Introduction
Alternative goals make you more interesting

Alternative goals make you more interesting

The late Jake Burton had a different metric for success to most founders.

He judged a good year by whether he had spent 100 days snowboarding on the mountain.

That to him was success.

Sounds like a great goal to me.


(Oh boy, do I wish I had gone snowboarding with him when I had the chance?)


When I was working in Advertising, we had this maverick Managing Director.

He told one day that his dream was to canoe to work.

And then canoe back home.


Oh boy, he fried my head.


When I moved back to Wales, I bought a house that I could canoe to work from.

Our best-selling T-shirt was ‘Work Hard: Canoe Home.


When I started howies, one of my secret goals was to get Radiohead to wear our T-shirts.

Then one day, I was watching their latest video, and Thom Yorke was there in one of our Tees.


Oh boy, that was a moment.

I see lots of founders chasing numbers and ever-growing percentages.

I think those numbers are better served via alternative goals.



David Hieatt
Author

David Hieatt

Bankrupt at 16. Thrown out of college at 18. Joined Saatchi + Saatchi at 21. Started howies in 1995. Sold it to Timberland. Left. Started The Do Lectures. Started Hiut Denim Co.

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