This weekend is Super Bowl Sunday in the U.S., and it got me thinking about the parallels between football and startup life.
In both, quarterbacks and founders get most of the credit. And in both, that misses the point. Without the full team, there is zero chance of success. In football, you need linemen to have time to throw, receivers to get open and catch the ball, and a defense that keeps the other team off the board. You can even win when everyone else does all the work (see: Manning, Eli).
Startups work the same way. Engineering, R&D, sales, finance — if there’s a gap in any one of them, the whole thing breaks down.
The attitude matters too. Tom Brady has talked about treating every practice like it was the Super Bowl, so when game day came, it felt like just another day. Startup life is similar. When you start, you aren’t at flashy stadiums. We are talking coffee shops and office/warehouses whose best attribute is the price. Travel is discount flights at weird hours instead of business class or PJs. While we aren’t Apple or Google… yet… we need to act like we are. We need to behave like we are going to walk in and present to Tim Cook, or that any customer we are going to call is going to pick up the phone. The early days are like spring practices… quiet… alone.
John Wooden said, “How you practice is how you play.” I’ve always liked that quote, but what resonates more over time is the idea behind it: character is built when nobody is watching. The real measure of a team — or a person — isn’t what happens under the lights. It’s the quiet work. The repetition. Try something… fail… try again… fail… try again… it’s good not great… keep going… millions more reps to go. The days that feel small and invisible but add up to something real.
That’s very much where we are at Launchpad. We’re in the grind. Late nights. Trying things, many of which don’t work the first time. Learning as we go. There’s nothing glamorous about that phase, but it’s the phase where identity gets built. Every setback forces you to get a little sharper. Every small win builds trust. We’re building the character we’ll need later, even if most of that work is happening far away from any spotlight.
And while football sparked the thought, it’s a big sports weekend all around. Six Nations rugby kicks off — go Scotland — and the Olympics are starting (O Canada!). Whatever you’re going to watch, remember that behind every second you see is what it took to get there.
