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You won’t read this anywhere else. At least not yet.
But when I was working in Tech from 2013 to 2022 and moving from big corporate employers to post-Series A startups and building my own on the side, I was alway inundated with generic advice. From how I should dress (j/k), to how to create a lead magnet, how to set up my agile board, to how I should structure my day for success, even to how I should breathe. Remember those very specific weekly calendar agendas that caters to entrepreneurs? I think I kickstarted a few of those or at least one from a friend I met at an accelerator years back. (His agenda did really well actually for a while). But now we know that apparently writing with a real pen and onto real paper has cognitive benefits — who would’ve thought!?
We know the famous advice that still gets mindshare even today: move fast and break things. But did Zuck really take into account that some people just aren’t cut out to move too fast and don’t like broken things along the way? Like is not strong enough a word here though. But I think you get the point. There is no one-size-fits-all for any generic advice for a person, let along generic advice for a whole team, a whole product, a whole dept. or a whole startup.
I’ve always thought that undifferentiated (i.e. generic) advice has no real power, but I think I’ve been too naive. I think the whole Valley and industry has been too. We are no better than any other person out there in other industries and in some ways people in Tech have become more subject to groupthink, herding mentality and inception because of the ever increasing need to homogenize the same formula to greater and greater levels of (supposed) success. I think that’s where people in Tech have been wrong. I’ve been wrong a few times at least.
Here’s the most egregious of the generic advice for those of us in Tech and … also how to know which ones are not something you should follow willy-nilly.
“Take action and path will review itself.”
I see this one be used a lot and shared on X and Substack by the usual suspects. See this is mostly innocent but frankly is also potentially disastrous advice. On the surface, action-first breaks you out of a rut of overthinking, but also minimizes the need for proper planning.
In BG5 (which is the business arm of Human Design) where we can take into your specific way of making decisions in your business highly unique to you, it means you know it’s met the threshold on when to engage and act. This generic advice tells you start yesterday (which is honestly not helpful at all) and mostly creates a false urgency that can turn into churn, rework and burnout.
Not everyone is meant to Initiate things like this without giving enough time to find clarity in a plan, any plan. But there are some folks who have a Career Type = Initator that can and should do what this advice suggests. Some people can just GO! Others for example, like Career Type = Builders (which is around 60% of the population) require what is called a gut response in order to go. The threshold here is different and different from different people.
“The difference between successful founders and everyone else is they just didn’t stop.”
Perhaps this one goes without saying, but it depends on the specific person’s definition of success. But in any case, judgment is required to know when to stop or the Valley’s favourite word: pivot. And judgment is not perfect, it requires part gumption, part experience from pattern recognition and a host of other things not to mention runway.
When looking at anyone’s way to find judgment that aligns with the way you are as a Founder, a Tech Worker, you also look to your BG5/Human Design Career Type first. For example if your Career Type = Builder where you primarily source your judgment and personalized Decision-Making Strategy from a gut response, it possible that through the gut response that even after starting on your MVP, that you spot and start again on something else. Or if you’re a Career Type = Advisor, you might release the MVP to see if you can work with users to see if they recognize the work you and the product is doing to help them with whatever jobs-to-be-done and from the feedback know it’s time to stop (or double down for v1.5).
The reality is that successful founders aren’t following this generic advice. Most of the time you can see the success only after doing whatever it takes by applying superior judgment not just applying grit for the sake of it. If you happen to be the Career Type = Builder, you can indeed be like the Energizer Bunny and keep going and going and going — but it’s not for everyone.
“Focus on impact. Own the outcome.”
In the second half of my career in Tech, I took on roles as a Product Manager. And having a birds-eye view into the work of developers, designers and beyond, I realized that people on those team didn’t all want to focus on the impact or outcome.
Some of the best (and worst, unfortunately) developers were ones that didn’t care too much about the impact on users or to the business. Their focus was focused on building the best “thing” that they can build or what they were told to do in the ticket that they had to execute that Sprint. It also means there was an appropriate division of labour where the developers were focused on Building and others were obsessing over the outcome and the customers. Conversely, I’ve been on agile teams and many teams are famous for this where the PM, Lead Designer and Lead Engineer all have equal say and frankly some of those setups have been flops.
My point again is that there is never a one-size-fits-all here. But to follow the advice that everyone from the Founder to the Junior Intern Developer need to obsessing over the outcome is frankly silly. Of course there is an appropriate level of situation awareness on meeting the customer outcomes and also different ways of breaking down the middle-man syndrome too whereby product engineers become the one role that tri-partite teams into a single person.
When looking at this in the BG5 lens, Career Type = Initiators are the ones that feel the most satisfied in their roles when they know they are made an Impact on something in the world. It’s what’s called their Signature theme or north star feeling. By contrast, if you are Career Type = Builders (perhaps it’s clear from the name itself) your focus is more on heads down and you can keep going and going like the energizer bunny. And when things are going well for Builder, there is an immense sense of Satisfaction. That’s their signature north star feeling to know they are in alignment.
“Prioritize ruthlessly. Say no more than yes.”
Of course, Steve Jobs famously said this many times when building many of Apple’s individual products or when thinking about the suite of Apple’s products. Of all the generic advice this comes close to being more true to how one should make decision in your personal life, career or product decision in Tech.
If you look at the “maths” of this, you can look at the Power Law. There are a disproportionate number of decisions that you make in the life of your Tech Business or Product that will have meaning impact to any KPIs that you tract. And as below, so above, to your startup too, you Founders. VCs know this very well which is why their strategy and so much like “Spray and Pray” in their portfolio of companies. Many small bets means you increase the changes to hit the one unicorn that will return it all. I know that’s the opposite of saying no, but the mindset when VCs when investing is that they probably take more meetings 100:1 before actually putting a dollar into the fund.
The reason why prioritization or one’s backlog works as a general principle is that things are dynamic and things change. There will always be more things to do than nothing to do because if you don’t have anything to do then you’re likely dead (in your business anyway). But the prioritization exercise also dovetails into the principle within BG5 as well that is — as we have discussed throughout this article — an alignment, unique way in which you evaluate if a decision is “correct” for you. As life changes, we make decisions based on the best information at the time. As a Career Type = Builder (and I am one of them), our Decision Making Strategy is to from the gut-response. The gut response is needed because we are checking with ourselves if we have the “potential energy” to sustain the work that will take up. The response will protect us from being burnt out in the short and long run. As things change, we might’ve said yes to doing it in the “backlog”, but when we review it again this Sprint, it might only be a maybe. In which it’s not a no, it’s just not right now. And as a concept that makes sense. You can always choosing from the best thing to do with the best changes during the current Sprint.
Summarizing into a Cheat Sheet
So Generic Advice in Tech = Mediocre Results + Burnout.
Here’s a cheat sheet (very high level as BG5 goes much deeper into the specific conditions and thresholds for your Best and most alignment Decision-Making Strategy):
Career Type = Builder
Wait/Listen for Gut Response —> Engage!
Career Type = Advisor
Wait to be Invited or Recognized —> Engage!
Career Type = Initiator
No Need to Wait, Make Up Your Decision and Trust Your Direction —> Just Do It!
If you’re interested in learning more about your UNIQUE way and also SPECIFIC advice to use take make the best, most aligned decision for yourself. Reach out for a free consult. We’ll set you up for success.