Entrepreneurship is framed as navigating invisible currents that either facilitate or oppose goals. These currents change over time and vary by stage, becoming perceptible through learned sensitivity. Assessing top personal currents reveals exposure, challenges, and navigation strategies while building a venture. Rapid technological change represents a dominant current for software founders, creating constant pressure to learn new tools and pivot across stacks. Salaried engineering roles enabled deep mastery of a single stack, whereas founding demands frequent shifts and adaptation because early-stage software businesses are fleeting and volatile.
I was reading Brandon Sanderson's latest novel, Wind and Truth, when I came across a sentence that stopped me cold: "A stronger current makes for stronger fish." That's it. That's what entrepreneurship is. We're constantly encountering currents that either facilitate what we want to accomplish-the businesses we want to build, the lives we want to create-or they oppose us, trying to sweep us into dangerous waters. These currents change all the time. They vary in strength depending on where you are in your journey. And here's the thing: they're mostly invisible until you learn to feel them.
The Technology Rapids The biggest current I've felt over the last year and a half is the rapidly changing technological landscape. As a software entrepreneur, you're permanently exposed to new technologies. There's always something you might want to learn, something that could give you an advantage if you figure it out-or leave you behind if you don't. When I was a salaried software engineer, it was so much easier to get really good at the craft. All day long, I was dealing with one particular technology stack, optimizing it, understanding it, implementing everything that needed to be done.
Collection
[
|
...
]