When to stop "crushing it"

I've been "crushing it" for almost as long as I've been running a startup.

That's not to say that things have always been up-and-to-the-right. We've had more than our share of WFIO moments along the way. But to most anyone I spoke with, we have always been crushing. I made sure of it.

I have always kept the key metrics by which we actually were crushing it at the ready at all times, because you never know who you'll talk to and you need to be on your game when opportunity knocks.

There's tremendous value to this. I have literally been in an elevator with an investor of limitless resources, and needed to position my company in the best possible light in less than 30 seconds to pique his interest enough to take an actual meeting with me. If I didn't have that highly packaged version of our story at the ready, I legitimately would not have closed that round of financing. I certainly don't mean to diminish the importance of presentation, as it's critical to startup success.

That said, it's worth knowing when to turn it off, too. And doing so can counterintuitively be a path to success.

If you're always "crushing it," you risk sugarcoating real problems that need attention, and prevent the outside perspectives that may actually help solve those problems from having a clear way to engage. In "crushing it" you present the image of success, but you may unwittingly do so at the cost of real, actual success.

Startups are hard. Over time we've cycled through periods of legitimately crushing it, and periods where I didn't think we would make it. That up and down ride is the nature of the game, and the secret is that EVERY startup hits highs and lows, even though most don't talk about the lows.

That's for good reason. Talking about the lows will never get you funded. But on the other hand, "crushing it" communicates that you don't need any help.

And sometimes we all do.