Intro
We’re all told to be data-driven, and for good reason. But venture building often forces you to make high-stakes decisions with incomplete information, conflicting advice from your team, and that gnawing sense of self-doubt every founder knows well. Developing a well-calibrated “founder instinct” is how you cut through the noise and maintain momentum.
Why Data Isn’t Always the Answer
- The Speed Factor: Gathering all the data you’d ideally want can take months. By then, the market may have shifted, or a competitor emerges. Sometimes action beats perfection, even with some risk.
- Predicting the Unpredictable: Venture building means aiming for markets that don’t fully exist yet. Consumer surveys, focus groups, etc., are only so helpful when the thing you’re offering is truly novel.
- The “Loudest Voice in the Room” Problem: Even the best teams have disagreements. Relying purely on consensus leads to watered-down solutions. Someone has to break the deadlock, and often that person is the founder.
- Pattern Recognition Is Your Superpower: Over time, you start to notice subtle similarities between seemingly disparate ventures – both successes and failures. This can’t be captured in a spreadsheet, but it informs those gut-level decisions.
Honing Your Founder Intuition
- Small Bets, Big Learning: The more low-stakes decisions you make under pressure, the better you get at reading the signals. It’s like building a muscle.
- Learn from the “Almosts”: Pay attention to those ideas you had a strong feeling about, but didn’t act on. Hindsight often reveals whether your gut was right, or if you dodged a bullet.
- Track Your Hits AND Misses: Simply noting your decisions, and the brief rationale behind them, helps you spot patterns later. You might be surprised which kinds of calls you consistently get right.
- Contrarian Signals Matter: If you’re the only excited one about an idea, that’s worth interrogating. It could be genius, or misguided. Deeper questioning is needed here, but don’t dismiss it out of hand.
- “Sleeping on it” Isn’t Laziness: Sometimes, distancing yourself from the immediate pressure allows that subconscious pattern recognition to do its work. The answer becomes clear in a way it wasn’t when you were stressed.
In venture building, indecision is often more costly than making a “wrong” decision. Embrace the discomfort of acting without certainty – this is how true leaders are forged.
