Today a founder shared his plans for his start-up. Its software product has some traction but isn’t growing quickly enough for various reasons, including timing. The founder believes the product has potential but feels he needs to pivot to work on something else for now. He wasn’t sure what to do with the product. Shut it down and it doesn’t have a chance of reaching its full potential. Keep working on it full-time and he bears an opportunity cost.

In the end, this founder decided to make the software product self-serve. Customers can do everything on their own, from signing up to canceling. The product is going on autopilot. He’ll just monitor it periodically while he pivots to build a new product. If the first product takes off, he’ll revaluate and decide whether he should step in or hire someone else to oversee it.

I didn’t much like this approach when he shared it. But as I thought about it more, I realized that I heard a similar story years ago. I was at the Mailchimp offices. One of the founders told me their origin story: a product they’d built and shelved while they worked on other things ended up becoming Mailchimp. Last week, they closed the deal to sell their “forgotten product” for $12 billion. Had they killed it instead of shelving it, their trajectory would have been very different.

The Mailchimp story is an example of the unpredictable impact of timing. Extreme, yes, but real. You never know when people will see value in what you’ve built. Sometimes it takes a little longer than you planned, and you just have to be patient and give the product time. Depending on the situation, sometimes you can work on other things while you wait for it to flower.

One of my takeaways from my founder journey was the wide impact founders have through entrepreneurship. We had a direct impact on our customers and team members, of course. But as time went on, I began to understand our indirect impact, too. For example, the impact we had on households resonated with me. The people we employed were the main breadwinners in their households, so three or four people felt the impact of every paycheck issued. And we often heard from a customer that their vehicle (which we helped keep on the road) was critical; it was their only way to get to and from work and provide for their families. All those households, in turn, had myriad impacts on the communities they were part of. I didn’t think about impact when I started the company, but through experience I learned a lot about it—at a high level, how entrepreneurship is powerful and has the potential for massive impact.

That understanding was a big factor in my decision to become an investor. I could have taken what I’d learned from my first company and started a second. I probably could have built something many times larger than my first company in far less time. But I realized I could have a bigger impact sharing my knowledge with other founders and helping accelerate their success. The impact of many successful founders dwarfs that of one. So, I’ve been focused on supporting founders by sharing knowledge and capital.

By investing, I’ve seen entrepreneurship and the impact it can have through a different lens. I’ve started viewing entrepreneurship as something that’s layered. The company and founder are one layer—the most visible one. But other layers support them. I’m now wondering: can impact through entrepreneurship be enhanced by supporting the layers that support founders?

I listened to a founder tell his story. He’s powered through some challenging times to get his company to where it is today. Only, when he told the story, it wasn’t as succinct as it could have been. Watching him reminded me of myself. I used to get asked about the specifics of my founder journey and didn’t always do a great job articulating them. I usually ended up sharing the details I happened to remember at the time.

One day, aspiring and early founders who wanted my help asked something about the early days of my journey. It had been over a decade, and the details were fuzzy. I responded, of course, but walked away feeling like I had given them a haphazard series of events. I wanted to help these founders as much as possible and felt like I had let them down. I realized I had to do better.

Deciding to do something about this, I settled on creating a timeline, year by year from the inception of my company. I focused on keeping it high level. Each year included five to seven bullets about the highs and lows. I included each year’s revenue so I could speak to the growth trajectory accurately. It took some time, and I had to do some digging, but the finished product was a great document.

I was super glad I created the timeline. I’d forgotten many details and milestones of my journey. The exercise sparked my memory and accurately captured the tale of my start-up.

A few weeks later, when I was asked to speak to a group of founders, I could clearly and confidently articulate my journey. The group asked tons of questions that I was able to answer by sharing my experiences.

I’m a big fan of the timeline exercise. I plan to update it annually.

If you’re a founder and not happy with how you’ve told your story, consider creating a timeline. The exercise might be just what you need to do justice to your story!

Today I met with two founders building impressive platforms. Both are workflow management solutions focused on patient care. (You can read what I’ve already written on workflow management.) I remain bullish on these types of companies. Today was a reminder of that, and it got me thinking about the future of workflow management.

Over the next decade, we’ll see an unprecedented rate of change and disruption. Technology will drive much of it. As it develops, consumers will receive and become accustomed to better service and higher quality. To satisfy their higher expectations (which will become the norm), businesses will be forced to adapt. Efficient, consistent delivery of products or services will go from nice-to-have to essential, especially as smaller businesses try to keep up with larger competitors.

These businesses will increasingly look for help from workflow management technology. They will seek software to empower them to do things they can’t do manually but that customers expect. They’ll be looking for consistency and efficiency to meet customers’ expectations while keeping labor costs reasonable.

I foresee a wave of demand for workflow management software. If you’re a founder or aspire to be one, consider looking for opportunities for technology to make companies’ output more consistent while saving time and minimizing manpower. If you find a space that sorely needs this, you might just have come across the next billion-dollar idea.

I spoke with a founder who recently sold his company. He shared the story leading up to the sale. But that wasn’t what he was most excited about. He wanted to talk about his new venture. He was approached by another founder who had built an early product and wanted feedback. As he listened, he got excited and decided he wanted to join the company as a cofounder. He’s now working hard to take his cofounder’s idea to the next level.

Founders are usually builders at heart. I’ve got a few friends who exited companies and now are building something else. They could easily sit back and relax, but that isn’t an option in their minds. They want to get back in the saddle.

Finding a cofounder is hard; it’s the biggest obstacle for many early-stage first-time founders. I’ve shared thoughts on ways to overcome this.

