Hi, I'm Jan König 👋. I'm one of the founders of Jovo, 28 years old, and live in Berlin. < Go back to learn more.

On Bootstrapping and "Living in the Future"

Hi there!

As mentioned last week, I'm back with weekly reflections of what I learned and thought about.

This week starts with a quote:

"And all of our senior executives operate the same way I do. They work in the future, they live in the future. None of the people that report to me should really be focused on the current quarter."

This is from a recent (highly recommended) interview with Jeff Bezos in Washington, specifically at 43:42.
 

The Downside of Bootstrapping

Although I know that startups are a little different (difficult to "live" 5 years in the future when you have only X months of runway in the bank), this way of thinking resonated with me. At the beginning of a startup, you think about the future all the time. You think about a roadmap, who is going to use your product, maybe even a potential exit down the road etc.

However, the more you get into the actual daily work, especially when you're bootstrapping (like we do right now), you spend a lot of time thinking about the amount of money in the bank right now, not some potential things sometime in a few months, let alone years. This makes sense at the time, but it's pretty possible that you find yourself living hand to mouth, not being able to reach the goal you initially envisioned. (Which can be just fine, depending on what type of company you want to build).
 

Finding the Right Balance

Right now, Alex and I try to find the right balance between handling daily tasks, while still being able to think about stuff down the road. For me personally, this is an important topic and a measure of success for myself: How much can I step back from daily work and focus on mid- and long-term goals?

Let's talk about how I'm trying to do this next time.

How much do you think about stuff beyond the next 3 months? I'm curious to learn more!

Jan

Sign Up

In this newsletter, I try to reflect on my learnings of building an open source startup. Join 135 subscribers who receive a weekly email from me: