I Was Trying to Sprint in a Marathon.

How I am learning to pause and pace myself for the miles to go.

At the start of my journey with Gexpr, I thought I knew what it takes to talk about your product, and your journey, share learnings, find customers everywhere, and nowhere, make mistakes, and learn as you go. But, a part of me was always “playing it safe” so as to not sound self-loathing and only share big wins and big announcements whenever the “right” spotlight is on me.

That often meant I was hesitating to write content like “How can bootstrapped founders reach PMF” for example or threads like “How to stop overthinking and start doing”. That also meant I was hiding in the deep trenches of Twitter and lurking on LinkedIn from the sidelines. I was mindlessly scrolling on all kinds of platforms — even Indie Hackers, Kernal, and Product Hunt. That often translated into a feeling of not doing enough!

Stop Chasing

I kept getting caught in this constant loop of “When GEXPR gets X, it will be okay”, “When Y signs up as a PRO, it will be okay”, or “When we win Z pitch competition, it will be okay”. It took a lot of self-reflection after my initial learnings from “chasing the prize” and seeking that end goal of XYZ outcomes, that I realized I was doing it slightly wrong, i.e., “constantly chasing”! I felt as though I was wasting time if I wasn’t reading a productive post, journaling my learnings, building customer profiles, or brainstorming on our whiteboard (yes, we have one)!

Some pressure is good, and so is some stress, but not when you get too attached to every result and outcome. Not even for those around you!

I was trying to do a lot of everything and would end up doing almost nothing. So, for a change, I didn’t do anything for a few days. Nada!

Look At Other Runners

Instead, I got up from behind my laptop and went to local meetups, and, I was amazed at how energizing it was to step out and meet others fighting your fight. Yes, it is cliched but you do feed off other people’s energy. And, I would regret not taking every opportunity to do that in New York.

The opportunity to: