We view external identifiers – where you studied or worked, what you do in your free time, who you spend time with, etc. – as at best useless signals. Crude and broad-stroke generalizations run counter to the ethos of finding outliers.
We index against a deeper and less obvious trait. Specifically, we fixate on those with the capacity for extreme pain tolerance, as virtually every other quality we look for in a founder exists downstream of this core trait.
Beyond the basic truth that building a business from scratch is an intensely painful experience, founders with an exceptionally high pain threshold will:
- Uncover a true non-obvious, earned secret. We obsess over founders who claw their way – whether from years of experience or by sheer brute force – into a unique market, product, or technical insight. The entry barriers to starting a company are simply too low to build a meaningful business off a mainstream or readily-available “insight”.
- Execute an effective ground game. Especially in the early days, a startup demands a painful amount of energy, resolve, and borderline delusion from founders. We believe the truly consequential businesses aren’t built from behind computer screens and require serious ground game.
- Embrace arbitrary constraints and tradeoffs. Startups are by definition capital and resource-constrained enterprises, even if some might not be relative to others. Operating in an environment of non-excess – whereby every decision is made in the context of its opportunity costs – is an objectively painful way to build a business. We believe these “arbitrary” constraints encourage focus and subsequently lead to better long-term outcomes.