Today marks the end of my one-hundred-sixteenth week of working from home (mostly). Here are my takeaways from week one hundred sixteen:

• Growth – I was reminded this week that growth comes from being in uncomfortable situations. Going forward, instead of focusing on the discomfort I’ll remind myself that I’m growing. I think this mental reframing will help me lean into more situations that will help me grow.
• No meetings – Last week, I blocked off an entire day with no meetings. I was hoping to repeat that this week, but I gave in to meeting requests. What a difference! I want to work toward consistently have one meeting-free day every week.

Week one hundred sixteen was a good one. Looking forward to next week.

I chatted with a founder who’s built an early product but hasn’t yet found product–market fit. He has some paying users but still hasn’t come up with that one thing that customers immediately see value in. His product does several things that people collectively like, but not one thing that people love.

As we chatted, he mentioned that he decided not to fundraise right now (he had an investor lined up already). His reasoning was straightforward. Because he doesn’t have product–market fit, he doesn’t know what he would spend the money on. Sure, he could grow the team, but he doesn’t feel that would solve the current challenge. He hasn’t yet identified the thing that customers really want him to build, so he doesn’t have a clear direction for the company or product. He has a small amount of recurring revenue and cash on hand, so meeting operating expenses isn’t a concern.

I like how honest and candid this founder was about the current state of things. He’s very aware of the stage his company is in and what it needs. Job number one is to figure out what customers want, and the team he has, though small, can do that.

I think this founder is headed in the right direction. He has some revenue coming in and is keeping burn low by keeping his team small. Once he finds product–market fit, I’m sure he’ll be off to the races!

A founder friend of mine recently hired a coach. The coach had him do an interesting exercise: go around to people in his life and ask for feedback. I and others were asked to grade him in certain areas and provide written feedback on strengths, weaknesses, etc.

One of the most important things founders can do is develop self-awareness. Easy to say, but hard to do. People don’t want to hurt your feelings, so they avoid giving pointed feedback. When you’re the leader, it’s even worse because most people are uncomfortable critiquing their boss. And frankly, some founders don’t want to listen to what can feel like criticism.

I think this founder and his coach soliciting feedback is a great exercise. He’ll receive the feedback digitally, so he’ll be able to revisit it in the future. Going through this process with the guidance of a coach will help him reflect on the feedback, make connections, and develop actionable steps going forward. The coach can hold him accountable to the process and the changes he commits to.

Self-awareness is an attribute of many successful entrepreneurs. I’m excited to see what my friend learns about himself and how he uses it to improve as a person and entrepreneur.  

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I’ve begun reading Who Is Michael Ovitz? It’s a memoir about Michael Ovitz and his journey, including how he founded and built Creative Artists Agency (CAA), the powerhouse talent agency. He’s known for having an outsize influence in Hollywood and being a shrewd negotiator. CAA’s four commandments stood out to me:

1. Never lie to your clients or colleagues
2. Return every call by end of day
3. Follow up and don’t leave people guessing
4. Never bad-mouth the competition

I noticed that numbers 2 and 3 are related—they both deal with how to communicate. The fact that communication makes this short list twice speaks to its importance in Ovitz’s industry. And it’s true of every industry: how we communicate (especially with customers and partners) can have a material impact on outcomes. I like that Michael makes effective communication a priority, and I’m sure it was a big contributor to CAA’s success given the centrality of relationships in the industry.

I listened to a founder speak today. He said something that stuck with me:

“Mind share precedes market share.”

It’s simple but powerful.

Lots of people build great solutions that don’t get used. It’s the if you build it, they will come mentality. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. People must know your solution exists before they can use it.

So how do you get mind share? Many approaches involve marketing skills. I have zero marketing skills, so I won’t speak to any of them. One approach that doesn’t require marketing know-how is doing customer discovery before you build your solution.

Take time to understand the problem by finding and listening to people who are experiencing the problem. People love to talk about their problems. If you listen, you’ll hopefully build rapport with them, and they’ll remember you in connection with this problem. Once you solve the problem, you can go back to these same people. You’ll likely be considered a trusted person, and they’ll give your solution a shot. If it works well and they’re happy, you can ask them to introduce you to other people experiencing the same problem. It’s a slower way to build mind share, but it’s effective.

If you’re a founder, consider periodically thinking about how you’ll build mind share before you can build market share.

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I had the chance to meet with and listen to a few seasoned Atlanta founders recently. They’ve built businesses worth billions, and some have exited their companies. When these guys and gals talk about business, they know what they’re talking about, so you want to listen. As they answered questions and gave their thoughts on what to do in difficult situations, I noticed that they didn’t hesitate. They knew exactly what to do and how to do it. It was as if it was automatic.

