It is raining outside my bedroom window.
I have been sitting here for the last few hours, tapping quietly on my laptop, building as usual. I can hear the rain getting heavier, and somewhere in that sound I started thinking about the pattern I have fallen into.
Does building ever really stop? What does it require of you to become the person who can achieve what you are working towards, and scale the enterprise you have started?
Earlier, I went to bed completely exhausted. If pushing a human body were something you could measure and tick off a list, I think I would have ticked off quite a lot yesterday. I have developed this ability to withstand long, and I mean crazy, working schedules. I do not know whether that is a good thing or a bad thing.
I keep going until my brain cannot function any more. At that point, the whole system shuts off. I stop thinking and finally get some rest.
But here comes the kicker. I went to bed at around midnight, and after only a few hours of sleep, I was awake again. It was 2:35 a.m. I lay there asking myself, Why am I awake? I should be sleeping.
I could not force myself back to sleep, and I knew why. When I went to bed, there were thoughts at the back of my mind that I could not shake off. Things I could do. Ideas I wanted to try. The work still ahead of us. These are the thoughts that wake me up with expectations and goals, and keep pushing me to get up and build.
I was watching an interesting diary on YouTube some time back by an MIT monk. He was a decent, impeccable gentleman, and he talked about the one per cent. The more I continue building, the more I realise that making the cut for that one per cent requires a lot. A generous amount of effort, a kind of crazy belief, and the push to keep going when an ordinary level of effort has already been exhausted.
When we say no human is limited, I think this is what we mean. You can go beyond the level of effort and dedication you once thought was your limit. Trust me, I have seen the kind of results that push can bring.
Look at the two weeks I spent travelling through Tanzania. If you had asked me before that journey what could come out of it, I could not have told you that all of this was possible. I went anyway. I travelled, met people and followed conversations wherever they led. Now we are talking about partnerships and the possibility of scaling what we are building. That journey gave me a glimpse of what can happen when you decide to push beyond what feels comfortable.
That drive also means I cannot become too comfortable with where we are. There is always more to learn, more to build and another problem that needs an answer. I remember one of my mentors, a great investor, once telling me that it is good when things are hard. It is good when you have doubts. If everything is simple and comfortable, you have to ask yourself whether you are solving a real problem.
I have been thinking about that alongside what I wrote in my last Founder’s Note, What Do You Do When You Get Tired? In that entry, I talked about rest. I meant every word. I know what happens when I push myself until I have nothing left to give.
But tonight I am thinking about the other side of it. Sometimes you have rested, you wake up at 2:35 a.m., and the thought is still there. You sit with it for a while, then open your laptop because you want to see where it leads. That is what happened to me tonight.
By now, most of you know that I am a huge Formula 1 fan. This weekend, I was following the racing in Baku, from practice and F2 through to qualifying and the race. One of my favourite young drivers, Kimi Antonelli, made a tiny mistake in qualifying and brushed the wall. Just like that, his qualifying session was over, and he had to start further back than he would have wanted.
I kept watching him during the race. Things did not suddenly become easy after the start. He had to fight his way forward, position by position. He did not make it to the podium, but I could see the effort in that drive. He kept pushing to get what he could out of a difficult weekend.
I recognise something in that. With entrepreneurship, a mistake or a setback can put you further back than you planned to be. You still have to work from where you find yourself. You think, you create, you try again, and sometimes you discover there was more in you than you expected.
I am still learning where the line is between pushing my limits and giving myself the rest I need. I do not have a neat answer to that at 2:35 in the morning. What I do know is that I love building, and I love seeing some of the results beginning to come through. The rain is still falling outside my window, and I am here, working on what comes next.
See you in the next one.