A few months back, a friend asked me for a favor. It involved doing something with high stakes—something I wasn’t particularly good at and hadn’t done recently. I didn’t think I was qualified. My friend thought otherwise. It was something that I’d always wanted to get better at, so it was an opportunity to gain experience. Still, I was deeply uncomfortable with what was being asked of me.

Over the years, I’ve learned to lean into discomfort when the task will take me in a good direction and aligns with my goals. I’ve usually learned and grown. But I’m not saying it’s always had a happy ending. More than a few of these attempts ended in failure. Regardless of the outcome, though, they ended up being amazing opportunities from which I gained wisdom or experience.

In the end, I said yes to my friend. I took my time to ensure that I did things to the best of my ability, and it was a success. I learned a ton about myself in the process and picked up some skills I’ve used regularly since then.

If you’re offered a chance to do something but it makes you uncomfortable, think twice before turning it down. If it will take you in the right direction or help you achieve a goal, it could be a great growth opportunity

This week I spoke with entrepreneurs working on an interesting product that could help restaurants solve one of their biggest challenges. As we talked, it became apparent that restaurant owners will love the idea. It will make their locations more profitable. But it’s also clear that restaurant employees may be less than thrilled with the product. It dawned on me that this entrepreneur has to convince restaurant owners to pay for the idea and also convince restaurant employees that the product isn’t a threat. If employees don’t buy into the idea, it won’t be used.

Commendably, these entrepreneurs had thought about this. They have a well-crafted message for employees. First, the idea will significantly reduce the time and energy employees spend on a task they hate: from many hours a week to zero. Second, it reduces errors that employees are currently held accountable for. Third, it could give them more discretion in dealing with loyal customers. Finally, it will help with administrative decision-making so what customers want is always available.

These founders have done a great job of understanding who the stakeholders are and what they care about. They have a well-thought-out plan to address concerns. Hopefully this will lead to a smoother sales and implementation process.

It’s important to understand all stakeholders when you’re selling a new product or service, not just the person who will write the check. Getting the product paid for and getting it used can be different. Companies succeed when they’re able to do both. After all . . . is it likely that a product that isn’t used will continue to sell?

Today I attended Outlander’s first-ever demo day. All the presenters were Outlander portfolio companies. They’re tackling interesting problems and are great representatives of Southeast start-ups. Here are the demo day companies:

• Talli – An IoT device and software that provides one-touch, mobile, and hands-free logging for infant care, senior care, and home health.
• ChipEleven – An open-source chip-building ecosystem that will spur hardware innovation just like Linux did for software.
• Barometer (formerly Vericrypt ) – AI-based software to help companies analyze, identify, and score bias in their writing.
• Spaceship – A continuous-delivery platform that helps companies deploy software faster.
• Strapt  – Cashless and contactless IoT dispensers that drive new brand engagement and insights for brands through free product sampling and actionable consumer data.

I personally worked with some of these founders to prepare for demo day and couldn’t be prouder of them! They did a great job and I’ll be excited to watch their continued success.

As CCAW scaled, I began noticing issues. We were growing so much and had so many things going on that it was hard for the team to keep up. And we weren’t measuring their workload. Generic questions like “How are things going?” weren’t cutting it. Then one day a complaint reached my desk, which meant it was already out of control. Digging in, I realized we’d taken on too much growth. We were stretching the team too thin. We’d hit an inflection point.

We reworked our processes and added to our team to ease the strain. We identified the three or so top metrics for each team. We systematized the metrics so they auto updated daily and added them to dashboards accessible to everyone. And we took it one step further and had our system email the dashboards to the entire team every morning.

This all made a big difference. Other leaders and I were able to recognize, based on data, when we were approaching inflection points. We made sure to stay ahead of them and not stretch our team again. Other interesting things also happened. Metrics improved across the board in every area. Our team was more self sufficient and required much less management. Our daily standups got shorter and everybody was crystal clear on what they needed to do. The dashboards were giving everyone clarity.

Those metrics and dashboards did wonders for us. They helped align everyone with what mattered most to the business. It was one thing to communicate orally and another for everything to be reinforced regularly with metrics.

Understanding what matters, measuring it, and sharing those metrics will help a company of any size. Even if it’s just a team of two!

Over the years, I’ve seen a pattern with successful people: they learn from the experiences of others. If they can learn from someone else who’s already done it (whatever “it” may be at the time) instead of wasting time and energy making mistakes, they do. This doesn’t mean that successful people don’t make mistakes or learn the hard way. They absolutely do. But they supplement their learnings with those of others.

Improving decision-making based on others’ experiences is easier said than done. It’s important to ask in the right way. First ask the person you’re talking to if they’ve ever been in a situation similar to the one you’re trying to deal with. Only if they say they have should you go on to ask what they learned from their decisions. This does two important things: First, it helps you learn from people who are credible. If the person hasn’t experienced a similar situation, it will be apparent and the conversation will end quickly. (You don’t want advice from someone who knows less than you do!) Second, it doesn’t put anyone in the uncomfortable position of telling you what to do. Instead, they’re reflecting on their own experience. It’s still up to you to digest the information and make a decision.

