Don’t Be The Hound. Pick Up Your Head.

The dog on the left is a Bavarian Mountain Scent Hound. As you can see, it’s a very serious-looking dog.

Hounds are notoriously difficult to train to be off-leash.

When a hound dog catches a scent, it puts its head down and starts running. They lose focus on everything else that’s going on around them.

Hounds can get so focused on tracking a scent that when they finally pick their head back up, they find themselves miles away from where they started.

Hound dogs are one of the most frequently lost dog breeds.

Unfortunately, when building a startup, it’s easy to become the hound.

Your head is down, focused on the sprint to the next fundraise.

Meanwhile, trouble is brewing around you. Customer acquisition costs are too high. Customer loyalty is too low. Cash burn is accelerating.

Your team is losing focus and chasing too many competing priorities. Collaboration is breaking down.

Often, our reaction to stressful situations is to put our heads down and relentlessly attack the one problem in front of us.

We need to take a step back and regain a broader perspective.

Get out and talk to customers, investors, and your employees. Get away from your desk. Go for a walk. Disconnect for a few days and let your brain process what’s happening.

We find solutions when we aren’t staring right at the problem.

Don’t be the hound. Pick up your head.

That’s my dog Bowie on the right. She’s on her 3rd startup and still has time to run around in the snow. Be like Bowie.