#5 - advice
Advice that will help you avoid bad advice (so meta, so wow).
Long time, no see? I know, it’s been a while since many of you last saw me in your inbox. I stopped having fun with the previous format and after some thinking, I have decided that I want to stick to what I do best - some pure organic commentary. Let’s get on with it.
Today I want to talk about advice.
There are two types of people on the internet.
The first type is seeking advice and likes to comment "This" on motivational quotes (just kidding). The second type is ever ready to give advice, like a fountain of advice whose controls don't work anymore.
IRL, I've long cautioned early-stage founders, to be wary of advisors, especially those whose job is to advise. I wonder what can they bring to the table if they are a careerist advisor. They make a living by giving advice, you see what I am saying? By applying the heuristic of 10,000 hours here - these people are only getting better at giving advice, not at the tasks that you hope they will advise you on. Now, It’s one thing if you are looking for a career coach in the form of an advisor or you are looking for general purpose people advice but when it comes to specific verticals like growth strategies, monetization, UX, etc., you need someone who can is the “man/woman in the arena”. You want someone who has relevant knowledge and can use that knowledge to improve your product.
A simple litmus test to vet advisors before signing them on is to check if you thought they will add value or if they had to convince you that they will add value.
If you see an advisor imitating Will Ferrell here, run.
Know that people who claim to be powerful are the ones who have no power at all.
Back to taking advice from the internet. Needless to say, you should be cautionary of this advice too that I'm giving you on the internet because I could very well be another loser on the internet.
So think for yourself and make your own decisions in getting and using advice. One has to think about what situation they're in and find people who went through similar situations as them. Try to get as close as possible, break down situations into systems. This will help you to get a playbook that is transferable to your situation. Listen, it's all hunky-dory when you listen to some obscure Peter Thiel video at midnight, and then you decide to apply his contrarian concepts in your daily life. You need to note that he has had a different life than you, and is at a different place in his life than you. So while you, for example, look for a job or promotion, using his concepts of being contrarian might be counterproductive for you. You need to find people where the delta from your situation and intellectual capability, is small so that you can trace back their steps on how they arrived at a certain place. And guess what, this mental model is not limited to entrepreneurship or tech only but can be used in any situation. This mental model will prevent you from trying something that worked in a different situation but doesn’t apply to yours.
After all, bad advice is worse than no advice at all.
I love you all, keep going!
- Aakash
- @aakashpathak
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Originally published on substack.