It's time to evolve

Founders going epigenetic

Hi all —

I just finished the sci-fi book Seveneves, and a concept from the book is stuck in my mind. It’s called “going epigenetic” - where, in response to a stressor, a person’s genetics change. The point of “going epi” is to emerge stronger, adapted to whatever challenge the person just faced.

You might guess why the concept resonated with me.

As founders in the arena, we face more stress than normal people do.

And normal people think we’re crazy. Because people are like batteries: There’s a fixed amount of stress a person can take before we need to recharge, right?

Maybe not.

What if we go epigenetic? Where, in response to stress, we mentally and physically change to handle even more stress. When we rise to today’s challenge, we evolve a little bit to be able to handle tomorrow’s (bigger) challenge.

So we seek out challenges, because we only evolve when we face difficulties.

In 2021, our business accomplished the improbable: We created product-market fit, grew 40x, and tripled our prices. We went from 0 to 1. It was the most difficult and stressful thing I’ve ever done. (It narrowly beats running out of food with 3 days left on Kilimanjaro.)

But 2022 is going to be even more difficult, in different ways. Our business needs to evolve from “figuring it out” to “executing and scaling”. I need to evolve as a contributor and leader too - a hell of a lot.

But that’s good. Stress is good. Because in 2022, I’m going epi. Just like I did in 2021. Emerging stronger, different, better.

Wishing you a challenging 2022.

Rob

PS - yes, I’ve heard of Carol Dweck’s book Mindset and Nassim Taleb’s Antifragile. “Going epigenetic” just feels more visceral and awesome, resonates better.