Hi again,

In all my excitement for today’s newsletter, I didn’t include the correct link to the full post. Perhaps next week’s topic will be how to ask for forgiveness… 😬

Here's the correct link for the Founders- It’s Time to Ask for Help article:

https://www.adamantventures.com/blog-post/founders-its-time-to-ask-for-help

*Yup, I posted the link 4x just to make sure. One of them has to be right! I’ll see myself out now🚪🚶🏻*

Thank you and have a great weekend, 

Jonathan from the Adamant Ventures Team

Founders, It’s Time to Ask for Help

To start this week, I need to ask for some help from you, dear readers. Partially, because it’s a great example to lead with for this essay, but more because…I actually need help.

Here’s the deal -  in 2021 I was able to help a ton of founders through my work at Adamant Ventures, including this newsletter. In 2022, I hope to do much more with an assist from you.

If my work has helped you in any way… 

Please share this newsletter with three people and recommend they subscribe.

To make it as easy as possible, here’s some email copy you can use:

Asking for help can be tough

Okay, wow. That was kinda hard. As a Taiwanese-American kid growing up, I was taught to never inconvenience others.  I was expected to always pull my own weight and never be a burden. Those ideals really stuck with me throughout my life and professional career. Even my request for help in the first part of this newsletter would have been unthinkable a few years ago. Up until fairly recently, I believed I had to prove I could do everything on my own.

Because of this background, I rarely asked people for help. When I did, it was only as a last resort if I felt like I had exhausted every other avenue to solve the problem on my own.

I learned from failures how backwards this mindset is. Especially in startups, you don’t get a trophy for solving a problem on your own more slowly. Instead, I think the community rewards those who contribute to the pay-it-forward flywheel of receiving help and helping others.

The only way to get where you want to go quicker is by asking for help. The best entrepreneurs in the world understand that it takes a village.

How / When / Where? 

Learning how and when to ask for help as a founder can be a superpower because of all the places it can be applied in your journey. Where can it be applied? Nearly everywhere, but here are 3 categories that I find particularly important.

(continue reading…)