If you are a founder, please read Jeff Bezos’s letter to Amazon shareholders.  He does a great job of distilling why it’s so difficult to build a great company.

What he describes as a Day 2 company would include the majority of businesses around us, including many market leaders.  He describes Day 2 as sometimes taking decades – extreme slow motion.

It is very, very difficult to stay in Day 1 mode.  I am not even sure Amazon’s succeeding there, as it’s also tough to tell.

However, customer obsession is one way you can try to stay in Day 1 mode, and avoiding proxies and celebratory narratives will help you along the way. However, it won’t help you feel good.

Entrepreneurship rarely feels good.