My thoughts on this matter were summed up today by Marc Andreessen:
In my view, entrepreneurial judgment is the ability to tell the difference between a situation that's not working but persistence and iteration will ultimately prove it out, versus a situation that's not working and additional effort is a destructive waste of time and radical change is necessary.
I don't believe there are any good rules for being able to tell the difference between the two. Which is one of the main reasons starting a company is so hard.
A few years ago, when struggling with a big decision, I wondered: if persistence is such a good trait, why have I gotten into such trouble with it? The solution I found was to distinguish between persistence and stubbornness. Both are committed to reaching the goal no matter what, but persistence means changing what's not working, while stubbornness simply repeats what's not working.
This distinction has proven quite helpful to me. Your Andreesen quote may be the first time I've run across it elsewhere.
I don't believe there are any good rules for being able to tell the difference between the two.
Experience helps a lot there. YC has gotten fairly good at it. And when we advise people to give up on some immediate goal and backtrack, they tend to listen, because we're usually pretty optimistic.
Comments
My thoughts on this matter were summed up today by Marc Andreessen:
In my view, entrepreneurial judgment is the ability to tell the difference between a situation that's not working but persistence and iteration will ultimately prove it out, versus a situation that's not working and additional effort is a destructive waste of time and radical change is necessary.
I don't believe there are any good rules for being able to tell the difference between the two. Which is one of the main reasons starting a company is so hard.
A few years ago, when struggling with a big decision, I wondered: if persistence is such a good trait, why have I gotten into such trouble with it? The solution I found was to distinguish between persistence and stubbornness. Both are committed to reaching the goal no matter what, but persistence means changing what's not working, while stubbornness simply repeats what's not working.
This distinction has proven quite helpful to me. Your Andreesen quote may be the first time I've run across it elsewhere.
Someone famous once said something along the lines of:
"Persistence isn't trying the same thing over and over. That's just annoying. Persistence is having the same goals over and over."
I don't believe there are any good rules for being able to tell the difference between the two.
Experience helps a lot there. YC has gotten fairly good at it. And when we advise people to give up on some immediate goal and backtrack, they tend to listen, because we're usually pretty optimistic.
Here is a funny related quote from W.C. Fields:
"If at first you don't succeed, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it."