5. Exponential Growth

This blog post is inspired by a few quotes that came to my mind. It was also partially inspired by CS-430, Intelligent Agents that I took while studying abroad at EPFL.

Back in October last year, I was working on Bioimedge, which I have now put on pause, and I had a hard time gathering motivation. My good friend, Declan from high school, is also a startup founder, and he told me something that changed the way I looked at high-potential and high-uncertainty leaps such as entrepreneurship. And that quote is:

You never lose before you quit.

Just like me, Declan has been through times of uncertainty and struggle before he found success. And when you examine the human emotions, fears, and struggles that go into doing something original, suddenly running a startup seems more doable and not as lofty (and more mundane) than outsiders would think it would be. It also seems that for many founders, they have underwent periods of demoralization before finding success (suddenly). Thomas Edison has made a wonderful observation here:

Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

For many founders, finding success felt like "shooting into the sky" and almost as if it happened unnaturally fast. It took a spark somewhere to set off a path of exponential growth. Let's examine how this happens, and how "time spent in the game" might be the greatest determinant of success.

For startups, while they start from a humble point of not having users, or not having paid users, they have the entire sky to grow. One starting user, and one paid user is the starting point of their journeys up. And it is not particularly hard to make a product a few percent better each day. A month of work can be day and night of difference. That type of growth compound on themselves towards infinite potential, but it also means that possibly even just days before becoming successful, the position that the founders are at are much more humble than the point where they made it.

Another interesting dynamic comes at play. Business decisions and efforts, especially at startups, are highly uncertain. You don't know what would might suddenly make it "click" with potential customers, especially if you have not had experience building things that others want and market them. The probability of a payoff might scale better than inverse of payoff - i.e. the probability of having twice as many viewers on a TikTok marketing video might not be twice as hard, especially as time goes on. Not only is time spent the most important determinant of total output, but more time spent might also be most important determinant of output on a per-hour basis or productivity.

When I studied at EPFL, I took Intelligent Agents by Boi Faltings. One concept that stuck out to me was the exploration-exploitation payoff. You try to minimize (mathematical) regret - which is basically opportunity cost. At early stages, when you are still trying to do well in some way, you have to take risks (although be strategic with it), and then learn your environment. You would not try to refine your approach prematurely, and from time to time you perform random actions to see what works. And this understanding might be the factor that underpins growth in uncertain environments. You try and find out.

For founders who are still looking for that spark of success, a combination of figuring out, upskilling, prayers or hopes, and a moral or philosophical belief in their product and/or service will sustain them through the journey. If you are a fellow founder, then, I wish you the best of luck as well.