your shiny ikigai exercise won’t stop your startup from bleeding cash. purpose sounds noble, but most founders i’ve met didn’t discover it in a workshop.. they stumbled into it by actually building, failing, and pivoting.
the truth: purpose emerges. and if you lock into a fake one too early, you’re not “inspired”.. you’re trapped..
I love your perspective. However… it’s ‘start’ with why not ‘fixate’ on why.
“If you want to do a startup, be open to a broader set of problems to solve.”
Isn’t the ‘start with why’ approach focused on that? Ie, why are you in a position to solve that? Why that problem? (Why you can solve that better than anyone else is the thing that emerges).
In practice, starting with why often turns into a narrow focus. Simon didn't mention this flexibility of purpose in his talk. He should've mentioned this, because it's important. I see founders and entrepreneurship programs starting with why to aim problem search and that often points in awful directions.
I just think starting with why is a good marketing & communication scheme for large orgs.
I agree with that purpose often reveals itself later rather than leading the charge. According to Harvard Business Review, over 70% of successful startups pivot from their original idea within the first three years, which really backs up your point that flexibility matters more than fixing on a lofty “why” too soo. I’ve found the same with clients who only unlocked growth once they shifted from abstract ideals to solving very real, tangible problems.
(I often advise in my LinkedIn training sessions:
↪️ Don’t overcomplicate your messaging early on, use LinkedIn’s “headline” and “about” section to show outcomes you deliver
↪️ Update it regularly as your business evolves
↪️ Let your content prove your why over time.)
Do you think Sinek’s message resonates so strongly because it gives people the illusion of clarity when they’re starting out?
I understand your point, and it helped me to reflect a bit on that. Not sure if I completely agree with it, but it's a very nice approach to this, I really liked it.
Apple did not start with think different, agreed, but they did practice a form of bounded rationality that constrained choices to taste, simplicity, and end to end control. That constraint behaved like a quiet why. Maybe the lesson is to choose a few non-negotiables that guide design, then let market signals decide everything else.
Pair that with Jobs to be Done, and you get a simple guardrail. Write the job, test the struggle, price the progress. If those three hold, the "why" will write itself. If they do not, no manifesto will rescue the model.
'did practice a form of bounded rationality that constrained choices to taste' - that is true, but the question is whether they were able to articulated at that point in time. The question is what to freeze when, and what to unfreeze and disregard.
Ooh. Love this spiky point of view. I get what you’re saying. I do still think personally (as a solopreneur) it helps me show up better for my company to know my deep down why. I think you changed my view on this famous ted talk though!
Sure thing. The main question is: did you truly really start with that why? Or did your 'why' evolve over time? I bet it's not articulated as well as you did when you started out.
For me personally, I did some brand therapy, and I realized I’ve gravitated towards ops my whole life because of my why. In that I had to be really independent from a young age and always tried to provide safety for others because I didn’t necessarily feel I had it. And I didn’t know I was doing this when I started my career, but it has been what’s driving it. So I wasn’t intentional about it, but I do think it was there.
"Snake oil Sinek" made me laugh out loud. While I don't agree with absolutely everything in this post (naturally), the way you've conveyed your ideas are stunning. Really sophisticated approach. And yes, really interesting notes to reflect on.
I do agree that often people will go too far and "fixate" on the purpose rather than allowing purpose to reveal itself over time. Even artists do this.
Unfortunately, the world is obsessed with messiahs...and the lack of critical thinking means people will simply latch on to whatever words messiahs peddle and think it is the Truth with a capital T (which is also why I started my substack on mental models and critical thinking!)
I really enjoyed reading this! It puts into words something I have often thought myself but wasn’t able to quite articulate it like this. An even bigger problem is how some companies spend so long thinking of the why but not enough actually differentiating their product, and struggle to consider why anyone would buy my product. Which is a different kind of why entirely.
start with why? no.. start with reality
your shiny ikigai exercise won’t stop your startup from bleeding cash. purpose sounds noble, but most founders i’ve met didn’t discover it in a workshop.. they stumbled into it by actually building, failing, and pivoting.
the truth: purpose emerges. and if you lock into a fake one too early, you’re not “inspired”.. you’re trapped..
