#008 : THE IDEA, THE MESSENGER, AND THE ROOMS YET TO BE FOUND

I keep reminding myself that I am still at the very beginning. It’s easy to forget that when you’re in the thick of things, when you’ve put in countless hours already, when setbacks feel heavier than they probably should. But the truth is, this is the start. And in the beginning, persistence matters more than anything else.

That reminder feels important because fundraising has a way of magnifying doubt. On paper, it’s simple: put together the story, share it with investors, and hope to find the ones who believe in it. In reality, it’s a maze of no’s, long silences, and constant recalibration. It is not just about whether the idea is strong enough, but whether you can keep carrying it forward long enough to reach the people who might say yes.

Here’s the thing, though: those early attempts at fundraising gave me something I didn’t expect. They forced me to tell the story again and again, each time cutting through the fluff and sharpening the edges. Somewhere in that process, something clicked. It started to feel like the idea had real legs. The pieces of problem and solution snapped into place in a way that felt undeniable. That clarity was the small win I didn’t realize I needed, and it came directly from the struggle of putting myself out there.

That realization feels almost stealthy, like a breakthrough that doesn’t happen in public. No big announcement, no obvious milestone, just a shift in the way the idea stands on its own now. It has grown into something bigger than the rough sketches it started as. And in that growth, I can see the path forward more clearly.

Building a startup is not a straight line. You start with an idea, often half-formed, fragile, and easy to dismiss. You test it, poke holes in it, defend it, rebuild it. Every time you explain it, you discover what works and what doesn’t. Sometimes you pivot, sometimes you abandon a piece of it, sometimes you double down. The process is messy because clarity is messy.

But here’s what I’ve noticed: the idea doesn’t just evolve, it starts to evolve you. The act of building forces you to confront your own assumptions. The act of pitching forces you to clarify what you actually believe. And at some point, the lines blur and the idea becomes something bigger than you, something that almost has a life of its own. In that moment, you stop feeling like its creator and start feeling like its messenger.

That shift is both liberating and daunting. If the idea is bigger than me, then my job is not to force belief into others, but to find the people who already feel its pull. Somewhere out there are investors, partners, and future teammates who will see what I see. The work is about persistence until I get in the room with them.

Persistence, though, is not glamorous. It is not the highlight reel you see on social media. It is the quiet act of getting back up after every no. It is the discipline of sending one more email, scheduling one more meeting, rewriting one more version of the deck. It is the choice to keep moving when progress is invisible.

And that is hard. Every setback makes you want to stop. But I’ve come to believe that persistence is not innate. Nobody is born with it. You pick it up through experiences, often the hard ones. You pick it up when life teaches you to keep going even when it doesn’t make sense. You pick it up when you start over after something fails. And eventually, you choose to lean into it by becoming a founder.

This week has been a lesson in that choice. I was reminded again that the search itself is the game. The search for the right people who will resonate with the story. The search for the next level of clarity in the idea. The search for resilience in myself.

Looking forward, I’m carrying two truths with me. The first is that I am still only at the beginning. The weight of the journey ahead can feel overwhelming, but that weight is also a reminder that there is so much space to grow. The second is a material win from these past weeks — the idea now has real legs to stand on. This is proof that the process works. Out of the mess, clarity emerges. Out of the setbacks, momentum builds.

So I’ll keep reminding myself: Persistence is the skill, search is the game. And right now, the search is only getting started.