Navigating Founder Journey Tradeoffs: Community vs Execution
Week 5 with Antler! Here are some conflicting thoughts and no-filter reflections on my founder’s journey.
𝟭. 𝗚𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 𝗱𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝘃𝘀 𝗯𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆
Last week was buzzing with Singapore Week of Innovation and Technology (SWITCH) and the many events with Garry Tan.
It was interesting but it was too much and became a distraction. I feel we wasted some precious time and next week I’ll be a lot more careful.
On the positive, it felt really great to “come out” as a founding team with Junus E. and reconnect with many founder friends. It was an important seed to plant and i realized the trust and pride I have in our founder relationship.
𝟮. 𝗧𝗮𝗹𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝘃𝘀 𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺
We talked to about 200 people in the last 3 weeks and it continues to be incredibly valuable. It’s important for us to 1) deeply understand the market 2) be recognized as a part of the ecosystem and 3) start building our pipeline.
The discovery interviews were great but we now need to be laser focused on our B2B target market and start selling more explicitly.
𝟯. 𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽𝘀 𝘃𝘀. 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁
We’re good at building those relationships and make crazy fast progress there, I feel.
Now is the time to build our MVP and iterate on a weekly basis to get data and traction.
Looking at 3 points above, it’s all a balancing act and it will never stop. So I’d better get good at walking this fine line!
We have a massive amount of work to solve this problem in the next 20 years. Weirdly enough, I find this challenge incredibly exciting.
Couldn’t thank enough the hundreds (sic!) people who reached out to support, and to have Winnie Khoo and Jay Teo by our side to challenge and guide us.
