Foundery: Where Founders become their tribe

After coaching hundreds of early-stage startup founders, one thing is crystal clear: the founder's journey isn't linear. It's a dynamic dance between crafting a future we (sometimes fuzzily) see in our heads and reading the tea leaves (sometimes fuzzily) of those we aspire to help. And all that fuzziness leads us to feel a lot, and those feelings don't always set us up to thrive. Being a founder means solving problems daily, but the journey from shaping a mission with your co-founders to building a venture with a product and delighted customers is 🅽🅾🆃 a problem to be solved. It's a reality to become comfortable with— all the discomfort included. ∞ One tool I love & find incredibly helpful in these situations, where two interdependent yet seemingly mutually exclusive things are true, is Barry Johnson's polarity map. (A wonderful overview for curious 😸: sloww.co/polarity-thinking-1…) 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝗣𝗼𝗹𝗮𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗠𝗮𝗽? A map for those pesky situations— like breathing 🙊— where you have interdependent variables and need the benefit of both, without choosing one 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳 the other. Inhaling/exhaling aren't isolated actions to be optimized but a dynamic system where flow is what we're after. There's tension because both poles are needed, but over-rotating on one robs resources from the other. This is a founder's life, daily. (Also, breathe) Mapping polarities is powerful b/c it helps founders thrive by offloading the cog load in high-tension moments, when the pace is fast, and we're barely hanging on by a thread. They arm us with pre-determined early warning signs we can rely on. The counterintuitive challenge with polarities is, over-rotating on one pole results in the downsides of both. But the counter is true too— you can thrive by harmonizing both poles 🙌 🔥. ∞ The meta-polarity for founders to harmonize is their own intuition with the "market" truth (real market, i.e. customers, not "expert" proxies 🤬) Say 👋, and I'll share more this week about exactly how we can do this. ∞ PS: What are the downsides, for founding teams, if we're out of balance here? Well, symptoms like- lack of alignment, slow product velocity, poor PMF 😳. The root cause: how founders feel → to how they execute. Founders who feel bulletproof, who have this internal sense of conviction, they know they're on the right path (even if they don't know what path they're on this very second) are the ones who execute best, unlock PMF, and ultimately their venture. Your (mental) health deserves it.

Early founders take note: Investors’ goals are not your own. (They may be, but there’s many many many paths where they’re not. Buyer beware.) 👇🏼🔥 #Truth

❤️ this. @spc has always been an inspiration for Foundery. Great founders are everywhere and not all can move to SF. But for those who want to, this community is absolutely special. It takes a village, and there’s always power in ‘our’.

Imho this applies to 1 thing, and 1 thing only. Learn faster. Everything you do as a day 0 founder- *including slowing down*- is in service to that. (Not dunking on anyone. Not even close to my style. Many roads lead to success. Find yours.)