What games teach founders

Running a startup like IDPartner Systems requires an insane amount of drive. Progress is always followed by setbacks. Many setbacks. You have to keep going. Eventually, you make progress.

Three things in my life have reminded me of lessons that help me to "keep on keeping on."

Softball: The season has just started and my oldest is playing first base. The team won the first game. But the point of high school sports isn't to win. It's to lose. To lose and then come back and play again. Show up at practice the next day. Keep working. Keep trying. And remember Yogi Berra "Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains."

Wordle: Here's an analysis of my recent Wordle scores:

My skill level is higher, my luck was lower, and I ended up needing more steps than the average player. Over time, this averages out. If your skill is better, if your product is better, if you keep going and knock on enough doors, you will "win" ... but you must keep going.

Chess Puzzles: I am just learning to play chess. I find chess puzzles to be a great mental reset button. After 3 minutes of chess puzzles my mind is clear and I can get on with the next big work task. My progress, however, is another matter. It has taken a long time to slowly develop the tactical chess muscle in my brain. Chess puzzles teach tactics. You in the middle of a fight — how do you win the next 3 steps? The graph at the top of this article shows that progress is not always steady. But in the face of grit and determination, steady progress is possible ... over time. Setbacks will happen. You will take steps forward only to be pushed back. Keep Going.

At my startup, IDPartner Systems we are trying to stop online Fraud, Extortion Through Ransomware, Damage and Loss of Data due to Hacking, Theft of Data and IP, Online Harassment, Invasion of Privacy, Manipulation Through Misinformation, Exploitation and Cyber Terrorism.

These are all massive problems. They have a common factor: they are all enabled by weaponized anonymity. We need to solve Digital Identity. This is not just an electronic version of your driver's license that you can show when you are standing in person trying to get access to a bar. We need to solve the problem of how a business can figure out who the anonymous end user at the other end of an anonymous internet session really is.

Our solution is to flip the problem and empower end users to prove they are who they claim to be with a verification from their bank. If you would like to experience Bank-based ID for your self, try out NotABot by IDPartner