Do what you must.

“Do the one thing”?

More like “Do what you must”.

Let me explain…

Things are *never* clear-cut and easy unless you’re lucky enough to have the cash, network and time to do things as methodically as the books might suggest you do.

Sadly, we aren’t all lucky enough to have trust funds.

The vast majority of folks (inc. me) wouldn’t be able to raise a “friends and family round” beyond five figures, let alone four.

Having to keep doing the things you require to keep the lights on and keep loved ones fed, often means that jobs/things will overlap & get messy. This is *normal* and generally necessary to keep you alive while working on “the one thing”. Sometimes people talk about these things. Sometimes they don’t. After a convo today, I wanted to re-highlight it.

All of this is true for me too. I’m working on something new and I’m MEGA excited to bring it to the world. But I also already do other things like most people.

Right now I am:

1. Running Dffrnt — which has existed for 7+ years now and has a community I want to continue to support. It has recently pivoted to deliver greater impact, more easily, to free me up for the new thing while doing better as a company than we ever have before.

2. Running Rebel Meetups — where Dffrnt started. People often confuse the two. I’m separating the brands to ease this (and live streaming that on youtube). I’m keeping this because people still need a safe space to connect and share ideas.

3. And consulting, advising + doing talks to pay bills — surprising to some but I don’t take a salary from Dffrnt and the Meetups make no money as they have no sponsors post-covid. Consulting for day rates is what keeps my lights on.

This is the reality for the *majority* of early founders.

These things may seem like ‘distractions’ to investors. They may expect founders to go ‘all-in’. We plan to. But until we have a company there, that generates cash, we have to pay rent + bills.

Can we please stop expecting them to drop everything for the new thing until they are *genuinely* able to?

Can we please stop expecting them to hide these realities so that entrepreneurship seems mysterious and out of reach to others?

Perhaps contrarian thinking but I truly believe that founders less worried about keeping a roof over their heads will burn out less and build better companies and they’ll have the brain space to think more creatively.

Sure, urgency is powerful + creates action too, but both can be true.

Simply put, let’s be more mindful of the different circumstances people have and how they might affect their ability to start things and grow them.

If you have a world-changing idea but you’re working right now. More power to you. Work on it when you can. Take the leap when you can. Do that as soon as you can. Look after your financial & mental health in the meantime. Everything will suffer more if you sacrifice those.