Nervousness Is a Feature, Not a Bug
Entrepreneur Office Hours - Issue #336
Inside the Office
After spending the past month teaching Duke in Silicon Valley, and another week on vacation in California with my family, I finally made it back to Durham.
For me, that meant a return to the office. But before that, I had to take my daughters to summer camp. By chance, both girls are starting new camps this week. Neither knows anyone, and neither has ever been before. So, as you might imagine, both were a little nervous when I dropped them off.
As we sat in the car before walking in, I found myself giving what I assume is a fairly standard piece of dad advice:
“Nervous is good.”
To be clear, I don’t mean debilitating anxiety is good. “Good nervous,” I explained, “is that feeling in your stomach when you’re about to do something that matters. It’s the feeling that comes from uncertainty mixed with hope, and the feeling that exists because you care about the outcome, which is a good thing.”
I went on to tell them something I often have to remind the entrepreneurs and students I work with: “If you’re never nervous, you’re probably not challenging yourself enough.”
What’s funny is that after dropping them off, I headed to the I&E office to prepare for a new class I started teaching this week, and, as I drove in, I realized I was feeling nervous, too.
At first, I was confused about why I felt that way. After all, at this point in my career, I’ve taught hundreds of classes. Plus, the class I’m teaching isn’t technically “new.” It’s a one-week online course for about 50 graduate students, and this is the fifth time I’ve taught it. I know the material. I know the activities. I know the pacing. By any reasonable standard, I should feel completely comfortable.
And yet, every single time I start a new class, I’m nervous. But I’m not nervous because I’m worried it’s going to go badly. I’m nervous because I want it to go well. I care whether the students learn something useful, and I care whether the discussions are engaging, and I care whether I’m bringing enough energy and preparation to justify asking these students to spend a week of their lives learning with me.
In other words, I’m nervous for exactly the same reason my daughters were nervous: The thing I’m doing matters.
I bring this up because, increasingly, I feel like the entrepreneurs I work with are treating nervousness like a signal something is wrong. They interpret uncertainty as evidence they aren’t ready, aren’t qualified, or shouldn’t move forward.
But most of the time, nervousness isn’t a warning sign. It’s a sign you’re doing something meaningful.
Whether you’re starting a company, launching a product, pitching investors, hiring your first employee, taking a new job, teaching a new class, or walking into a summer camp where you don’t know anyone… those experiences all involve growth. And growth tends to feel a lot like nervousness while it’s happening.
So if you’re feeling a little nervous about something this week, maybe don’t rush to make the feeling go away.
Maybe just take it as evidence you’re doing exactly what you’re supposed to be doing.
You’re growing, and that’s a good thing.
-Aaron
Worth Your Time
One of the most thorough and thoughtful pieces of startup content I’ve come across recently is Rob Snyder’s three-hour lecture, The Physics of Startups. When I transitioned from 20 years in early-stage startups to teaching entrepreneurship at Duke, I spent a lot of time searching for frameworks that matched what I had actually experienced in the field. Many felt either too simplistic or disconnected from reality. When I discovered Rob’s work, I had the uncanny feeling that he’d been looking over my shoulder for the last two decades.
His central argument is deceptively simple: customer demand is the only thing that really matters. He challenges much of the conventional startup advice around identifying “pain points” and offers a more nuanced and rigorous way of thinking about why some ventures gain traction while others don’t. Whether you’re a founder, investor, or entrepreneurship educator, this is one of the most thoughtful frameworks I’ve seen for understanding startup momentum and market pull.
 | A guest post by
|