Do You Know Your "Why"?
Entrepreneur Office Hours - Issue #286
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Even though we’re in the middle of summer, one of the students I’m close with happened to be in Durham for a day, and we decided to have lunch. She’s a rising senior, but, when we first met, she was a first-semester freshman taking my social marketing class.
Wide-eyed. Polite. Anxious in that subtle Duke-student kind of way, where every sentence feels like it’s being triple-checked for how it might appear on a résumé. She wanted to “explore entrepreneurship,” though I remember it being less a declaration and more a question — like she wasn’t sure if she was allowed.
I get lots of those conversations… freshmen who show up to my office hours already plotting their iBanking internships, or pre-meds panic-studying for the MCAT despite not knowing what a residency actually entails. They’re all racing toward something, and, of course, none of them ever stop to ask whether the race is worth it.
But this student — the one I had lunch with today — has always been one of the “different” ones. Rather than knowing exactly what she wanted, she was open to the idea that not knowing might be a feature rather than a bug.
Fast-forward three years, and here she is: confident, self-assured, energized by work she loves. She’s spending the summer at a company that already wants to hire her full-time. More importantly, she’s not spending her days obsessing over her GPA. She’s stopped playing the school game and is focused on building something better. The transformation is amazing to see, and, as someone who feels like he had at least a tiny part in enabling that transformation, I spent the entire meal beaming with pride.
People sometimes ask why I teach. They specifically want to know why, if I care so much about startups, I’m not running one. And sure, I could give a dozen practical answers. But the real one is this:
Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you get to help someone change the entire trajectory of their life. However, as an educator, I get to accomplish that over and over and over again, and it gives me a feeling of meaningful impact in the world that no cap table could ever reflect.
By the way, this isn’t an argument against building companies or that everyone should become a teacher. Instead, I’m trying to remind all of you that your life’s work — no matter what you choose to pursue — should feel meaningful and valuable to you. It has to give you purpose and serve as your “Why?”
Don’t forget that joy and meaning are metrics, too, and if you’re chasing something just because everyone else is, you’re allowed to stop and ask if it actually brings you value.
-Aaron
This week’s new articles…
The Slide You Need to Remove From Your Pitch Deck Immediately
The moment investors see this one slide in your deck, they’re going to stop listening to whatever you’re pitching.
To Raise Venture Capital, Founders Need to Know if They’re Selling Tequila or a Cure for Cancer
Too many founders forget that different types of startups require fundamentally different fundraising strategies.
Office Hours Q&A
QUESTION:
Dear Aaron:
I just wanted to start by saying how much I appreciate your content. It always feels like you're saying the quiet parts out loud and it’s so helpful to hear. Your videos and posts have made me feel a little less alone in this weird entrepreneurial rollercoaster, so thank you for that.
I’m writing because I’ve been in a funk lately, and I don’t know how to get out of it.
Last year, I launched something I was really proud of. I know it wasn’t perfect, but it had some traction, and, most important, I had energy. But then… life got in the way. Some personal stuff happened and I got distracted and lost momentum. And now I can’t seem to find my way back to where I was.
It’s not that I’ve given up, but everything feels harder and I’m second-guessing myself more and I’m slower to act. I guess I’m just wondering how you rebuild momentum once it’s gone?
Thanks again for everything you do. Just writing this makes me feel a little more hopeful.
Warmly,
Lena
Thanks for sharing such a thoughtful message and for trusting me with it.
I definitely know the feeling you’re describing. In fact, I think most entrepreneurs do. We just don’t always say it out loud. So let me say it for all of us: losing momentum is normal. It doesn’t mean you’re broken, and it doesn’t mean your startup is doomed. It just means you're human.
So let’s focus less on the “what’s happening part” and more on what you really want to know, which is “how do I get it back?”
The truth is, you don’t. At least… not exactly. Like in the physical world, you can never get back momentum once it’s gone. Instead, you want to focus on building new momentum.
While I realize what I’m suggesting here might seem like a small difference, the difference matters because the trap we all fall into is thinking we need to recreate a feeling we used to have. As a result, we try to rewind time — go back to when things felt easy and exciting and everything clicked. But momentum doesn’t work like that. Momentum is a function of motion, and motion doesn’t start big. It starts small.
In other words, don’t try to recapture the big energy you had last year. Instead, try to do one tiny thing today that moves the story forward. Send one outreach email. Make one product tweak. Have one conversation with a customer. Just one thing. Then tomorrow, another.
Ultimately, if you commit to keeping the ball rolling forward, over time you’ll discover that the secret of momentum isn’t that it shows up all at once. It sneaks in sideways while you’re focused on something else (and usually while you’re just trying to stay in motion).
Got startup questions of your own? Reply to this email with whatever you want to know, and I’ll do my best to answer.