I love your perspective. However… it’s ‘start’ with why not ‘fixate’ on why.
“If you want to do a startup, be open to a broader set of problems to solve.”
Isn’t the ‘start with why’ approach focused on that? Ie, why are you in a position to solve that? Why that problem? (Why you can solve that better than anyone else is the thing that emerges).
In practice, starting with why often turns into a narrow focus. Simon didn't mention this flexibility of purpose in his talk. He should've mentioned this, because it's important. I see founders and entrepreneurship programs starting with why to aim problem search and that often points in awful directions.
I just think starting with why is a good marketing & communication scheme for large orgs.
I agree with that purpose often reveals itself later rather than leading the charge. According to Harvard Business Review, over 70% of successful startups pivot from their original idea within the first three years, which really backs up your point that flexibility matters more than fixing on a lofty “why” too soo. I’ve found the same with clients who only unlocked growth once they shifted from abstract ideals to solving very real, tangible problems.
(I often advise in my LinkedIn training sessions:
↪️ Don’t overcomplicate your messaging early on, use LinkedIn’s “headline” and “about” section to show outcomes you deliver
↪️ Update it regularly as your business evolves
↪️ Let your content prove your why over time.)
Do you think Sinek’s message resonates so strongly because it gives people the illusion of clarity when they’re starting out?
I understand your point, and it helped me to reflect a bit on that. Not sure if I completely agree with it, but it's a very nice approach to this, I really liked it.
Apple did not start with think different, agreed, but they did practice a form of bounded rationality that constrained choices to taste, simplicity, and end to end control. That constraint behaved like a quiet why. Maybe the lesson is to choose a few non-negotiables that guide design, then let market signals decide everything else.
Pair that with Jobs to be Done, and you get a simple guardrail. Write the job, test the struggle, price the progress. If those three hold, the "why" will write itself. If they do not, no manifesto will rescue the model.
Thanks again for sharing it!
'did practice a form of bounded rationality that constrained choices to taste' - that is true, but the question is whether they were able to articulated at that point in time. The question is what to freeze when, and what to unfreeze and disregard.
Start, and find the why
I love this
Ooh. Love this spiky point of view. I get what you’re saying. I do still think personally (as a solopreneur) it helps me show up better for my company to know my deep down why. I think you changed my view on this famous ted talk though!
Sure thing. The main question is: did you truly really start with that why? Or did your 'why' evolve over time? I bet it's not articulated as well as you did when you started out.
For me personally, I did some brand therapy, and I realized I’ve gravitated towards ops my whole life because of my why. In that I had to be really independent from a young age and always tried to provide safety for others because I didn’t necessarily feel I had it. And I didn’t know I was doing this when I started my career, but it has been what’s driving it. So I wasn’t intentional about it, but I do think it was there.
This underpins my point :)
"Snake oil Sinek" made me laugh out loud. While I don't agree with absolutely everything in this post (naturally), the way you've conveyed your ideas are stunning. Really sophisticated approach. And yes, really interesting notes to reflect on.
I do agree that often people will go too far and "fixate" on the purpose rather than allowing purpose to reveal itself over time. Even artists do this.
Unfortunately, the world is obsessed with messiahs...and the lack of critical thinking means people will simply latch on to whatever words messiahs peddle and think it is the Truth with a capital T (which is also why I started my substack on mental models and critical thinking!)
I enjoyed this contrarian take, and I agree, purpose can be refined over time. But you have to start first...
🔥🔥🔥
Jeroen, can you explain more about distributed problem ownership in next posts?
I really enjoyed reading this! It puts into words something I have often thought myself but wasn’t able to quite articulate it like this. An even bigger problem is how some companies spend so long thinking of the why but not enough actually differentiating their product, and struggle to consider why anyone would buy my product. Which is a different kind of why entirely.
I love how reading this challenged my thinking
I was laughing out loud with this one. So good, so true.
👏👏