Full disclosure, for the longest time I thought the lyrics “A long way to go” until I finally looked it up to learn it was “No place to go.” This kind of ruined my angle on the song.
I thought I had no where to go with the song. At least until the irony hit me.
Dubstep isn’t normally my thing. But I first heard this particular song during the credits of an episode of Silicon Valley. So if you’re wondering how in the hell you relate this to the startup mentality, that’s a good start.
The song itself is a chaotic mess of a tune probably makes absolutely no sense to most people. There’s fast paced portions, then somewhat slow ones. Melodic portions followed by what sounds like random noises. But underneath it all is a constant beat that somehow mixes it all perfectly together.
This is exactly what the startup life is like. You try a lot of things that make positively no sense to most people. Ask a customer an off the wall question here, brainstorm a seemingly unrelated feature there. At times there’s so much activity you hardly have time to breath. Then other times there’s so little activity a nursing home seems like a rave by comparison.
But underneath it all is the steady drumbeat notion to move forward toward success that ties it all together.
Just like this song, the startup life is one long chaotic mess of a journey. It always feels like there’s a long way to go. Or every failed attempt makes you feel like you don’t have any where to get to.
But you keep working toward that one stop where you belong.
So when the train rolls up there, you better come walking out.