Sometimes it’s really hard

Building anything is hard especially the first time. There’s no clear signal telling you what deserves your attention today. What to focus on. What to spend money on. How to spend your time. When to move on. Who to hire. Who not to hire. Every decision matters, and every decision compounds. Some days it all stacks up at once, like a weight on your chest, and it feels impossible to carry. Most days, honestly, it feels like this. I work a lot. I train a lot. I learn a lot. That feels like the assignment of your late twenties: absorb as much as you possibly can so you’re better equipped for what comes next. Sam Altman once said burnout only really happens when things are going poorly. That’s been true for me. I only feel close to burnout when it feels like all hope is gone. When progress slows to a halt. That happens occasionally. But even then, I never seriously think about quitting. Hope shows up in small, unexpected ways. An advisor says yes to joining your team. A customer reaches out and tells you they love what you’re building. Someone stumbles across your company and takes the time to write a thoughtful note. Sometimes it’s a younger person asking how they can get involved. Any one of these moments can flip a switch. They don’t solve the problem, but they give you enough momentum to wake up the next day and keep going. They’re the thing that pulls you forward when it feels like you’re stuck in the mud. Starting a company feels like competing in an Olympic sport except only one team gets gold. Everyone else goes home empty-handed. This isn’t a game for the weak-minded. You have to believe you’re correcting something that’s broken. You have to believe the work matters. For us, that belief is simple: get more people outdoors. We believe that putting more money into the pockets of athletes leads to more sharing. More sharing leads to more curiosity. And more curiosity brings more people outside. It’s a straightforward idea, but I believe in it deeply. Getting people outdoors extends lives. It makes people healthier, happier, more grounded. It increases what Jack Mislinski calls “funspan”…the number of years you get to truly enjoy your body and the world around you. Sometimes plans come together. Sometimes things take longer than you expect. Most of the time, they take far longer than you expect. Olympic training works the same way, except at the end there’s at least a race. In startups, there’s no finish line. There’s just a constant sense of motion. It’s an ultramarathon you have to train for and recover from while you’re actively running it. You stack bricks day after day. You bang your head against the wall. You fumble. Weeks pass and it feels like nothing has changed. And then, quietly, you write a year-in-review and realize you’ve come farther than you ever thought possible. The progress was just slower, less visible, and harder to measure than you expected. Wanting more is a must. But you also have to look back and acknowledge what you’ve already built.