Reflecting on one of the most impactful weeks of my life, I feel an amalgamation of emotions. Last Monday, I was set to launch a startup that I have been tirelessly working on for the past 9 months. My co-founder, Caleb Frankel, and I had found ways to persevere through the Covid-19 crisis and we were thrilled to finally introduce EarlyBird to the world. Then the world took a long-overdue turn and woke up to the gross systemic injustices facing black communities and we felt compelled to put our launch on hold so that important voices could be heard in the fight against racism.

Instead of this week being a celebration of hard work, it has morphed into one of the deepest states of self-reflection I have ever experienced. I consider myself a pretty “self-aware” individual but the fight against racism and battle for equality has highlighted an entirely new level of male white privilege that I’ve had to come to terms with and will continue to work through for the rest of my life.

I unequivocally stand with Black Lives Matter and I am 100% committed to listening, collaborating, partnering, and building a just and equal society for black and brown people. Through many of the conversations I have had over the past couple of days, I have realized that there are some interesting parallels between the actions that we all need to take to begin the hard work of dismantling systemic racism and the pillars of building a great tech startup.

I thought it would be helpful to illustrate three of these core principles and how they have directly affected me:

1. Fail Fast, Fail Often — This is a common phrase used in the startup world to ensure early-stage companies aren’t hindering their progress by delaying a release because it isn’t “perfect”. This is so important for individuals like me right now to remember that we are going to fail, we are not going to say the right thing, we are going to be in challenging and uncomfortable spaces that we aren’t accustomed to, but that is not an excuse to stay silent and to stop us from trying.
2. Stay Agile, Stay Lean — Build, test, validate. This is a methodology designed to ensure that hypotheses can be tested quickly and proven while staying lean and not over committing to ideas that might fall short. This is a critical step in my process of being able to reprioritize what is most important — postponing the launch of EarlyBird and putting in the hard work of restructuring our launch to make sure that our mission of a better financial future for ALL delivers from the start.
3. Trust the End User — We all are guilty of self-righteous behavior and often feel justified in doing things “our way” especially when launching a new product, but the truth is, we have no idea what works until the end-user provides us honest and unfiltered feedback. Finding ways to listen now to the “end-user” is essential to building a better, more equal, future. User interviews are another vital tool when building new features and it is more imperative than ever that we have open conversations with people from all different backgrounds, most importantly right now, black people. Only through active listening to the stories of those who have experienced racial injustice did I, as a white male, find that I could truly understand the deep pain caused by systemic racism. My challenge now is to cultivate this learning so that I do not consciously or subconsciously contribute to the injustices so deeply ingrained in the fabric of our society.

This awakening has been critical in my personal evolution and growth and I hope that it can be useful to others. My business partner, Caleb, and I have committed to matching each other’s donations of $500 towards organizations that we believe can continue to teach these key principles. I have chosen Black Girls Code as they are an inspirational nonprofit helping to “empower young women of color ages 7–17 to embrace the current tech marketplace as builders + creators.”

Lastly, I make this promise now, EarlyBird is forever committed to fighting against racial injustice and we will always stand with Black Lives Matter.

I am excited to launch our company soon and share with you all what we have been building. Please stay safe and continue to be on the right side of history.