You have to really enjoy what you're working on

Lately I’ve been writing about what it takes to build something that lasts.

• In Do the hardest thing, I wrote about Jesse Hanley’s advice: pick the hard problem most people won’t touch, and stick with it until it pays off.
• In Do you want it the most?, I wrote about the cost of that kind of commitment, and how the people who go the distance usually aren’t white-knuckling it. Like Nadal, they love the game.

This week I was listening to the Slow & Steady podcast, and Benedicte Raae said something that reminded me of these two posts. She was talking about Steve Ruiz, the founder of tldraw:

Steve was obsessed with vectorized arrows for three years before he even started thinking about building a product (he comes from an artist background).What I’ve learned from talking to founders is that it’s going to take that long. So you have to really enjoy working on the thing you’re working on. You’ve got to enjoy practicing, not just being on stage. It’s like the band analogy: if you don’t like being in the dingy garage practicing with your band, you’re never going to make it to your fourth or fifth album, or on stage at all.I have immense respect for people who have the kind of obsession he has. I’ve never found that kind of obsession. His obsession with freehand drawing vector arrows lead him into a product that does just that.That’s what I’ve learned. If you’re going to start something worthwhile, it’s going to take at least six years, and probably a decade, before you see the results. So you want to enjoy the journey.

I couldn’t have said it better: you have to love what you’re working on, because it’ll probably take six to ten years before you see results.

For me, at Transistor, my love of podcasting, creators, and RSS has been a key part of my drive to make our hosting platform great. And we’re coming up on nine years!

Cheers,
Justin Jackson

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