Obsess early, obsess always

Praise,

2 months ago, I started building a company called Blnk Finance. We saw that developers around the world who build financial products needed really cool & expert tools specific to the industry, and we decided to make it for them, starting with a ledger — a database for money movement.

The last time I started a business was in 2018. It was a design studio — Neptunn. It is easily top 5 hardest things I have ever done. I was 18, in my third year of university, and I had just spent 1 year of apprenticeship with FourthCanvas. I call it apprenticeship because I wasn't exactly invited to learn, I just stuck my butt and they couldn't swat me away.

"Start small." That was my dad's caring response to me on the day we were checking out my first studio. I had not entered the apartment when I started going off on all the beautiful things I was going to turn the studio into. My parents listened to me go on and on in the ride, and it quite frankly didn't stop. I'd picked the colour, the team size, the interior design, the amount it'd cost, how I planned to make the money, etc.

Being my first business and a budding perfectionist, I cared and obsessed about every little thing. From the team, to our finances, to our clients, our brand, our capability, and even our name, everything kept me awake at night. I obsessed so deeply that nothing else mattered. 24 months later, I left Neptunn and for a minute, it looked like all of that obsession was for naught. But it wasn't, here's why.

When you obsess early, you subconsciously create an elaborate blueprint. A blueprint that helps you determine in what direction your first step should be. It presents you with all the facts and possibilities, and you permit yourself to choose the ones that best fit what you want to do.

It starts off foggy at first. Then it becomes clearer. It is like sitting through a day of harmattan. At the beginning, it is dark and cold; you don't even see the fog yet. All you want to do is run back in and hide under your blanket. As the hours pass, it becomes daylight. The sun is rising, and it is no longer dark. You can see your compound, you can see your feet, you can see your next step. But it's foggy now. You have some sight, but not nearly enough. It is still cold — freezing, maybe — you'd been staying outside for so long.

As the hours pass, the cold stings less. It's still cold but you've accepted it's part of harmattan. Your skin is probably white and your lips are dry, but you don't want to go back into your blanket. The fog is a little less. You can see people move around and you can hear talk about how plenty and thick the fog is. They don't know you were here when it was a lot thicker and worse, you were blind and couldn't see anything in the dark.

You stay a little while, and there's some dew. You can see the next hundred steps. The fog has almost lifted. Sun is peeking through. But the end of your street is still foggy. Not as foggy as a few hours ago, but you can't make out everything clearly. And then it's late morning or noon — the fog is lifted and everything seems clear.

Contrary to what my dad thought, obsessing early is not the opposite of starting small or trusting the process, although it can very easily spiral into chaos and more worry than you can handle. Wanting foresight and clarity into the journey doesn't mean you have discarded the energy and commitment that the journey requires.

It doesn't mean you have all the answers. Obsessing at the beginning paints a picture and gives you a blueprint. It tells you what you have to do now to get there. You have an idea of the pitfalls and the mistakes that you may make on the way. You know how long you can survive. You know what you need to do to survive. You know who you need to survive. You know how big your idea is, and you know if you're the right person for it.

Knowing doesn't guarantee absolutes, however. It presents clarity. It provides a compass and a map. It defines the destination, and presents all of the routes to get there. It lets you know how much treasure there is to find. You get to see how rough the road is. It lifts the fog off. It reduces the discomfort and uncertainty of something new.

Here's where it gets fun:

You don't stop obsessing. How much clarity you gain is directly proportional to how much information you have. So while obsessing early helps you determine what step you should begin your journey, continuous obsession allows you update how you travel your journey or if you should change your direction at all.

Obsessing always is a constant review of past assumptions — yes, all answers from obsessions are assumptions — against current reality. Do you move faster or slower? Do you change destination? Should you make the goal bigger or smaller? Should you ask for more help or do you need to change anything to go it alone? Is there something you'll need that you don't have yet? Is it important? Should you get it?

Side note: You can't obsess in retrospect. That's just called sulking.

Obsessing early isn't really the same with worrying. It is not being pragmatic or realistic. Sometimes, it is chock full of delusion. Obsessing early is a patient (remember the harmattan parable) process of finding answers and building a blueprint. It doesn't guarantee anything, but it shows you that it is possible to do what you've chosen to do, because you can see how you'll do it.

I'm building a company with my friend, and we enjoy obsessing over every detail as we build and make Blnk. We find answers as quickly as we have questions. And we're humble enough to discard or improve those answers based on new information. Our excitement each day is not because we indoctrinated ourselves with an overinflated sense of importance. We know what we are doing, why we are doing it, and how we will do it.

And most importantly, we know it takes a lot of work to get there. How did we know? We obsessed, and we are still obsessing.

See you in the next letter.

Cheers,

Praise.

PS: Ideas are formed with an anchor — a thing that started the thought. When you write or attempt to communicate, always start from the anchor (not the main message).

PPS: I'd like to update the frequency of this letter to at least once a week. You may get more than one letter in a week, but no less than one.

PPPS: If you are a developer or you know a developer who simply wants to have fun or try out something hard, ask them to check out https://docs.blnkledger.com/. Or introduce me to them via email.