Today I realized that recently exited founders are a great pool of potential cofounders. They’ve got the experience and have had success. They empathize with where you are in the journey. They’re builders at heart. And most likely they have more free time than they’re used to.

If you’re an early-stage founder looking for a cofounder, consider reaching out to founders who’ve recently exited. Worst-case scenario, they don’t want to meet. Best-case scenario, you find a cofounder who’s got a track record of success!

Met with a friend today who runs his own company. Seven years ago, he told me he was thinking of making the leap. He’d had a stable job for many years, though, and wasn’t sure how he or his family would weather the ups and downs of entrepreneurship. But he was passionate about the industry. In the end he decided to jump. His wife was supportive (given that certain conditions were met beforehand), and they lived a modest lifestyle. He started the business on nights and weekends. After getting some traction, he went full-time with his wife’s blessing.  

Fast forward to today. He has a booming company that’s growing fast and a big vision. He plans to build a massive company. At the moment, he’s working through how to scale operations while maintaining the quality his customers have come to expect. We talked about how software could be what’s missing. I’m planning to connect him with some software founders who are building products for his industry.

I’m glad my friend bet on himself and that things are working out. I look forward to following his journey and have no doubt that his vision will become his reality!

Today I toured a real estate project a buddy just completed. He’s easing his way into entrepreneurship and the industry. This project was the largest (and most complicated) he’s taken on to date. As usual with construction, it didn’t go as planned, but it’s a financial success. Not as much profit as he’d initially hoped, but a success nonetheless. As we chatted, he kept mentioning how he should have spent less but didn’t know any better when decisions were being made. I realized that his perspective was preventing him from realizing how this project was a win in other ways, too.

The project wasn’t easy. The price of lumbar surged in the middle of it. Labor rates increased, while the reliability of crews decreased. These and other factors led to higher costs and a longer timeline. As each obstacle presented itself, my buddy figured out how to overcome it. It was stressful, but he found a way to get it all done. Tough circumstances, I thought, but awesome learning experience.

We talked about his future projects and what he plans to do differently. I pointed out how much he’d learned and how valuable that knowledge will be. Lots of people pay tuition to go to school to learn what he got paid to learn. In the end, he reflected on where he was before and after this project and agreed. It was a huge success and is likely to be the turning point in his real estate career.

Knowledge acquired through experience (yours or others’) can be a big factor in entrepreneurial success. If a situation doesn’t end quite how you’d hoped, reflect on what you’ve learned from it. The knowledge you’ve gained will be invaluable next time and every time—it’s the gift that keeps on giving!

A good friend said something today that stood out to me: “When water wants to flow downstream, you can’t push it uphill. It runs through rocks, concrete, or whatever is in its path and always finds a way. You can slow it down, but you can’t stop it. It’s a heck of a lot easier to go with the flow than against it.” We were discussing innovation and how we used to resist certain technologies we didn’t understand—only to later have to say “Yeah, that makes perfect sense” and feel like we were late to the party.

My friend is spot-on. Sometimes I have to remind myself to pay attention to a trend. It may not make sense to me, but clearly—it being a trend—it’s making sense to others, and I should spend time trying to understand and embrace it. That’s better than fighting it, only to end up having to play catch-up and buy into it later. I now try to be like water and go with the flow.

The world is going to change, with you or without you. Innovation is going to happen, whether we like it or not. It makes a lot of sense, I think, to stop fighting that and make an effort to understand and be part of the trends.

Next time you’re thinking that something that doesn’t make sense, consider asking yourself: am I going against the flow?

One of the biggest opportunities I see founders miss is the chance to evaluate the people who are evaluating them—specifically, when an investor asks, “Do you have any questions for me?” the founder saying no or asking superficial ones. It’s a missed opportunity for the founder to gauge whether the investor is a good fit as a partner.

Evaluating a partner starts with knowing what you want. Investors usually have a clear idea of what they’re looking for. Unfortunately, some founders don’t, and they don’t evaluate their partners until after the deal is sealed.

Founders can do a few simple things to increase their chances of being in a good partnership:

• Write down your criteria for a good partner. Putting things down on paper usually leads to more clarity.
• Before meetings, don’t be shy about letting the investor know you want to allocate a certain amount of time for your questions.
• Skip the superficial questions; ask only questions that will help you understand whether the investor satisfies your criteria.

Partnerships are important. Founders should make sure they’re evaluating for fit, not just letting themselves be evaluated.

I talked with an early-stage investor today about a recent investment his firm made. He listed lots of great reasons for doing the deal: strong team, great traction, big market, great customer feedback, etc. But one point stood out to me. Competitors—other well-funded large players—have platforms that solve the same problem as this new portfolio company as well as a variety of other problems. They do an okay job of solving most of them. The new portfolio company, on the other hand, solves one problem extremely well. The hyper focus on a single problem helped this investor have conviction for the deal.

I think of this new portfolio company as taking the sniper approach to solving a problem, which its new investor loves. It’s laser focused on a single problem that its leaders have taken the time to understand well. Their solution is designed to eliminate a pain point so customers don’t have to worry about it anymore.

The larger competitors are taking a shotgun approach. They’re aiming in the general vicinity of this problem and many others. They understand the problem from a high level but haven’t gone super deep. Their solution is designed to mitigate the pain of this problem, not erase it.

Both strategies have pros and cons, and large companies can be built using either. My personality leaned toward the sniper approach when I was a founder, but I’ve shotgunned too. From my experience, the decision of which to embrace depends mainly on what customers want. Who are you targeting and what do they want? A one-stop shop that does a decent job at solving many problems but doesn’t shoot for perfection? Or an expert that’s trying to eliminate a problem altogether?

Listen to what your customers want to give you a clear idea of what you need to build.