Fueling along the way

My last post was about the analogy between long distance running and building a start-up company. I wanted to continue discussing this analogy. If you find the analogy boring, please write a comment or email me and I will switch to another subject.

During a run, the runner loses much water. Therefore in long runs the runner must at least drink water.

This is me 1.5 years ago after going below 50 minutes in a 10K run

Alas, Drinking water is not enough. The runner also uses lots of carbs. Without available carbs, it is more difficult to run and not less important, it is more difficult to recover after the run. Add to that that during hot days where one sweats a lot, the runner loses both water and minerals (salts). Therefore if the runner drinks only water, the percentage of minerals in the body continues to decline (This is why an IV contains both water and salts)

The rule of thumb is: if your run is above 70 minutes, drink water and eat something during the run. Some eat bananas, or baked potatoes. Some take energy bar or liquid gels or even isotonic drinks (I won't share with you how the last two  taste :) )


Why is this relevant?
Building a start-up company is a very long distance run (no one even knows how long). You might be lucky and reach the finish line with sufficient energy and you might not be so lucky. Therefore, you must get new energy once in a while.

An energy can be in several forms

1. Money - Bring more money in. Either as revenues (best way) or as additional investments.
2. People morale - don't only have a single far away milestone - your exit. Get concrete smaller milestones. Some of them monetary (e.g. getting the first dollar), some of them are softer (e.g. launching a product, getting the first user). Make sure to celebrate them.

It is obvious that it is important to be efficient in consuming your existing energy, but no matter how effective you are, you must fuel once in a while and you need to plan the route where the gas stations are

By the way, you can follow me on twitter @a_weisen