A founder argues that obsessing over outcomes like ARR growth or investor expectations burns you out. Instead, learn to love the daily work itself: the effort, the craft, the game. He admits he's still learning this after years.
Learn to enjoy the process as soon as possible. Learn to enjoy delivering the inputs and don't get attached on the outcomes as soon as possible in your life. Because I oftentimes feel I have not learned it yet, and that's a shortcut for unhappiness. So, and I think it takes many years to really learn this for real, and I've been trying, but, you know, I'm working on it. So I wish I had started this journey of really focusing on what you control, getting about the inputs, really, you know, focusing on the love for the craft, the love for the game, and then maybe delaying a little bit that obsession and that focus and that attachment to the outcome and the results that we get in, which of course in SaaS is difficult. Like, you know, you're looking at the ARR numbers and all these metrics we talked about, and then you want to grow and deliver. You know, if you're venture-backed, then you, you know, it's even worse and this and that. And then you're trapped into that, uh, when really the only thing that matters is that you are really obsessed with the inputs and that you enjoy those inputs.
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Keith Gillispie: Why Most New Investors Fail & How to Avoid the Common Traps #250 | SaaS District
