I Was Trying to Sprint in a Marathon.

How I am learning to pause and pace myself for the miles to go.

At the start of my journey with Gexpr, I thought I knew what it takes to talk about your product, and your journey, share learnings, find customers everywhere, and nowhere, make mistakes, and learn as you go. But, a part of me was always “playing it safe” so as to not sound self-loathing and only share big wins and big announcements whenever the “right” spotlight is on me.

That often meant I was hesitating to write content like How can bootstrapped founders reach PMF? for example or threads like How to stop overthinking and start doing. That also meant I was hiding in the deep trenches of Twitter and lurking on LinkedIn from the sidelines. I was mindlessly scrolling on all kinds of platforms — even Indie Hackers, Kernal, and Product Hunt. That often translated into a feeling of not doing enough!

Stop Chasing
I kept getting caught in this constant loop of “When GEXPR gets X, it will be okay”, “When Y signs up as a PRO, it will be okay”, or “When we win Z pitch competition, it will be okay”. It took a lot of self-reflection after my initial learnings from “chasing the prize” and seeking that end goal of XYZ outcomes, that I realized I was doing it slightly wrong, i.e., “constantly chasing”! I felt as though I was wasting time if I wasn’t reading a productive post, journaling my learnings, building customer profiles, or brainstorming on our whiteboard (yes, we have one)!

Some pressure is good, and so is some stress, but not when you get too attached to every result and outcome. Not even for those around you!

I was trying to do a lot of everything and would end up doing almost nothing. So, for a change, I didn’t do anything for a few days. Nada!

Look At Other Runners
Instead, I got up from behind my laptop and went to local meetups, and, I was amazed at how energizing it was to step out and meet others fighting your fight. Yes, it is cliched but you do feed off other people’s energy. And, I would regret not taking every opportunity to do that in New York.

The opportunity to:

Build relationships.

At Start-up Demo Days!

At an impact picnic in the park!

At a PR get-together in Brooklyn!

At a tech and biz mixer in AR/VR World!

At online webinars and founder meet-ups!

Find Your Pace
I take every opportunity to connect with a customer, mentor, investor, and user to learn from them and build relationships. Whether or not that translates into “work” that’s secondary. It’s needless to say how immensely humbling and gratifying it has been to make these connections with people across the globe. Yes, not all the calls and meetings go as expected, there are times when the other person stands you up, without notice, and there are odd ones where the other person picks up their phone or yawns mid-way maybe because they’re genuinely distracted or simply bored. And, that is okay!

Miles To Go
This approach has helped me develop a no-pressure-open mindset to genuinely learn from and connect with others including founders from companies, like pet influencer marketplaces, future of partying apps, TikTok for gamers, and athlete sponsorship portals, category-defining student-debt solutions, and many more. Who wouldn’t get back inspired by these ideas?

So, switch things up a bit if you find yourself going down a rabbit hole often. Instead of living each day like a to-do list please attend an event. Some of the most inspiring people I’ve met were at the events I almost skipped.

Have you been to any exciting events in New York City? Feel free to connect and share them with me on Twitter or LinkedIn — I’d love to know!

P.S. — Oddly enough, this post has tempted me to sign up for a run now! Haaa.