Do Less
About focus, ambition, and minimalism in startups
I never thought I’d end up in a wooden box at age 31, but here I am, surrounded by timber. I buried myself in the jail cell version of a hotel room. When I landed in Singapore, I found several “capsule hotels.” Since I was exploring minimalism, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to take my experiment one step further. My two-square-meter capsule is the ultimate reduction to the essential. If anything were taken away in my cell, it would become a coffin. One light switch and one power outlet seems enough. Less would be impractical, but more already feels like a waste.
In startup-land, not many people think about minimalism. Growth equals success, and success is the result of focus and ambition. But ambition itself can be the biggest enemy of focus. During my 10-year journey from zero dollars to tens of millions in revenue, I was really good at doing “more.”
As CEO, I had the power to put anything on the agenda. The gravity of my aspiration pulled me toward doing too much of that. Out of ambition, I was shoving too much food on our plate. After eating up, the team and I usually felt a little sick.
The phrase “less is more” in an architectural sense was employed by the famous Bauhaus-affiliated Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. I’ve actually been living in one of his apartment…
