As a growth and marketing person for the past decade-plus, my mantra has been “existential urgency.” I think that startups without existential urgency don’t win. 

This does not mean having existential urgency guarantees a win because Sand Hill Road is paved with great startups that didn’t achieve their full potential.

This conviction regarding existential urgency was even further solidified as I was exposed to the daily life at companies like PillPack and Uber and through my own experience leading growth at Plastiq.

Ravi Gupta — Partner at Sequoia, Former COO & CFO of Instacart — just gave me my favorite post of this young 2022, and the title is perfect: Desperation-Induced Focus.

I’d offer to share my highlights, but it would be easier for me to share words that I didn’t highlight.

This section embodies the theme of Ravi’s post… 

When I think of my time at Instacart, I remember desperation. It was painful. But it was also powerful. Our best moments as a company came when we shared a singular purpose. Our most fun moments as a team came when our backs were against the wall.

In my experience, desperation is the single greatest advantage you have as a startup. It takes you down to the lowest level of detail. Desperation inspires creativity and intense focus. It is an essential ingredient to building great products and services.

Desperation does not mean panic.

Desperation does not mean fear.

Desperation does not mean “try anything and see if it sticks,” but rather intensely focusing on one thing.

The other message in Ravi’s post is that startups should be inspired by the foundation and creation stories of successful startups who came before. Still, those once-startups are often now bloated, unfocused, bureaucracy-driven big orgs.

Nikita Bier describes his experience at Facebook as “My coworkers were a bunch of risk-averse MBAs who’d never build something that cool.”

This leads me to the final sentence of Ravi’s post…

Don’t let them infect your company with the thing that is slowly killing theirs.

I’m going to be sharing this article like candy for the rest of my life.

This post was written while enjoying…
⚽️ Timbers-Revolution
🌱 Athletic Greens