Rob Walling

Ask some folks around you, a co-founder, a mastermind, a spouse, a significant other.

Think about how you go about solving problems.

And when things get hard, do you take in new data and do different things?

Do you mix it up?

Or do you make excuses and continue doing the same thing over and over, thinking that this should work?

This really should work.

Should isn't going to get you there.

I like the way that Ruben Gomez, founder of SignWell, weighs in when I was saying, you know, the successful founders I see, they do a lot of things and they're right most of the time.

They're right enough of the time that they make forward progress.

And Ruben said, you should point out that they're usually not right the first time.

They usually have a hypothesis that they try and then they get new data and then they realize, oh, that wasn't quite right.

Pivot a little bit to the right.

And they try that, make a little bit of progress.

Eh, that wasn't quite right either.

Pivot back to the left.

And they move.

And their rudder can be changed, but you can't throttle them back.

They keep moving forward, taking in new data and being creative about the next step that they need to solve this problem or to overcome this mountain or to get to a million or two million ARR when things aren't working.

I think it's a really insightful comment, both from Ruben and Paul Graham, about the idea that the odds of you coming up with the right solution from the start are really, really low.

And that the best founders I see are not only the persistent ones, but they are the ones that take in new information and adjust their course as they move forward.