Do the Hardest Thing
a day ago
- #innovation
- #entrepreneurship
- #strategy
- The philosophy of 'do the hardest thing' stems from the belief that there is less competition in difficult endeavors because many avoid them.
- Choosing the hardest thing involves pursuing ambitious projects with high upside, rather than retreating to easier but lower-value options.
- Working on 'the hardest thing' means tackling the most challenging problems within one's expertise that others are unwilling to attempt.
- Hard work alone isn't enough; success depends on selecting the right problem space, as seen in examples like Skype versus a retail shop.
- Venture capital's power law applies to ideas: the hardest (best) idea often yields greater returns than all other ideas combined.
- Durable startups like Stripe and Shopify succeeded by solving hard problems in markets with existing demand.
- The approach is summarized as finding a valuable idea and becoming obsessed with it, recognizing that all companies are hard to build.