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Should Kids Follow in Our Founder Footsteps?
The Evolution of Entry Level Workers
Assume Everyone Will Leave in Year One
Stop Listening to Investors
Was Mortgaging My Life Worth it?
What's My Startup Worth in an Acquisition?
When Our Ambition is Our Enemy
Are Startups in a "Silent Recession"?
The 5 Types of Startup Funding
What Is Startup Funding?
Do Founders Deserve Their Profit?
Michelle Glauser on Diversity and Inclusion
The Utter STUPIDITY of "Risking it All"
Committees Are Where Progress Goes to Die
More Money (Really Means) More Problems
Why Most Founders Don't Get Rich
Investors will be Obsolete
Why is a Founder so Hard to Replace?
We Can't Grow by Saying "No"
Do People Really Want Me to Succeed?
Is the Problem the Player or the Coach?
Will Investors Bail Me Out?
The Value of Actually Getting Paid
Why do Founders Suck at Asking for Help?
Wait a Minute before Giving Away Equity
You Only Think You Work Hard
SMALL is the New Big — Embracing Efficiency in the Age of AI
The 9 Best Growth Agencies for Startups
This is BOOTSTRAPPED — 3 Strategies to Build Your Startup Without Funding
Never Share Your Net Worth
A Steady Hand in the Middle of the Storm
Risk it All vs Steady Paycheck
How About a Startup that Just Makes Money?
How to Recruit a Rockstar Advisor
Why Having Zero Experience is a Huge Asset
My Competitor Got Funded — Am I Screwed?
The Hidden Treasure of Failed Startups
If It Makes Money, It Makes Sense
Why do VCs Keep Giving Failed Founders Money?
$10K Per Month isn't Just Revenue — It's Life Support
The Ridiculous Spectrum of Investor Feedback
Startup CEOs Aren't Really CEOs
Series A, B, C, D, and E Funding: How It Works
Best Pitch Decks Ever: The Most Successful Fundraising Pitches You Need to Know
When to Raise Funds
Why Aren't Investors Responding to Me?
Should I Regret Not Raising Capital?
Unemployment Cases — Why I LOOOOOVE To Win Them So Much.
How Much to Pay Yourself
Heat-Seeking Missile: WePay’s Journey to Product-Market Fit — Interview with Rich Aberman, Co-Founder of Wepay
The R&D technique for startups: Rip off & Duplicate
Why Some Startups Win.
Chapter #1: First Steps To Validate Your Business Idea
Product Users, Not Ideas, Will Determine Your Startup’s Fate
Drop Your Free Tier
Your Advisors Are Probably Wrong
Growth Isn't Always Good
How to Shut Down Gracefully
How Does My Startup Get Acquired?
Can Entrepreneurship Be Taught?
How to Pick the Wrong Co-Founder
Staying Small While Going Big
Investors are NOT on Our Side of the Table
Who am I Really Competing Against?
Why Can't Founders Replace Themselves?
Actually, We Have Plenty of Time
Quitting vs Letting Go
How Startups Actually Get Bought
What if I'm Building the Wrong Product?
Are Founders Driven by Fear or Greed?
Why I'm Either Working or Feeling Guilty
Startup Financial Assumptions
Why Every Kid Should be a Startup Founder
We Only Have to be Right Once
If a Startup Sinks, Founders Go Down With it
Founder Success: We Need a Strict Definition of Personal Success
Is Quiet Quitting a Problem at Startup Companies?
Founder Exits are Hard Work and Good Fortune, Not "Good Luck"
Finalizing Startup Projections
All Founders are Beloved In Good Times
Our Startup Culture of Entitlement
The Bullshit Case for Raising Capital
How do We Manage Our Founder Flaws?
What If my plan for retirement is "never retire"?
Startup Failure is just One Chapter in Founder Life
6 Similarities between Startup Founders and Pro Athletes
All Founders Make Bad Decisions — and That's OK
Startup Board Negotiations: How do I tell the board I need a new deal?
Founder Sacrifice — At What Point Have I Gone Too Far?
Youth Entrepreneurship: Can Middle Schoolers be Founders?
Living the Founder Legend Isn't so Fun
Why Do VC Funded Startups Love "Fake Growth?"
How Should I Share My Wealth with Family?
How Many Deaths Can a Startup Survive?
This is Probably Your Last Success
Why Do We Still Have Full-Time Employees?
The Case Against Full Transparency
Should I Feel Guilty for Failing?
Always Take Money off the Table
Founder Impostor Syndrome Never Goes Away

Why Having Zero Experience is a Huge Asset

Wil Schroter

Why Having Zero Experience is a Huge Asset

Sometimes our greatest liability is our own experience.

