“Hard work” is two words.

Im so tired of Indian gurus wannabe startup founders. Beyond the ones who went to MIT or Stanford, the others are fakes.

Not overrated bro. It’s simply not enough. It used to be, not now. I agree with working smart firstly but being consistent gives you a clear gap over the average.

Founder of a 7 figure dropshipping store.

And this point here is your clue he’s a con man.

Giving statements on success is the easiest thing in the world. Keep your head down and keep working on your product, listen to your customers, keep an eye on the cash flow. Do the basics right. Great companies are basically good business hygiene and some bit of initial luck.

I think it depends on the people and how much you want to achieve, doing a startup is about having the right idea, doing a ton of research and solving one problem after another and in each step if you’re gifted in something like being creative and you have a ton of good ideas or maybe you’ve an high iq (like sam) you’ll probably need to do a lot less than the average guy because you learn a lot faster from your failure and you can concentrate in the right direction withouth that much intensity.

I went to college with Shaan. Took one class with him. Cool guy. Crazy his opinions are being analyzed and dissected like this by a pure stranger. Didn’t know he was this big. My opinion is that it doesn’t matter. You’re gonna do whatever it takes to get what you want done, or you’re not.

I absolutely agree on storytelling is a huge deal. I worked directly for the CTO of one of the largest companies in the world and while I don’t respect him has a businessman or technologist his storytelling skills were just amazing, he could enrapture people and convince them of anything it was like he could hypnotize them for 30 minutes. And his enthusiasm within carry that into new business deals and into markets where we really shouldn’t have been in.

I think the hardest part is really trying to figure out what to focus on in the right way and it’s amazing even senior people who I feel should know better totally get lost in the sauce and end up focusing on the wrong things. Even I do it and I know I shouldn’t do it.

I’m convinced it really takes a team to constantly scrutinize investments and early stage startups to make sure that you’re working on the right things and to call each other out when somebody gets focused on the wrong thing. It seems like it’s far too easy for everybody ends up working really hard on the wrong things - things that don’t validate the market, things that don’t improve customer experience, things that don’t ultimately add customer value.

Or maybe I haven’t had the fortunate experience at working at a small startup that has the discipline to constantly be asking “should we be working on this?”

I’m also very jaded because working hard has caused my health to be destroyed, no amount of hard work or money can make up for your health. So if you’re going to work hard it should be on the right things.

He’s right to some extent but also he explains it like a moron.

80-20 rule tells us that 80% of our results come from 20% of the work we do. That’s another way of saying that the few high-impact things you do will make a far bigger difference than doing a bunch of small impact things.

But tbh, hard work is always beneficial as long as you can stay healthy doing it. If you told guys like zuck, gates, bezos who are by all accounts psychotic workaholics, they would probably laugh at you

I agree many founders including myself worked past burnout.

Your decision quality goes down, health goes down and then when you really need to pull a rabbit out of the hat you can’t cause you haven’t taken a day off in half a year.

I think the bigger point here is don’t confuse being busy with working hard and as a founder be hyper vigilant on what you need to do and what others can do.

Dumb dumb dumb.

Waiter and founder story? The founder in question is ex-post successful (i.e. he already founded a 7-figure company). So massive selection bias. Also the selection of a waiter is problematic, since that’s an hourly job in which it’s impossible to get rich. What about an investment banker? They work hard AND they get paid. Probably more than the average founder (as long we don’t only look at the successful ones after the fact).

Project selection. Undoubtedly important, especially again in an ex-post analysis. But it’s not really an either or between project selection and hard work now is it? Is the argument really that if you pick the right project then you don’t need to work hard?? I think you’d probably maximize your success if you choose the right project AND worked bloody hard. (Later on he seems to admit as much and says that “hard work is essential to success”. Uh ok…)

Why does everyone scream work hard? Lots of reasons here and it’s partly an American thing. But even in the USA, the younger generation Z seem to be increasingly rejecting the single-minded focus on career and work of previous generations. We’ll see if this holds but not clear that everyone is screaming work hard.

So basically setup up a couple of stupid initial examples (or maybe they are “stories”) and then climbs down to a mild statement that project selection is important (without providing any insights on how to do this) as well as working with good people and ends up saying pretty much what he criticizes everyone as doing, namely “hard work is essential”.

Even in this condensed version, it’s a waste of people time. Kindly do the needful and don’t summarize more of this dude’s drivel!