Naval Ravikant has coined his “4 kinds of Luck” and I want to propose a 5th one for all early-stage entrepreneurs out there. A kind of luck that costs almost nothing and doesn't require much effort.
Naval's 1st kind of luck is Blind luck. “Where you just got lucky because something completely out of your control happened. That’s fortune, that’s fate.”
The 2nd kind of luck is Luck from Hustling. “The kind of luck that comes through persistence, hard work, hustle, motion. Which is when you’re running around creating lots of opportunities, you’re generating a lot of energy, you’re doing a lot of things, lots of things will get stirred up in the dust.”
(The amount of long-term specialization and effort required increases sequentially)
The 3rd is Luck from preparation and the 4th is Luck from your unique character.
I'd like to propose a kind of luck that sits between the 1st and the 2nd: Luck 1.5 - wear your goddam's company t-shirt!
Last week I attended Vamos Latam Summit, a conference with thousands of Latam early-stage entrepreneurs, and I couldn't help but notice that less than half of the attendees were wearing their company's T-shirts.
I sincerely don't know why…
But I know they're all wasting the opportunity of having hundreds of potential customers and investors spotting them for a serendipitous conversation or, at the bare minimum, having hundreds of people getting acquainted with their brand.
This literally makes me mad because I keep witnessing the miracles from wearing our company's t-shirt all the time! Two obvious examples:
1 - I was attending an event with one of my partners last year in Florianopolis and a random founder saw us wearing the only piece of clothing we pack: a black (now worn-out) SaaSholic polo shirt. This founder interjected us during a casual conversation with other folks and asked if he could introduce himself. We of course were curious to know who this brave (sem vergonha, in portuguese) founder was and what he did for a living. Fast forward 11 months, and we are proud (and lucky) to have invested in Yooga, Vinicius’ company.
2 - Again, William and I were at another batch of industry conferences, but this time in NY. Completely out of the blue William received this email:
We of course found some time to visit this VC (a great growth-stage VC, btw) and have been in close touch since then. It won't surprise us if they end up investing in one of our portfolio companies very soon… 😉
Well, this isn't yet another article created by ChatGPT. So I'm laying the conclusion in crude and dead simple words: go buy goddam t-shirts with your company's logo on them! And wear it everywhere you go!
(This post is up for grabs to become a branded content if a custom T-shirt company is willing to sponsor it by providing a sweet sweet discount for us and our portfolio companies 🤫 )