Endurance in our world of venture capital and startups is a must. Survive before you thrive.
Looking back in the past two years of intense work putting ONEVC together I started reflecting on what is essential and what are my biggest concerns.
When success starts to happen, it is time to be careful and think deeply about decisions, while maintaining rapid velocity and good judgment, critical thinking, etc.
There is no growth without pain. If you are comfortable with short-term pain, you can achieve almost anything.
Winners flow into work without mercy. But be careful when you start becoming successful. Continue to live your life as a good man/woman. Be kind, humble, and straightforward.
I think it is crucial to be peacefully detached from the opinions of others while being a faithful listener.
Wake up as hungry as you were on your first day. Combine a healthy degree of paranoia and do not be complacent.
As Stoics, our motto is to "Live According to Nature". Seneca talks about this in a lovely manner.
Remember: celebrate your victories, but don’t let initial success go over your head.
Be excellent to others from the doorman to the chairman.
“It is quite contrary to nature to torture the body, to hate unlabored elegance, to be dirty on purpose, to eat food that is not only plain, but disgusting and forbidding. Just as it is a sign of luxury to seek out dainties, so it is madness to avoid that which is customary and can be purchased at no great price. Philosophy calls for plain living, but not for penance; and we may perfectly well be plain and neat at the same time. This is the mean of which I approve; our life should observe a happy medium between the ways of a sage and the ways of the world at large; all men should admire it, but they should understand it also. "Well then, shall we act like other men? Shall there be no distinction between ourselves and the world?" Yes, a very great one; let men find that we are unlike the common herd, if they look closely. If they visit us at home, they should admire us, rather than our household appointments. He is a great man who uses earthenware dishes as if they were silver; but he is equally great who uses silver as if it were earthenware. It is the sign of an unstable mind not to be able to endure riches."
— Seneca, Letters From a Stoic, Letter 5
Inevitably, someone will attack you in life. It might sometimes come hidden in humor, explicitly demonstrated in public or private aggression.
Now, more than ever, you are being asked to present the unabridged version of yourself, without any shortcuts or alternatives.
Most that have achieved enormous success did not conform. All great founders are well-mannered misfits. None of the founders we back are ordinary people.
