Weekly Snapshot: Abundance of Time is an Illusion

“Think long term” is advice that you’ll most probably get from a sage or a wise man. You can even conclude that short-term thinkers often end up short (pun intended) in life versus people who are long-term thinkers.

Over the years, I’ve practiced long-term thinking in all aspects of my life, whether in investing, building businesses, or relationships. Thinking in years had profound effects on my personality growth - it changed me. It turned me into a farmer.

You don’t yell at the crops!

Instead, you demonstrate consistency - showing up on the farm every single day, watering on time, and so on. Over time, you know you will gain a reward.

Here’s the problem: since this form of life philosophy affects your personality, I have observed that it chips away at urgency and speed from your personal rewards equation. When you know the crops will take 6 months to mature, then what’s the urgency?

And this is exactly where the tension lies. At the core is the following fundamental question: “What can I do to achieve this in 6 months instead of 5 years?”

This profound question keeps me up at night because I’m also building a startup and rapid growth is all I can think about.... I can think in decades, but can I really operate like a farmer?

I feel that it doesn’t work because, as it turns out, time is a decaying function of value for a startup entrepreneur - resources are finite (extremely finite) and the opportunity cost increases over time. You have to operate as if you only have months to get everything off the ground - if you snooze, you lose.

Perhaps the entire analogy and conflict are an illusion: bogus. Maybe there is no connection between short-term/long-term thinking vs. speed/intensity. Maybe they both go hand in hand. Perhaps the question itself is exclusive of any underlying “thinking” framework and strictly addresses the notion of execution.

I’m still trying to better understand how to handle this internal conflict, but to be honest, I feel like I should yell at the crops and find a way to make them grow faster.

Maybe the framework is: Think in decades, plan in years, execute in sprints. You're not yelling at the crops - you're engineering better growing conditions. The long-term vision keeps you from making desperate, destructive moves (over-fertilizing, if you will), while the urgency drives you to optimize every controllable variable.

This is the core conclusion that I’ve arrived at with a small caveat: don't let your years-long thinking make you lazy because it is actually quite easy to fall into such a trap. Comfort with long timelines is actually a luxury that many of us cannot afford while building a startup. Sprint-level execution isn't just important; it is existential.

💪 Wins of the week

1. We are officially Meta Business Partners; with our recent approval - we can now integrate our AI with Meta products (without getting banned).
2. We successfully unblocked all our customers and ramped up onboarding…feels like a milestone.
3. Had great interviews for our sales position - people are hungry and willing to work hard if given the chance.

🧐 Challenges & Learnings

1. I’ve been overwhelmed with work - need to ramp up hiring in the sales and customer onboarding department.
2. Spending time consuming content on social media is enemy # 1 for anyone trying to achieve big things in life. Don’t do it. Your time is way too precious.

🎯 Goals for Next Week

1. Record and release two YouTube videos outlining our latest use cases for potential customers at Virtuans AI
2. Demo the product to at least 10 new potential customers and add $50,000 to our cARR pipeline.
3. Successfully onboard new comers

📖 My Readings

I’m currently reading an academic book on Probability - beautiful topic and extremely valuable as a mental model in your life.

🎬 My YouTube Video

I recently used Virtuans’ platform to build an AI agent that integrates with WhatApp and automatically handles lead inquiries. Best part? It also does meeting scheduling, reminders and drum roll automated follow ups so you never miss another opportunity. Enjoy the video.

✍️ Quote of the Week

“Before you begin, learn how to finish.” - Somewhere on Twitter.

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