21

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I turned 21 years old today.

Exactly one year ago, I was happy I got an internship at an amazing startup.
Yesterday, I sent an offer to my first hire for more than double my salary back then.

When you do something nobody else is doing, people first ask why you’re wasting your time. Then, when it starts working, they tell you how lucky you are.

Of course, we are far from the end result or any meaningful success, but I know I will get there one way or another. This post is a simple mark of progress in my life. I see it as a checkpoint.

If you’re in your 20s and stupidly ambitious, this might be useful for you

How to go exponential

This year, I have progressed quite a bit. Below I collected nine simple points I learned that helped me make meaningful progress in such a short timeframe.

1. Challenge everything

Finding an amazing startup idea starts with challenging a standard belief, going through the deep trenches, and discovering the green grass nobody has touched yet.

Many people will tell you that you are doing something wrong. Most investors won’t give you money, and that is normal.

This is also why I love Y Combinator. They have seen so many cases of founders crushing barriers and finding their own pieces of grass that they are happy to back even the craziest ideas. If you have a vision, then there is a theoretical path to execution.

Brian Chesky said Michael Seibel introduced Airbnb to seven prominent Silicon Valley investors in 2008 while they were trying to raise $150k at a $1.5M valuation. Five explicitly rejected them, and two did not reply.

“Next time you have an idea and it gets rejected, I want you to think of these emails.”

Brian Chesky

2. Find your people

If you are not surrounded by like-minded people, you won’t get too far in life. Meeting the right people is the most essential catalyst for growth.

For me, the beginning was London. I was able to meet some interesting people early on in my journey, and it helped me a lot.

Move to the most high density talent spot for your area of interest.
If you are in tech, move to the bay area. There is no other place like this in the world.

3. Believe in yourself

“Hard work is worthless for those who don’t believe in themselves.”

Naruto

As a solo founder, I can guarantee you that my company would die the moment I stopped blindly betting on myself every single day.

You need to believe in yourself more than anybody else does. It is definitely not as easy as it sounds, and I had so many moments when I was about to give up, but at the end of the day, I never did.

4. Constantly learn new things

A person who is not learning will not progress far. Read books, try new tools, learn new concepts, and constantly expose yourself to ideas that make you feel slightly uncomfortable.

Curiosity compounds. The more you learn, the more dots you can connect, and the more useful you become to the people around you. Be interested in things, and you will become interesting to others.

5. Have mentors

Life is an ocean, and you can choose to swim in any direction. It is a lot easier to navigate if you have a tool to help you. That is what having a mentor feels like. Although the advice can feel more like a map in a bottle than a satnav system, it definitely moves the needle.

Ask people you admire to do short calls with you every two weeks, or just message them for advice from time to time.

I offered every person who played a role in my development the chance to invest at a low valuation. If there were a next time, which I doubt, I would simply allocate advisory shares.

6. Find your edge

Do something you are uniquely good at. Find the thing where your natural curiosity, talent, obsession, and unfair advantage overlap, then go all in on it.

World is not a fair place. Everyone is abusing their backgrounds, special skills, connections etc. You should be doing that too. Find your own way to win and abuse it.

7. Stay sane

In order to perform, you need clarity in your life, and you need to stop pretending you can work 997 forever.

Do something that keeps your mind clear. Go to the gym. Start climbing. Go on a hike every now and then. Spend time with founder friends. Find a girlfriend or boyfriend if you can. Plenty of studies link stronger social support to lower burnout, partly because it builds resilience.

Keeping yourself in the right mental condition is the best way to endure the marathon.

Most startups do not die in one dramatic moment. They die because the founder slowly burns out. This is a fight against yourself.

8. Fail

Failure is not a bad thing. When you fail, you get reset to the baseline. It is like losing in a video game. You lose a life and respawn at the checkpoint, but this time, you have all the knowledge on how to get through the obstacle.

If you are scared to fail, you will never give it a try.

The one and only time you truly fail is when you close your eyes one final time. You can’t really come back from death, at least not at this moment on the timeline.

9. Be relentless

You need to work smart, but you also need to work hard. If you don’t give your company everything you have, it most likely won’t succeed.

Just by working hard, you will put yourself in front of 90% of people. You underestimate how lazy the humanity is.

Overnight success comes after 20 years of hard work

Ascent

Of course, nothing is perfect. I burned out a bit after the batch, got stuck in Europe because of administrative processing for my O-1, and plenty of things are still not where I want them to be. GTM can be sharper. The product can be better. Execution can always improve.

But that is the game, and I am happier than I have ever been in my life.

Keep climbing the mountain. There is no reason not to.
Live and breathe with ambition. Become the blueprint

We raised $3.5M from some of the best investors in the Valley to build the smartest, most context-aware development platform on earth, and redefine what background agents can do.

We’re closing the loop from context to execution, making software development accessible to engineers and non-engineers.

If you are exceptional and want to climb the mountain together, reach out to me at dan@sparkles.dev