no right answers

I had a conversation recently with a founder that highlighted something that’s always been in the back of my mind about building companies. "For every successful decision I've studied, there's someone who did the exact opposite and succeeded just as well."

I thought it framed very well one of the most challenging aspect of building companies, one that's not often discussed openly: often there isn’t a right answer, no rules, no playbook to follow with guaranteed results.

In my first company, we spent many nights trying to decode the ‘rules’ of success. We studied competitors, their strategies, and searched for the tactically-correct, risk-optimized path. I was convinced that success meant making the correct next chess move, finding the right formula, following it diligently.

But, this time around, I'm realizing something fundamental: there is no right path. No matter what that successful advisor says, or what that founder who "did something similar" suggests, their experience is just a data point - not a direction.

In life, there are finite games and there are infinite games. Finite games, like chess, have rules, order, structure, right moves, blunders. Infinite games do not have rules - there are many options, many permutations, many right answers, many wrong ones.

It is a mistake to treat entrepreneurship as a finite game. It is an infinite game. The rules are always changing, the tactics ever evolving.

What worked for your competitors won't necessarily work for you. What failed for Apple in their startup phase might be brilliant today. The "best practices" that built your industry three years ago might sink your company today.

The right move is the one that makes the most sense for your specific situation at that very point in time. Often times, only you, as the founder, truly understand that unique situational context. This means it’s important to take external advice as input, not instruction

This one of the most challenging aspects for founders. You can't copy someone else's style - you must develop your own.

• Develop your intuition and taste

• Be comfortable quickly making decisions with incomplete information

• Develop really good processes on when to double-down, and when to pull-the-plug

  
  

I actually find it to be quite freeing because now the right answer is not somewhere to be found, but rather something to be developed internally.

I have to remind myself: there are no invisible rules (beyond legal and ethical ones). No secret playbook that everyone else knows but you. The successful ones simply developed their own style. Don't study their playbooks to death - build your own.

So do what feels right for your specific situation. But most importantly, do it fast. Because while there are no rules, there is one constant. Compound learning eats perfection of strategy for breakfast.

The next time someone tells you "this is how it's done," remember - they're just telling you how they did it. Your path might look entirely different.