Writer’s Block a Symptom or a Cause?
How I realized it's less of a failure and more of a prioritization
Maybe it’s ego, or maybe it’s guilt, but for whatever reason, when I fail to do something for the first time, I blame myself. I often believe that I should do better regardless of the circumstances. This is especially true when I fail at smaller tasks that build up to a bigger goal. However, I realized recently that even with these best intentions, if I fail at doing it, it is often because it was not that important in the first place. Rather, I should not feel guilt but realize the signal is telling me something important: I need to focus on something that matters more. The failure was not because of me but a symptom of focusing on the wrong thing.
The context for this was this blog. I had a whole plan of articles to build trust, show my thought process, and generally market myself. The inspiration for my second post was in the Colorado Product Slack, where I responded to someone complaining about how learning new things did not directly translate to new successes. I learned this when I did not have a job out of college and then successively as a serial founder. There is a skill to overcoming this hurdle, and I wanted to talk about that skill. The problem was that as I went into writing that post, I was completely uninspired.
What I realized is most successful people figure out this skill on their own. They tell people what they are trying to do and ask for help. It’s not that hard, but it is a long process. I did not want to waste my time preaching something that most successful people overcome. The problem was that this created some writer’s block. I agonized over my inability to write this straightforward article for weeks. Embarrassingly this failure led to writer’s block in other, more important tasks.
Luckily, as this bled into blocking more important progress, I became increasingly frustrated. I pushed myself to solve the more important task of getting blocked and realized this trivial article was not worth my time. The failure was not an inability to write a compelling how-to guide essential for career success but not understanding that the lack of inspiration meant it was unimportant.
How this relates to startups
“If you haven’t started the company now, it’s not that important. Find something else to do.” These were heart-crushing words of advice given to me in a chic coffee shop in the Cherry Creek neighborhood of Denver. I was still a management consultant interested in starting a company, with a thesis on people having a better way to invest from my understanding of risk, but the truth was this ambition was not a company or a product. As much as I wanted to share a new insight with the world, I did not know how to make it into anything people wanted. I was just wasting my time. It hurt, but as this guy sped off in his silver Range Rover after our meeting, I realized he was right.
The truth about startups is that a market, an opportunity to fix a problem, and an ambition to fix it are not enough to be successful. Macroeconomic and societal problems are not solved by good ideas but by building something valuable enough for individuals to compel a change in their behavior. This is why user research is so important. Do enough of them, and it’s either crystal clear that there is a specific problem to solve or it’s not. At that moment, it becomes incredibly motivating to build and do whatever is necessary to solve the problem.
The next steps are to build and sustain momentum: build the product and sales. That means finding the right people who can help in a very tactical way. Sometimes, that’s a first hire. It’s important to honor their leap of faith and hold them accountable for that leap of faith. Sometimes, it’s advisors and consultants: the best people will help freely. Sales are always needed, and the best customers will buy before there’s a product in existence.
In the alternative case, it’s not a lost cause. It just means that the time was not right. So do something else actionable to gain experience because one day, the right insight will come to that ambition. The true irony of this section was that the insight I wanted to share and pursue in that coffee shop meeting is quite similar to what I am doing now. However, the way I thought I would do it is nothing like what I am doing now. It took ten more years, being among the first employees at two new startups, starting two new companies, an intellectual exercise, and hundreds of user interviews, for me to realize that there was an actual company to build, and it’s all I can think about now. Now, the key is to keep and build momentum.