Find flow. Then do that.

This post started about my experience with social media over the last year. Then I realized it was just one symptom of a larger, well, something.

It’s easy to sneer at social media. To complain about the algorithm. To roll your eyes at what works. But at some point you have to ask: are you here to express yourself—or to get results?

Would you rather have 200 “targeted views” or 200,000 people seeing your message? Yeah. Thought so.

How many Adam Robinson posts have I read thinking, damnit why did so many people like and comment on yet another clickbaity post with the exact same content as the last ten? And yet, and yet... don't hate the player. 

I’ve had some posts hit. 25,000 impressions here, 35,000 there. It felt good! But also–I haven’t repeated it every time. Why? Because I didn’t stick to the formula. I obviously know this formula–I’ve done it. But I got distracted by, well, excuses. Didn’t have the time. Wanted to post something else. Etc.

The more I sat with this thought the more I realized this self-defeating thinking extends well past LinkedIn. Startups run experiments.  They are, in fact, experiments. Something kind of works. But instead of doubling down, the founder pivots. Tries something else. didn’t like that; maybe it was working “fast enough”. Chases something shinier.

Or something that makes a better story for their investors. That is not how you win at startups.

Strategy is finding what works–and doing it

Strategy is finding a beachhead and winning it. Not thinking the beach looks too sandy and heading back to sea to find a better beach. Not spotting a wide-open beach and convincing yourself it must be too good to be true, so going to look for another one. Not seeing your friends land on a giant beach with room for everyone, and decide you need to keep going, to find a harder beach to conquer because that doesn’t match your vision of what a beach should look like.

The beach has become known as the “wedge”. That first market that enables you to build a business. Once you have a real business, you have options. You can invest in side businesses (not recommended, but you can). You can hire a CEO and go do something else. You can start a new company–after all, as far as everyone else is concerned your most recent one is “successful”. You can raise a big round, or decide not to.