Change Only Comes After Disproportionate Pain

Some (relatively low) number of founders in Tacklebox quit their job right before or shortly after joining the program. In nearly every case, there’s a “straw that broke the camels back” — a reaction from a boss, a promotion that didn’t come, etc. Then, they quit.

This is how 99% of change happens. There’s a long buildup where the person recognizes they should probably do something different, then something overwhelmingly egregious happens and it forces their hand.

They can’t reasonably not change any more.

But, most scenarios in life look like this:

The pain level increases, the person knows they should change, but they don’t. Nothing totally egregious ever happens, so inertia wins out.

As an entrepreneur, you only want to work with someone post-egregious-pain as your first customer. The one that’s actually ready to change.

If members of your first customer segment can’t point to a specific moment where things got markedly worse and they realized there was no future on their previous path, it’s probably not a great first customer segment.

Ideally, they felt the pain, they tried (unsuccessfully) to change, and then you come along and say “because of your unique XYZ, these other options didn’t work. We can help.”

Change only comes after disproportionate, egregious pain - in business and in life. We need to work with folks on the other side of it.

(And, if you're on that second graph with something important in your life, try to figure out how to change before things hit rock bottom. Hard for us humans to do, though.)