After starting a company with nothing but unreasonable confidence, the world around me changed and I began to see different things. Sometimes I thought, if only I had older, wiser people around me from the beginning, I would not have had to stumble through so much painful trial and error.
But that turned out to be the wrong thought. First, good elders do exist. If I wanted them, I should have gone out and found them instead of hoping they would come to me. Second, I had to go through the trial and error myself for those lessons to become mine, to remain part of me, and to shape my identity. So it was not a losing deal at all.
Reading this brings back the same feeling. How nice it would have been to know this earlier. I spent almost five years experimenting, one lesson at a time, to arrive here. But because of that, discipline became part of my identity, part of the thing other people wave off as impossible, and a virtue I carry as a founder.