Experience is a big factor in good decision-making. It’s why people who are more seasoned in life are so wise. They have more life experiences and learnings to pull from. If you’re looking to accomplish something great, consider incorporating the experience of credible people into your decisions. It will help you avoid major pitfalls and get you to your destination much faster.

I never raised capital at CCAW, but I do remember having conversations with investors. They weren’t looking to invest, but they wanted to better understand the business. I vividly remember the nature of their questions. They asked about the most private, guarded details. Things no one else asked about (or knew to ask about). How much of the company do you own? How much cash do you have on hand? What was last month’s revenue? The questions always made me feel a bit uncomfortable. Not because I didn’t know the answers; I did. It just felt weird giving detailed information about my business to someone I’d just met and might never speak with again. It made me feel vulnerable.

In the end, I’m glad I was asked and answered these questions. My answers helped the investors benchmark my company against other companies they evaluated. They were able to point out the areas in which I was doing well—and the things that concerned them. The true value of their feedback was why they felt the way they did. They were able to explain what they’d seen with other companies (or their own companies if they were former founders). I was able to essentially learn from the experience of other founders (albeit through investors).

If you’re a founder looking to raise capital or get outside opinions about your business, get ready to feel slightly vulnerable and uncomfortable. If you’re talking with credible investors or former operators, they will ask tough questions. Rest assured that being forthcoming in answering them is likely to result in good things for you and your business. Get comfortable being uncomfortable—it means you’re learning!

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Outlander puts on a monthly speaker series called the Outlandish Speaker Series. Today, the speaker was Lo Toney, founding partner of Plexo Capital. Plexo is a unique fund that makes direct investments in start-ups and in emerging venture capital funds. Lo incubated Plexo while working for GV (the venture capital investment arm of Google’s parent company). The strategy was to increase early-stage deal flow through diversity in people. The strategy proved successful, and he later spun out Plexo into a stand-alone firm (GV is an investor in Plexo). You can read more about Lo’s strategy here.

Today’s session was super insightful. Lo did a great job of articulating his thoughts on what he looks for when making investments in companies. He did an even better job of sharing what he looks for when considering an investment in a fund and how being a fund manager is different from being a great investor. Lo’s wealth of experience as a CEO, investor, and fund manager was evident.

I’m excited about what Plexo is doing and look forward to tracking its success and the success of the fund managers it invests in.

As I was catching up with a founder friend this week, we reminisced about the early days of our businesses. We were both eager young founders a few years removed from college when we started out. There was a huge disconnect between what we thought we knew and what we actually knew. One of the things neither of us grasped was just how long a commitment we were signing up for. We both spent over a decade building our companies. Put another way, we committed to ideas that would take over a decade to reach scale.

When I started CCAW, I had a few years of corporate experience. I gave zero thought to how long I would stay at my company. I just knew I wanted to start my own company. I think jumping in with both feet worked out for me because I was passionate and committed to what I was doing. My passion made me comfortable with putting in crazy hours for years.

It takes a long time to build a thriving company. Most founders I know reached success after seven to ten years. The journey is full of ups and downs. Having passion and conviction is one of the keys to success. Without them, you’re not likely to endure.

If you have an idea and you’re considering starting a company, ask yourself: Am I willing to work on this for a decade? If the answer is yes, you might be on to something.

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Revenue is an important business metric. But for early-stage companies that haven’t achieved product–market fit, gauging success only by revenue can be misleading. It’s nice to see revenue growing in the early days, but it’s even better to see signs that your customers are getting value from your solution.

Companies that focus exclusively on revenue can become myopic about closing a deal. Their primary goal should be to create value for customers by solving their problem superbly. If you nail it, revenue will grow. Early on, metrics that show how much customers are using your platform or how often they’re coming back are more telling than revenue. A paying customer who uses your platform monthly is somewhat engaged, but may not be receiving much value from it. A paying customer who uses it every day is likely receiving tremendous value from it. The former may not stay with you because the platform doesn’t solve their problem well enough. Revenue may look good in the short term but mask a serious long-term problem.

If you’re an early-stage founder, keep an eye on revenue, sure, but keep a closer eye on product–market fit. If you build it (better than anyone else does), they will come (and keep coming).

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When I started CCAW, I saw an opportunity to do certain things better. Automotive suppliers and manufacturers were inefficient and had issues turning inventory. Customers had a hard time finding the parts they wanted quickly. The inventory was available and the demand was there. The two just needed to be connected more efficiently. I ran with it. What I didn’t think about was competition. Other people saw a similar opportunity and were trying to capitalize on it.

Efficiency and defined processes allowed us to provide a great experience to our customers and vendors. But that wasn’t enough. It wasn’t the defensible moat we needed to scale the company to the level I envisioned ($100 million or more in revenue). What we were doing could be replicated. Plus, we made some things easier for customers, but we didn’t solve their biggest pain point: installation of the parts.

Moats are important for founders to think about. You don’t need one on day one, but you should be thinking about ways to dig a defensible moat to protect your company against invading competitors and margin erosion.