Changing expectatons

I had a good birthday yesterday. Except for a couple morning calls, I largely took the day off to just to treat myself which mainly involved eating. I wish the weather had cooperated a bit more and allowed me to spend most of the day outside, but that is life.

On another note - I have been preaching for the last year that startup employees need to be lowering their expectations in the post free money world. The days of early stage funding rounds with absurd valuations accompanied by a secondary are over.

There’s a lot of holdover from the last few years. I get inbounds all the time with unrealistic expectations on due diligence timelines, valuations, pricing, etc. There’s founders and operators out there that are still brainwashed from 2021 and hoping that will come back soon. I’m hoping that will finally be over soon.

As for myself, I too have to lower my expectations in this new day and age. I had a good chat today with a lot of teammates about that today. During our pow wow, I’ve realized that I also still have to adjust some of my expectations on things like metrics and timelines.

As much as I want things to move like they did back in 2021, I know that’s not coming back and everything has changed. Apparently, I too have a bit of 2021 stilled ingrained in me that I need to shake out.