When I Do My Best Work

• #thoughts
• #startup

Solving problems not executing on solutions

I work best when presented with big problems. And, to me, no problem is more exciting than reaching PMF.

I like to question assumptions, and make use of my multi-disciplinary knowledge to solve solutions.

I like to work with weirdos who have integrity

I work best when there’s at least one other person who’s a bit of an outlier, someone who at the minimum can picture unconventional way to do work, and is ready to experiment with things that are outside of what is considered best practices. And, either me or the other outlier has significant leverage within the organization to enact change.

Most company I worked with have two types of people:

1. Improvement-driven: People who continually focus on how to do things right
2. Idea-driven¹ : People who continually focus on how to do the right thing.

Most people have some percentage of both these traits. And most companies, on average a certain distribution of people with this traits.

I’m a type idea-driven person (95% type 2, 5% type1) - I care about building the right thing. To build the right things you sometimes need to go beyond the standard and accepted way to move forward.

To have a healthy startup, I believe you need to have 80% of “Improvement-driven” people, 20% of type “idea-driven” people.

Startups where everyone focuses on doing the right thing rarely see projects until completion because there’s is a constant reinvention that takes places all the time. And ideas need time to sink in. time-is-a-necessary-process-for-success.

Startups where everyone is focused on how to do the things right often see projects to completion, but they tend to create useless products. The assumption being that you’re building the right thing - which is something you can’t ever know.

I usually do my best work in companies that exhibit something close to this ratio.