Last week, I jokingly asked my colleague, Nisha, “Does it bother you that we are not chasing the unicorn tag at HabitStrong?”
She said, “Even if my neighbor built a unicorn, I couldn’t care less. What matters to me is that I look forward to our work — it should not give me a panic attack.”
“If we don’t have peace of mind, what’s the point of chasing an arbitrary unicorn tag?”
Hearing her, I felt reassured.
Just to be clear, we work quite hard at HabitStrong. But we don’t do things that make us uncomfortable — no late nights, no compromises on business integrity.
If we are chasing a unicorn status, we might be pressured to increase revenue at any cost. We don’t want that — I want to be able to walk away from revenue if the customer won’t benefit from our product.
In fact, in every bootcamp I launch, I repeatedly remind participants to drop out if they are not committed. That is a luxury I don’t want to give up.
I truly respect people who have built unicorns or who find that dream exciting. If you want the billionaire tag, go for it — absolutely nothing wrong with it.
But if it costs you peace of mind, is it not too expensive?
– Rajan
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