How do you stay sane comparing yourself to faster-growing startups?

The spiral is recognisable to any founder: "they're so much more qualified to do it, and they've got this experience or that experience, and they know this person or that person, and they've raised this many million dollars or that many million dollars." Lauren names the mechanism directly — it's the same as "Instagram versus reality," except "there's this thing which is like LinkedIn versus reality."

Her deeper point: "if you can get over those thoughts and questions about your own ability... and you try your hardest, you actually can get a really good outcome."

Will says the personal thought "we should be better, we should be bigger, we should be blah blah blah" was a really hard question for him. Looking realistically at where they were when they raised the Series A — "still top 5% of YC companies, our valuation is top 5% of YC companies ever created" — he realized "we are objectively moving faster than most." Where he landed: "comparison is the thief of joy. There's always somebody doing better, somebody bigger." His anchor was the sticky note he wrote from day one: "there are no shortcuts for you," credited to Bo Davis, and "nothing in life has ever really been handed to me."