Founders win by creating more moments of truth

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The other day I was lucky enough to witness a moment of truth — the moment when an entrepreneur gets to face the market and see if they are right. The best founders relentlessly pursue these moments and face them with no fear.

A startup that I have been working with for months touched their first customer and made a sale. I was in the room when the team realized what they had done, when they got confirmation of success and looked at each other to share the feeling that “this is real.”

They had faced the market, put their heart on the line and created a truth to build on — they had created a single datapoint that supported their story — lots left to do and lots to learn but in this moment, they met the market and they were right.

But, these moments are not about being right, they are about being willing to face the test of the market. Sometimes the truth is hard to hear, often it is not what you thought when you started, but the best founders create these moments of truth early and often — through the pain of getting the product built, the agony of raising money, the struggle of recruiting and hiring and managing a team — entrepreneurs live to put it out there and find out if they are right.

The best entrepreneurs craft their companies to generate as many moments of truth as possible.