Hard things are easier

Change at least one thing fundamentally.

Starting up is hard, no matter what you do.

You have to research, plan, start, pitch.
You have to promise, sell, deliver, collect.
You have to recruit, mentor, pay, fire.
You have to fail, recover, fix, change.
You have to decide, decide, decide, decide.

All of that, regardless of whether what you’re opening a fast-food franchise, or inventing a new technology to change the world.

Doing something hard is not much harder than doing something easy.
It’s ten percent more work, it’s not ten times more work.

But doing something hard is ten times harder for your competitors to copy.

If all you’re doing is putting a band-aid on what already exists, then the big incumbents will steal your lunch money without breaking a sweat. They have pocket money earmarked specifically for stealing the lunch of startups like yours.

That’s where hard things come in.

Build something that’s insanely personal, that requires people who can’t be fired, that changes each time, that is predicated on its inability to scale.