The Thinkosphere

In my career, I’ve probably had conversations with around 2,000 venture-backed founders, and worked with about 200 of them.

On most calls, founders tell me about their vision, their products, their origin story, and their market. But those aren’t the things I care about. However, I listen, intently, to try to understand where they place their focus, what they feel is important to share, where their priorities lie, what motivates them, their theories, their goals, their strengths, their weaknesses, because I learn more by what they don’t say, than what they do.

What these founders don’t usually know, because they view me as an agency, a gun for hire if you will, is that I’m scanning for whether not I think they’re real, for lack of a better way to put it, so I can decide whether or not I want to spend my time with them. Especially now, that we’re living through the early days of what I believe to be an incredibly important platform shift.

On these calls, founders typically don’t realize that I’m scanning. What I’m scanning for, mostly, are the miracles that would need to happen in order for their vision to be realized. Now, with 12+ years of experience doing this under my belt, I can quickly get a read on who I’m talking to, why they’re starting the company, how they think it’s going to work, and whether or not I believe it’s actually going to happen.

And this context I have? I have essentially what I like to consider the inverse of the kind of feedback loop most investors have. I say often to friends now, that founders can lie to their investors, they can lie to their employees, and they can lie to their customers, but they can’t lie to growth guy.

And unlike most people assume, I don’t just help these founders think through which channels to use or where to spend their marketing budget. I usually first connect with founders personally early on in my relationships with them (I’ve always done this autonomically due to my own childhood trauma), and because of that, plus my experience observing where their focus goes in these calls, I believe of I’ve developed an ability to get a read on what’s really going on in their head, and in their company. I’m rarely there just to adjust a marketing plan or brainstorm on channels, I’m usually thinking deeply with founders about where to place their time, attention, and focus — across many important areas like product, team, and of course growth, too.

I’ve done this so many times now that as I embark on creating new things of my own now, I feel like I know how to figure out where to place my focus, and when, very well. And recently, I’ve synthesized these thoughts into a theory I think is deeply important for founders to consider.

I call it The Thinkosphere.

What Is the Thinkosphere?

The Thinkosphere is the idea that there’s a place that founders tend to more less escape to mentally, that pulls them away from where they should be focused. Founders are drawn to this place when they spend too much of their time talking to investors, other founders, marketing agencies, etc. — more than they need to.

It’s an enjoyable, often fun, tempting, cathartic territory that founders dangerously but understandably enjoy when struggling with the almost impossible David vs Goliath journey they know deep in their bones they’re unlikely to succeed at.

It’s a subtle, almost invisible phenomena (to most), but once one is made aware of it, and internalizes it’s dangers, I believe it becomes starkly visible, and changes everything for a true builder.

And if you come to respect the idea, suddenly I believe thinking about the real problems — with growth, product, team, etc. — no longer hurts. Suddenly those thoughts become some of the most cathartic, enjoyable ways to spend your time as a founder.

I know the Thinkosphere well. Most of the 2,000 founders I’ve spent time with? They spent much time there, usually too much. I’m guilty myself, and I completely understand it’s allures. But more than ever, I understand the dangers that lie within staying there too long.

Some specifics

To be clear, I do not in any way mean that you must always be working or always focused on your company. If you’re at a bar on a Saturday night with some of your favorite people in the world, enjoying your life, taking a break from the pain that does always come with being bold, I do not think l that is not a problem. It’s important to decompress — willpower is a muscle, and you must rest and recharge it.

However, you also must talk to your users. You must be told that you are wrong. You must ponder why that lead that you thought would become a user, or customer, didn’t. You must ruminate in these murky waters, and embrace the confusion, and turn that pain into joy.

When someone smiles at you, tells you they love your product, tells you that you’re awesome, and you see the future — and then does not use your product — there’s a great lesson in that experience, and it’s called the truth. They’d lied to you. Your company is (probably) not great. Your product doesn’t solve their problem. You will know whether or not you are succeeding, because these people vote with their time and their wallets not their compliments or other niceties.

You have to feel and enjoy that struggle. You must not hide, stroking your ego in the dangerous comfort of the Thinkosphere. You musn’t tell yourself lies like “they just don’t get it yet” or “they’re busy" or “it’s probably a bad time”.

You must not console your ego. You must not lie to yourself. If you want to be successful, if you want your company to make it, you must feel that pain and work through it by leaving the Thinkosphere.

Once you realize

Everyone is vulnerable to the Thinkosphere. Most people who’ve started companies have been there. But when you finally leave it — when you engage with your users, product team, and growth partners in earnest, even when it’s painful — you’ll find something surprising.

Those conversations where people tell you that you’re wrong, both with their words and with their actions, become very enjoyable. And once you’re in that place, you can build. But you cannot do it if you’re lying to yourself, you must first leave The Thinkosphere and come to hate it.

You cannot accomplish your grand vision if you’re busying protecting the story you’ve been telling yourself about who you are and what your company will become.

You must intentionally train your brain a Pavlovian manner to feel pain when you’re discussing theory with an investor, friend, or colleague, and embrace the pain that is the reality of building something real.

Being told your wrong by a potential user, deep thought about why you aren’t growing faster, especially when you’re wading through the murky waters that are building something big, are the most important activities you can engage it.

Theory must meet reality, and you must leave the Thinkosphere, otherwise it will destroy whatever it is you’re trying to will into existence.