The Day is Upon Us
As a founder, I am not big on company wide communications. At Wildcard we have a company-wide mailing list called “Family,” but I use it sparingly. If there’s an article that’s interesting or a new person starting soon I’ll fire off a quick note, but beyond that I prefer more personal communications with our crew. This past week, however, I did have an instinct to send a note to our group…New Year’s Eve has a funny way of commanding communication between family members, independent of where on the globe they happen to be.
As I opened my email to send a New Year’s message to our small but growing family, the most surface template that came to mind was something to the effect of “Love you all, 2014 is going to be a big year” or “Love you all…rest up…we are going to crush 2014.” I sat with the draft email open for a few minutes…but with slightly more depth behind my thought, I realized that these messages were empty…and further, not how I really feel about what 2014 holds. The truth is, I have this strong instinct that 2014 is going to be an incredible challenge. The email I would have written if I had more than a sentence or two to explain it, would have began with something like “Love you all, 2014 is going to be fucking hard.”
I am so proud of what we accomplished this past year. We have built incredible technology, assembled one of the most talented teams in New York City, and took what began as an incredibly abstract vision of what the mobile internet could become, and turned it into something real that you can touch and feel that hints at the probability and promise of this future. On one hand, I love where we are sitting…and I know that our investment over the last 12 months will continue to yield into the next 12…but I am acutely aware that what we have done is not enough…that for us to pull off what we aspire to…it will require near flawless execution…continued discipline and vigor…tremendous fortitude and flexibility…and increased emotional composure. In 2014 we will deal with an incredibly dynamic ecosystem of giants, bobbing and weaving through their legs and perhaps securing seats on their shoulders…We will get our first taste of the challenges in mobile distribution…We will most certainly say hello to a few competitors who we don’t yet know about…and we will learn what it’s like to design and develop within an organization that is twice our current size and larger than we ever built at Hyperpublic. We’ll move from developing product beneath the understanding lens of our own team and investors, to building under the judgmental and non-empathetic gaze of the masses…we will receive negative feedback…something we have had very little of to date…some people will hate us…or tell us we are wrong…our small knit community of believers will be drown out by the skeptics…and like every good startup to put product into the world…we will painfully learn how to communicate our message and convert the non-believers…pats on the back will turn to punches in the stomach…intermittantly eased by the deep tissue massages of our small and large victories.
There is a battle upon us…it is one I know how to win…but there is no shortcut…no secret weapon…that allows us or anyone else in our position to escape the hand to hand…in the trenches…ugliness of taking a spot in the world that many don’t know they want you to hold and that some actively know they don’t want you to hold. You might think from my words that I am not looking forward to 2014, but it is just the opposite. This is what we do. It’s why we kept the bar so high on recruiting. It’s why we don’t simply hire talent to fill roles, but rather dynamic athletes…with the mental and emotional strength to walk into this fight every morning…and not let the stomach shots or duress dilute our craft. This is the year I get to see why every hire we made over the past 12 months was so so right and I can’t fucking wait. So yea…you can see why “Love you all, we are going to crush 2014” doesn’t exactly say what I needed to say. Upon reflection, perhaps this message would have been more appropriate:
“Family, I don’t need to tell you how much I love this group of people. You can see my affection and pride every day I walk in the door. I feel deeply privileged to walk into the coming battle with such a fine and honest group of human beings. We are a small but formidable cadre with the skills and shared ambition to win any fight we choose to enter…and believe me, the fight was have chosen will not be without blood and grueling conditions. It is in our composure, sustained confidence and cohesion that we will endure and ultimately persevere against any that are not with us. Stick to our plan, but watch and communicate as the battlefield changes…Fight with humility and integrity and those that sit on the sidelines will eventually join our ranks…we are small but will not be small forever…whether back against the wall or advancing through enemy lines, remember that those that are not with us today, may well be allies tomorrow. It is January 1st, 2014. The day is upon us…”
Jordan Cooper's Blog: startups, venture capital, etc... 
Hey Jordan, I really see in your post what I feel when I look into the 2014. There is some pressure from the outside to show that you are hyper-positive, super optimistic and that everything will be just rainbows and roses. Of course this is not the case and I feel that in this post you took a lot outside to feel relief.
What I can tell you is that when I’ve red the part of your post that starts with “In 2014 we will …” I feel that this is a motivational speech towards yourself too. Preparing for the worse working for the best. Good approach. I recently found out that what works a bit better in my case is visualization. I simply visualize the upcoming month, quarter and eventually a year. The most precise is visualization of the upcoming month. Like a gymnast who imagines with closed eyes each precise move and each step towards the victory, I imagine each action and each reaction that will come out of it. I do not think about negatives when I visualize. I think about reality that can come if I am lucky enough. What I can say is that this approach made all the ‘worse case scenarios’ less possible and made me focus on the positive actions that aren’t defensive. With the previous approach where I was preparing for the worse and working for the best I’ve noticed that my actions were mainly defensive because they were driven by the possible bad scenarios.
I hope that I made my thoughts clear enough. Good luck!
Maciej Greń (@maciejgren)
January 4, 2014
Good luck this year Jordan. Looking forward to seeing what you guys put out in the world.
Steve Schlafman (@schlaf)
January 5, 2014