I’m writing this reflection essay sitting in the kitchen of an apartment in the north-east of London. The only reason I am staying here is that I got into Entrepreneur First, one of the most competitive programs for startup founders in the world, to build a generation-defining company (or a successful one at least). EF is a talent investing program that gathers smart and courageous people in cohorts so that they could partner up and build something together. Unlike other startup incubation/acceleration programs, Entrepreneur First does not really care about revenue, daily active users, or exclusive partnerships. They are rather driven by just one motto: fund people, not businesses. Their mission is to help exceptional individuals to become exceptional founders and build what they really care about. That’s why one of the first questions my program mentors asked me when I was struggling to find an idea to work on was “what do you care about?” And now, after completing the first stage of the program and working on an idea that I am insanely passionate about, it seems to me that I understand what really matters to me. It’s founders.
Founders are the ones who reshape the world. They build the future today. They think in ways others likely never will. They live masochistically risky, chaotic, and delusional lives just to solve big problems for others. They do not care about the money, yet they care about the good impact that could be achieved with their help. They are the ones ready to sacrifice half of their lives (sometimes more, e.g. Jensen Huang) believing that at some point they will eventually reach that sacred destiny of “putting a dent in the universe”. That’s why I am strongly assured that founders are the most important people for society. That’s why it is insanely important to me to help my partners in misery - other founders who I personally know (or even those I don’t, but if you are reading this, just know that it is addressed to you as well).
I’m not a successful founder (yet) with multiple 8-figure exits (yet!), but I do have some experience in starting four different companies, moving them from -1 to 0, accelerating from 0 to 1, and sadly burying them back down to -1. And now I am in the process of starting a new company in a completely new field to me, and based on an incredibly complex technology. Throughout this journey I’ve spent hundreds of nights doubting and crying about why I even do all of this, and why am I the right one to build something big. Until I asked myself just one question. How many people are you actually competing with? How. Many.
The answer is most probably a two-digit number. Not even hundreds. It’s a two-fucking-digit number. Let’s do some quick math. The world’s population is 8 billion, and the global number of engineers is somewhat around 30 million. Wow, it’s a 99.625% shrink! (30 million out of 8 billion is 0.375%). Now let’s narrow it down more. Where are the strongest and highest paid engineers who potentially might start a company, having their experience, network, and starting capital? California (Silicon Valley, The Bay Area, whatever). Yes, a single state, not even a country. There are countries with huge technical and smart generations like India, China or some Eastern European countries like Ukraine, Poland, Moldova, Russia, but the best of them eventually end up in the sacred heart of innovation. So, the number is already 500k ish. How many of them will actually start a company at some point in their life? Well, 95% of them prefer a work-life balancing 9-5 job with a quite fat and stable total comp of $200k per year (until they get laid off due to “different economical reality”), playing pickleball or frisbee on weekdays, hiking with friends on the weekends, wearing their big-tech Fortune 500 company swag sweatshirts, and believing that they do something meaningful but in fact working at an internal tool team. They are never going to wake up at 8-9 AM to jump on a first VC call and then be coding and working their asses off until 2-3 AM every single day of the week. So, there are 25,000 people in the world who are ready to start a company and are smart enough to build a first prototype. But, how many of them will follow one of those “startup scaling methodologies” written with sweat and blood, like YC’s approach or the one of Peter Thiel’s or Sam Altman’s (which is also close to YC). Meaning, who is actually able to purely care about their users/customers (those are different), and create something that people would actually use and buy, rather than just code a cool, sexy-looking, super optimized iOS app to find soccer fields (football pitches, sorry) that would eventually have maximum 10 users, with all of them being their girlfriend/boyfriend, friends, parents, and grandparents. How many founders are out there smart and ready enough to bury deep down their egos and actually listen to other people’s advice? Who are they? Most of them are the ones going through those well-known accelerators, such as Y Combinator, Techstars, 500 Startups, Plug and Play, Entrepreneur First (ofc!). Hence, probably hundreds. And how many of them are building something specifically in your area? It’s the two-digit number, most likely 10-20. Can you believe that? In the whole world, amongst all of the First World countries, top-tier universities, programs, communities, sororities and fraternities, there are just 20 founders who could potentially rival you. Isn’t it the same as trying to be the best student in your high school class?
Even if the world seems too big at first, and you think that there are thousands of folks trying to eat each other’s throats, always remember that if you are already in this league, you’re probably the 0.000001% of the world’s population. And the only way to beat your 20 other true competitors is a simple curiosity, courage, and persistence. Basically, if you work more than others, say 100 hours a week compared to 50 of theirs, you’re running twice as fast.
In the end, being a founder is about more than just the idea or the product - it’s about the relentless pursuit of a vision, the ability to weather uncertainty, and the courage to keep pushing when the odds seem insurmountable. It’s about embracing the fact that the journey is often more difficult and unpredictable than we expect, yet it’s the very challenges that define us and shape the future we’re building. So, as you continue on this path, always remind yourselves that the competition isn’t with the thousands of people out there, but with the handful of extraordinary individuals who share this rare ambition. And if you can outwork, outlast, and outlearn them, you’ll be one step closer to building something that truly matters. The world may seem vast, but in this league, it’s not about being the smartest - it’s about being the most persistent, the most adaptable, and the most willing to sacrifice everything for the chance to put a dent in the universe.