They also shared specific experiences. They described hesitating in making certain decisions early in their journey, only to regret not making them sooner. They learned painful lessons that stuck with them. When they face similar challenging situations now, they act quickly and confidently.

My big takeaway is that experience makes what you do in difficult situations automatic. Living through something difficult (or watching others live it) is the ultimate learning. It helps you recognize what you’re dealing with and act decisively. It’s automatic—meaning you don’t have to ponder and wonder and worry; you know what to do and act quickly.

Experience is immensely valuable to entrepreneurs. If you want to be able to act automatically in difficult situations, make it a priority to get that experience or become connected with people who have it.

This past week, I had the chance to listen to one of the founders of an Atlanta unicorn share his experience of choosing his co-founder. A few takeaways:

• Finding a partner who has skills complementary to yours is important. You can’t be good at everything, so you need a partner who’s strong where you’re weak.
• You must trust your cofounder to own functional areas. That doesn’t mean you should expect them to not make mistakes. But you should be able to trust them to own their mistakes and discuss them with others. Their mistakes are learning moments.
• One of the key things that attracted him to his cofounder was their mutual demonstrated habit of learning and improving themselves. Both had coaches, read tons of books, and committed to a path of self-improvement through their actions (not their talk). They’d also both had start-ups fail, and they’d spent time reflecting on their failures.
• Great people want to be held accountable, and good cofounders hold each other accountable (I agree).

All of these are great points, and I’m thankful he shared them. The point about learning and self-improvement really stuck with me. A few weeks back, I shared my thoughts on learning being a throttle on your success. I never thought about it in the context of finding a cofounder before, but it makes a lot of sense. A players want to work with other A players. It’s no different for cofounders. Learning and improving yourself consistently will definitely attract other like-minded A players (and likely lead to outsize success too).

Today marks the end of my one-hundred-fifteenth week of working from home (mostly). Here are my takeaways from week one hundred fifteen:

• Patience – I can get a little antsy at times. This week was a reminder that patience is my friend and I have to be patient to allow my decisions to play out (for better or worse).
• Markets – Spent time thinking about why some markets are overlooked by investors. I think there’s an opportunity here for founders to get funded and open-minded investors to generate outsize returns.  
• Giving back – I spent time with Endeavour entrepreneurs—some rising and some seasoned. It was great to see how impactful established founders’ words were on newer founders. I’m happy Endeavour is making these connections. I think we’ll see some huge companies built in Atlanta as the result of Endeavour’s efforts.
• No meetings – I blocked off an entire meeting-free day this week. I was amazed at how productive I was. I need to do this regularly.

Week one hundred fifteen was steady but still productive. It felt like a great pace that I was in control of. I’m looking forward to continuing this next week.

I listened to a founder share his thoughts on initiatives he chose to pursue. He considered both the probability of success and the size of the potential payoff. The ones he green-lighted weren’t the ones most likely to succeed—they were the ones with the biggest potential payoff. He knew some were long shots with only a 50% chance of succeeding, but if they did succeed, the payoff would be enormous. He was comfortable with a 50% chance because the payoff would be game-changing for his company.

I love this founder’s thought process. Most people look for a sure thing, or close to it. This founder understands that most things in life aren’t certain. There’s always a chance that things won’t go as planned. He’s thinking about the probabilities in conjunction with the upside. Said another way, he wants initiatives with a potential reward that’s orders of magnitude larger than the risk.  

Thinking about more than the probability of success is hard to do when something is risky, but it can lead to outsize outcomes!

I’ve been paying close attention to Apple’s push into financial services. It’s a huge company. Financial services for consumers and small businesses is one of the few markets large enough to move the needle for a company of Apple’s size. I’ve thought that Apple becoming a financial services company makes a ton of sense. Everything is going digital, and consumers are shifting from in-person banking to digital banking. This has created an amazing opportunity for Apple that it can’t ignore. Apple’s products, such as the iPhone, are the perfect distribution network for digital banking products and services.

Apple officially announced its Apple Pay Later loan product this week. The interesting revelation is that Apple is handling key financial tasks internally and has created a separate legal entity to do so. This is a first. It’s usually partnered with other firms, such as Goldman Sachs, to handle these types of tasks. Read more here.

Banking for consumers and small businesses is overdue for disruption. Offerings from banks don’t meet the expectations of their smaller customers. The banking experience for consumers and small businesses will improve drastically over the next few years, and I can’t wait!