Nike, my wife, the rat race and startups

Hi, troublemakers! 👋

Here’s a powerful quote I’ve highlighted this week, along with a thought for you to reflect this weekend.

Take care and unwind!
Tom

1 Quote

From my wife Paulina: 😘

“What differentiates us (that’s a startup) from other companies is the impact anyone can make. Never forget that. Don’t let anyone into the rat race.”

Source: evening discussion after a hard day

1 Thought

Scaling means two things happening simultaneously: more people, more processes.

More people , which is obvious, reduce the overall impact of individual employees , especially if they aren’t managing teams. Thinking about your early folks who joined when there were only 5 of us, it’s a challenge to manage their expectations and the fading feeling of impact.

More processes , on the other hand, lead to more bureaucracy, and that’s enough for the team to feel they are no longer in control. That’s why I believe in keeping my company in a state of ’ controllable chaos ’ — where things aren’t flying out of control, but there’s still room for creative sparks.

To quote 1970s Nike Manifesto:

It won’t be pretty.

and

Perfect results count, not a perfect process.