Some notes re working at a high growth startup Working at a startup taught me that the real enemy isn’t competition but comfort. I notice it in myself: At the exact moment I’m ready to ship something I worked on for weeks, cold feet kicks in: one more review, one more hypothetical edge case. I’ve stalled on customer complaints because I didn’t want to be pulled into a messy conversation. I’ve told myself I’d circle back to the “small stuff” when I don’t plan to return. None of these choices feels dramatic in the moment. But stacked up, they slow learning and create a kind of cultural drag. What’s helped me has been turning discomfort into a signal rather than something to avoid. If a release makes me flinch a little, that’s usually where the learning lives, so I try to ship and sit with the feedback. When a customer is upset, I respond quickly to understand the bug, gather feedback, turn it into an actionable insight and iterate quickly. Momentum tends to hide on the far side of discomfort.