There is always a way out ..
.. even when it seems there isn’t
Some of you may have read one of Paul Graham’s great essays in which he explains that one of the greatest problems is actually deciding which problem to work on [1]: At any given point in time, there are plenty of fields/topics/problems that we could dedicate our time to. We could try to save the rainforest, build better batteries, more energy-efficient houses, or improve the design of a particular FPGA, etc. etc. However, for interesting problems, we can hardly estimate, which mid-term and long-term outcome it will have for us dedicating our time to one thing instead of another. And the spread of the outcome can easily vary by 10x, 100x, and more ..
An equally hard problem (if even not harder) is the question of “should we continue to work on a problem.”. Once you started to work on something with considerable effort and ran into a dead end – should you continue to look for a way out or switch to a different problem? Maybe you were able to move out of the dead end and ran into another one, what now? The textbook answer to this is “define milestones and if they are not met, then stop”.
What sounds nice in theory often falls short in practice: Some milestones are connected to tasks where we do not know the exact way forward yet and how long they might take. This is especially true when doing research or starting a business [2]. Also, we work in a system where we often have to plan milestones with overambitious expectations on timelines and shift them again, and again, and again. Often, it’s not even somebody’s fault in particular but life happens .. somebody gets sick, a ship gets stuck in the Suez canal, the world’s economy goes into hibernate mode due to a newly discovered virus, and so on. Thus, we get used to taking milestones not too seriously. Indeed, if we would have, probably none of the technology or infrastructure that we take for granted would have been built in the first place [3].
And what makes the problem even harder is the issue of sunken cost fallacy. Because you already invested substantial time (and usually money or at least opportunity costs) into a problem, there is an emotional connection to the problem and it’s much harder to let go of it even if it might be the best idea from a purely objective point of view.
Maybe, at this point of the text, you expect that the curtain is going to fall and some magic wisdom appears. Unfortunately, neither I nor (probably) anybody else in the world can present you with a closed-form solution to either of the problems. In the essays mentioned above, Paul Graham suggests that the best solution to the first problem is to follow your curiosity.
I would add one thing to this:
“It is the right problem for you if you want the solution so badly that you would even accept getting it from someone else if this person (or organization) obtains the solution faster than you or a better solution.”
And that brings me also to an approximated solution to the second problem: If you found a problem of such a type as defined by the sentence above, it makes sense to stick to it until the bitter end. Nevertheless, I would not advise you to sacrifice all your health, and personal relationships or risk complete financial ruin pursuing a solution to your chosen problem. In such a state you will probably be physically and emotionally so dysfunctional that it becomes impossible to workout the solution anyways as such a state constantly drains you and approximates your productivity slowly but steadily towards 0.
As far as you don’t cross that border, no matter how bleak the situation might seem, I am more than convinced that you can find a solution. This is what we experienced in our rollercoaster:
Maybe the amount of technical debt is draining the technical progress: With patience that will be cleaned up eventually.
Maybe you hit a technical issue that seem unsolvable: Unless you try to bend the laws of physics, probably there is somebody who can help you to find a solution either with experience or with a fresh view of the problem.
Maybe some of the best people on your team leave: Lucky you, there is a global labor market now, so I bet you can and will find a better replacement.
Maybe you are running out of cash: Push it as hard as you can, and a potential investor will eventually pop out somewhere in your network.
Maybe you cannot hit the needed revenue growth to keep the boat afloat: Reduce spending, get some extra time and some unexpected client will pop out of nowhere.
Unexpected things happen all the time but they are not only negative, also positive: That is why it’s a roller coaster – otherwise it would be just called “downhill biking” I guess.
Nevertheless, these “positive upsides” or “last minute solutions” do not come for free. There are no free lunches indeed. It’s important to keep going, expand your network constantly and maintain yourself in a functional state as much as possible so that you can catch the chances when they come along your way and come up with creative solutions to seemingly unsolvable situations.
But if you do, I can assure you one thing: There is always a way out. Maybe not right now, and especially maybe not as you expect it to be, but there is always a way out even when it seems there isn’t.
[1] https://paulgraham.com/greatwork.html
[2] Starting a business is again nothing else but research in social studies on your yourself, your customers and your stakeholder. I will return to this topic in a later post.
[3] https://www.hyper-exponential.com/p/lessons-learned-from