or Slack - they were not part of the original vision of the founding team. Zeb Evans, the founder of ClickUp was running a social media marketing firm when he realized that none of the task management tools were really cutting it for his team. So ClickUp was born - closer to the maxim of pivoting fast, breaking the old rules.

Bottom line - contrasting philosophies work.

To bundle the products (or) unbundle them

There's a famous quote attributed to James Barksdale, former CEO of Netscape. It's mentioned that in a middle of a conversation a few decades back, he quipped - Gentlemen, there are only two ways I know of to make money: bundling and unbundling.

While you can't help but be amused with the quote, there's lots of truth in it. As an example - there are platforms that had a premise that - hey, the incumbents are trying to do a lot of things and they aren't doing it properly - so I can take a vertical out of it to make it better.

Think of Airbnb, Uber, DoorDash - slices taken out of Craigslist each time. Or in India - think of Ola, Zomato, Oyo - slices taken out of JustDial each time.

That makes sense, right?

On the opposite side, there's also the view of bundling everything in one platform - cue to the idea of super apps. The thinking goes like this - hey, so many people are coming to us daily for their payments or booking a cab. Can I offer them food delivery, ticket booking, online games yada yada?

Think of Grab or PayTM in APAC. A zillion other companies trying to ape the success WeChat had in China - from Tata group with their Neu app, Reliance to even Shriram group!

However, they both are contrasting approaches to solving the problem of serving the users and expanding the business.

Having a highly visible public persona (or) Building quietly

There are popular leaders or founders, giving gyaan on Twitter threads - asking for product features publicly and generally crafting an approachable public persona.

And there is Supam Maheshwari (founder of three unicorns in India - FirstCry, XpressBees, and GlobalBees) whom a lot of folks may not have even heard of as well.

The majority of people lie somewhere in between - engaging enough to be publicly available but not a hyperactive social media gyaani.

So while some of the thinkbois dole out twitter threads on life, the universe, and everything, Supam doesn't do any of it. He has no active public social media profile, and he doesn't angel invest but he has built equally successful, enduring companies - with strong ops, finances, and not just a fancy narrative.

The bottom line - there's no "one way" to build successful companies - and contrasting philosophies work.

To be outspoken and pushy (or) To be calm and empathetic

Let's talk about some personality traits now.

Growing up, we have heard and read different narratives on how one needs to be a certain type to do well in becoming a corporate leader. A lot of the hot takes have argued for being caring, kind but assertive, and open to feedback - cutting down the ego, yada yada.

All of that is something I also principally align with. However, as reality shows us time and again - they aren't the capital T truth.

At this point in time, all of us follow Lord Elon and by most accounts, he's quite an outlier. With all the amazing stuff he has done and the genius he has demonstrated, he's not exactly an easy person to get along with. The same goes for Travis Kalanick at Uber and Ashneer Grover at BharatPe. I'm just quoting a few popular examples but you get the drift.

Compare this persona of brash-outspoken-controversial to Changpeng Zhao from Binance. CZ, as he is popularly known - has stated about never shouting at anyone at Binance. Now, Binance by most accounts has an intense work culture but CZ doesn't exude the persona of a persona who has to sound edgy to attract attention.

Or consider someone like Satya Nadella (sure Satya isn't a founder) but a heavyweight in his own right. Satya isn't known to be brash, rude, or egoistic. Or Peeyush Bansal at LensKart and Girish Mathrubootham at Freshworks. The general demeanor that they have is markedly different from the brash, move-fast-and-break-things persona the other set demonstrates. However, in terms of performance - both extremes have been shown to work.

There's a wide range of traits one can adopt and still be at the top of the totem pole.

Bottomline - contradictory personalities work

So where does all of this gyaan leave us?

Hopefully - with a few of the above prompts I covered earlier - it makes for a compelling case of acknowledging that business takes aren't one-size-fits-all answers. The one-liners have a kernel of truth to them but - the polar opposite stances also work!

That while cognitive dissonance is uncomfortable, the reality of our lives is that sometimes the contradictory beliefs are true in their own accord.

You look at the list of the richest people and you will find that for every person who posits crypto as revolutionary, another one is dismissive. The reasoning could be a bunch of factors - underlying biases, belief systems, vested interests (more often). As a recipient, we're not exposed to their inner workings and neither do we have the time and energy for it since 27 messages are waiting to be replied to on Instagram.

All we're reading or rather scrolling by are their one-liner takes. Charlie Munger says Bitcoin is crap and Jack Dorsey says Bitcoin is going to save the world. Both are iconic folks and have completely opposite points of view.

So where does that leave the plebs like us?

My hot take is that it goes back to the age-old idea of doing what one feels is the best. You could augment the decision-making through high-quality analysis. Hence, all these so-called rules hence should be scrutinized regularly. That being mentioned - here's what I think we as consumers of this type of content can do:

a) Treat all these wide-encompassing, profound-sounding takes with dollops of salt.

b) DYOR or Think for yourself (I mean we all gotta start adopting the Web3 terms)

c) The shorter that hot take is, the more reductionist or over-simplified it is.

d) That while we take conviction in our stances and double down on an ideology - please understand that the opposite also worked for someone.

I know none of the above takes to sound like a deterministic answer to what some of the tweets sound like. However, I can't possibly claim to give a profound - 6 worded view on something that encompasses everyone and their situations.

On the content creators' side - I wish we all can imbibe a little bit of understanding that our subjective experiences aren't the capital T truth. That while we take our stances and double down on an ideology - please understand that the opposite also worked for someone. So let's be a little more inclusive and humble while preaching a hot take with 6 words.

Thank you for reading thus far. As always, all sort of feedback is welcome.

References

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-human-beast/201202/proverbs-contradict-each-other

https://xdg.me/writing/

https://www.swyx.io/8020

https://julianconnor.medium.com/to-bundle-or-not-to-bundle-that-is-the-question-95092146b816

https://stratechery.com/outline/bundling-and-unbundling/

https://luttig.substack.com/p/timeful-advice

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3moo2u/what_two_famous_quotes_contradict_each_other/

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/6p40jf/what_popular_quotes_contradict_each_other/