Why the humble founder wins
And how to avoid the assumption trap
If you're going to assume anything as a founder, assume you don't know anything.
That's the only way to truly hack yourself so you can prevent your biases from destroying your breakthrough. If they’re not careful, founders tend to get in the way of insights.
You have to know that things will never turn out the way you expect. Being an entrepreneur is not like being a scientist. We don’t have the luxury of running experiments in a lab where we can control and manipulate all elements to our favor.
The lab where we run experiments is pitch dark and full of risk and uncertainty. Our lab spits out more questions than answers, doesn’t come with a user manual and is constantly changing the rules of engagement.
If your only barometer of value comes from your own assumptions, you are both judge and jury of a dangerous quicksand trap which too many founders have fallen into. If you judge things as right or wrong, correct or incorrect just by comparing them to your pre-conceived assumption, you run the risk of not only failing to learn but also killing your business.
Unfortunately, we are sadly pre-coded to anchor our identity and ego to our assumptions. If we are wrong, we self-sabotage and punish ourselves. And since being wrong hurts, we protect ourselves against it by becoming stubborn and blind and convincing ourselves that we are right and the rest of the world doesn’t understand us.
That’s why you have to treat your solutions as mere hypotheses. You can love your solution but you have to love the problem even more. Too many founders fall narcissistically in love with their product and fail to pivot, adapt, and continue to experiment because of it.
That’s exactly why the humble founder, addicted to continuous learning and free exploration, wins while the stubborn founder dies. Entrepreneurship is not to be taken personally. It is a beautiful game of experimentation which should be taken whimsically and lightly.
Keep a flexible heart and mind, both eager to be proven wrong, and smile at your evolution. Nothing is defined - that is the evolutionary possibility of being a founder.