The Subtle Art of the Grind

In my teens, I would spend the weekends with my dad packing, shipping, and designing different Ukrainian souvenirs, from easter eggs to traditional Ukrainian clothing that we would sell online and at art fairs around Northeast of USA. It was often difficult, unglamorous work, and a big contrast to what I often see on Twitter and YouTube, where many brag about their high MRRs and wonderful founder lifestyles. Still, these cultural values of hustle and hope better future are often carried forward by immigrants like my father, who, well into his 60s, still works 50+ hours a week selling these crafts, just as he did 20 years ago.

Building something new that didn’t exist before, especially in business, is often challenging, lonely, and full of doubt. Most people have to have the patience to face these inner thoughts for years if not decades to see the fruit of their labor.

So why do I still desire to be in a startup world and build things on my own, despite these downsides?

For me, the few reasons are quite clear and often shared by other descendants of immigrants. First, to help support my parents, who worked their butts off to migrate to the US and give us opportunities they didn’t have. And paying that forward, I want to create a better life for myself and my future family. And lastly, for some reason, humans just find fulfillment from doing difficult things.

What I don’t want to do is to grit my teeth through pain as I hustle and grind for the next decade. There have been and will be uncomfortable seasons for sure, but I want to enjoy the process a bit more and not measure myself against arbitrary startup revenue numbers posted online.

I recently read a LinkedIn post by an old friend of mine, Jillian, that talked about her starting a newsletter with a simple mission: “Curate events where New Yorkers can make friends,” she said. She further clarified:

“Creation from a place of pure love is rare. Be that rare person!”

This resonates with me, and I’ve decided to shift the focus on my blog to:

1. Focus my writing on the thing I’m actually living and breathing every day which is working in the startup world and indie hacking

2. Make the startup/indie hacking journey more fun, collaborative and enjoyable.

I don’t even know what #2 means yet. Feels like a bunch of corporate speak. But I do know that as we are hacking away on our computers, I want to express this silliness of our human condition through writing and hope to connect with others as we are grinding at our 5K, 10K, 100K MRR or other arbitrary goals as we put ourselves.

I took a pause from writing for a solid 2 months now, but you should expect consistent updates from me again on my personal journey in the weird startup world.

Cheers To Everyone!

Andriy

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PS. Thanks

Chris James

for helping me clarify my thoughts around this piece! :-)