obsession > optimization

I've watched some of my closest friends make their first million dollars this past year.

There's one striking thing that they all have in common.

They all live and breathe their companies.

And it's not because they're on some insane grind mentality, or working an unhealthy amount.

Actually, most of them have full lives outside of work and/or large family responsibilities.

But they all genuinely believe that they are improving the world by working on their specific idea.

So much so that it became part of their identity.

You can't look to a VC market map to tell you what matters to you.

It hurt them when their product didn't work perfectly. Not because customers churned or whatever, but because they saw themselves as "the type of person who cares about quality."

They couldn't ignore customer service tickets because they were "the type of person who actually cares about users."

You can’t force excellence, it comes from care.

And you can’t fake care.

Building anything worthwhile is certainly hard.

No one can prepare you for the personal sacrifices that come with trying to build something big.

But if it feels like you're constantly forcing yourself to do things you hate, it’s worth taking a step back -

no amount of optimization ever beat real obsession.