A big vision helps founders find the next step

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

1. 12:25

   So you have to understand that I was by far an outsider from Silicon Valley. I knew nothing about it and I was someone mentioned um oh to raise capital you have to be a billion dollar company and I took that really literally I was like okay we're gonna make this like we're gonna make this an incredible company what's the wildest craziest thing I think right from the start I knew the future of publishing and the future of design was going to be completely different from where it was back then I didn't know if we could build that and so I think it really it boils down to something that I believe in really deeply which is that you need to just dream of the future that you want you don't necessarily have any idea of how to build that and bring it to life but just getting really clear in your mind what it is the future that you think

2. 13:09

   would be absolutely the future what is the dream future and then take that and then whittle it down into like what is a key step that we can take towards that and I think that's served us really well over the years because if we dream really big and like dream in detail about what is that future that we'd like to will into existence then you can go and collect all of the ingredients I think there's two different ways a company can operate one is dreaming first and then figuring out the steps to get there and the other which I think is what most companies operate like is you look at the building blocks that you have around you look at the bricks and you say what can I build with these things and that makes a lot of sense because that is kind of the reality that you're living in and you're trying to think you know how high can I stack these bricks versus how can I build a

3. 13:52

   castle on the hill? How can I build this wild, imaginary thing and then work your way there? But I think that that's something that everyone can do a little more of is to dream. What would wild success be? What is the future that I would love to be living in? And then once you get that really clear in your mind, I think it makes it easier to work for years on years to actually will that into existence if you're really sure that's the future that you want and the world deserves. That really resonates with me because as a founder, you know, with Upstarts, we're We're revenue funded and media is a really tough business.

4. 14:25

   And so it is sort of like, you know, how can we win on the field each day? How can we expand a little bit? But I totally hear you that if you get caught up too much in just winning in that moment and doing, you know, what feels achievable or what you've already earned in that moment, you maybe don't think quite so big. You maybe sell yourself short. Totally, Alex. The fun exercise I love to do is like, what would wild success be in 10 years and what would terrible failure be?

5. 14:51

   and I think that doing that it can be with yourself it can be with your team and getting really crystal clear on that and then maybe turning the wild success part into a deck a vision deck i think that that can add a lot of clarity because all of your decisions will be guided by that if terrible failure would be being successful but not being values aligned like not actually delivering value to the world it's to help to crystallize what you want and what you don't want um and if you do that exercise i will i find a parallel exercise really fun is like what is the future of media or what is the future of you know x industry or y industry And then the more crystal clear you can get about what you believe the future to be, then the more that you can orientate your company to help bring that future to life, if that's the future that you want.