We often look up to executives who have incredible experience in their fields, rightfully so, as these "Gods of Wisdom." We assume their years of hard-earned experience allow them to make forecasts and decisions that the rest of us would just be guessing at.

But what if that same experience worked against them? What if their pattern recognition actually created a dangerous bias that prevented them from innovating on past success?

Founders are pattern-breaking machines by definition. Our whole DNA is based on upending the patterns of the past and creating new products to replace them. So what if the least experienced Founders were the greatest assets of innovation?

Our Bias of Experience

We rely heavily on our experiences because, generally, they make our lives more efficient. If we know that every time we take a certain path home, we'll hit traffic, our pattern recognition kicks in, and we stop taking that route. It generally works well for us.

But what if that route we stopped taking changed since we made that decision? What if they widened the highway or improved some traffic flow? We'd be left with making a poor, slower decision based on our past experiences..

You know who wouldn't make that poor decision? The person who has never experienced that traffic because they were taking that route for the first time! They would be free of any of the biases of past traffic jams and, instead, only know current success. In effect, our experience and the bias it created prevented us from being right.

We Take What Works for Granted

Last week I watched an interview with Tom Morello, the legendary lead guitarist from the heavy metal band Rage Against the Machine. The interviewer asked Morello, who graduated from Harvard as a Political Science major, how he became one of the most influential guitarists when nothing about his path had led him to become a musician.

He explained that he was able to become such an extraordinary guitarist because he never took what worked in the past for granted. Instead of trying to improve on the greats like Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin or Eddie Van Halen, he said, "Why repeat what's already worked? You're only going to get more of the same result!"

Morello experimented with countless ways to get music out of a guitar, including doing entire solos with nothing but his bare palm and the jack that connected to his guitar (that's the way he plays "Testify" if you're curious). He broke entirely new ground not because of his experience but because he deliberately ignored experience in favor of getting something entirely raw and real.

Too Dumb to Fail

You know how they say the best time to learn how to ride a bike, ski or ice skate is when you're a little kid? What they are really saying is, "You're too dumb to fail!" There's so much truth — and power — in that statement.

There's a moment in our lives where we haven't been broken yet. We haven't had our hearts broken, our spirits broken, or our bank accounts broken. Without any experience of the downside, all we have is the opportunity of upside, which makes us beautifully dangerous. We get on that bike, wobble and fall, then ride again. We do it because our hearts are aligned with our experience — that it's going to be great - because we don't know anything else.

As Founders, being "too dumb to fail" allows us to go places where more experienced people wouldn't think to go. We build startups without understanding if they can make money. We quit jobs without realizing what the impact might be. We do things not because we can, but because we should.

That kind of Founder, without the restraints of time, will continue to be the greatest asset in the startup ecosystem.

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In Case You Missed It

Don’t Work Long Hours, Work Efficient Hours As Founders, we should stop being "long hours" champions and instead start being proud of how much we can do in as few hours as possible.

The Emotional Cost of Being a Founder When we talk about building startups, we talk about lots of costs: Staffing costs, the cost of capital, cost per acquisition, and opportunity cost. But we never talk about the biggest cost – the emotional cost.

Who's Qualified To Be A Founder? (podcast) It turns out; anyone can become a Founder. Having the idea and vision for your Startup is easy, but building a business out of nothing, dealing with potential issues and challenges, and getting started aren’t as easy.

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Patrick James Archuleta

So, I don't know if this fits in with the article, but my invention was the sole purpose of making a airjack for a car and selling it, but everyone keeps saying to start a company. I don't even know what I'm doing everyone wants money to help me find angle investors. can you give me some advice on how to proceed??

Reply7 months ago

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