At my first startup, Twish, we aimed to use stories and animated content to modernize teaching and add context to what was being taught.
When we started the company, my immediate inclination was to dive into creating courses the way we thought they should be taught. My co-founders, however, told me that we need to sell first. Thankfully, they prevailed. Once we started selling, we found that no one wanted what we were selling.
One of the reasons I wanted to dive into creating courses was because that was within my comfort zone. I had taught previously and had confidence in my ability to create courses on finance. On the other hand, I had never sold anything in my life (and frankly, felt the ickiness many engineers feel when ‘sales’ is mentioned). I was also a perfectionist and would have continued to perfect my courses indefinitely as an excuse for not doing sales, were it not for my co-founders.
Twish taught me to push myself out of my comfort zone to do what was really needed, and that being out of my comfort zone wasn’t as bad as I expected.