You don't go zero to one. You go zero to zero to zero to zero.
I pulled up to a house in the suburbs with desks in the living room and no idea what I was doing. That was the best leap I ever took.
I walked up to a house in the suburbs of Los Angeles. Kinda middle of nowhere.
I was interviewing for a role as the first marketing hire at an early stage tech company. I had prepared frantically for every question they might ask. Because I had no idea what I was doing.
The night before, I had probably frantically searched Nordstrom Rack for the blazer, pants, and heels I was now uncomfortably wearing to try to look 5 years older and infinitely more experienced.
I pull up in my little Toyota Corolla.
And... it’s a house. In the middle of a California suburb.
This can’t be right. I must have the wrong address.
But I’m there and I see the number on the gate and it’s right. So I walk up, hesitantly ready to knock, and I see a sign on the door.
It says “the clinic is closed.”
I have to force myself again to go through with the knock.
So I knock.
Some doors don’t look like doors
The door opens. A normal looking person answers. The living room is full of desks.
After the sweaty handshake that I tried to cover up with an enthusiastic and confident sounding hello, I’m like... what’s with the sign on the door? The clinic is closed?
He’s like, oh yeah, about that. This house used to be a weed clinic.
So we had to put the sign up so people would stop coming by to buy weed.
I laughed and somehow felt a little more comfortable after that.
We sit down at the kitchen table. Nothing but a basic wooden bench and table. The CEO and another leader. The CEO asks if I want coffee. It’s like 4pm and I say yes. He pours me some. It’s terrible and very cold.
We have a great interview. I feel pretty good. I’m brimming with excitement. And most of all I feel like, wow, these people are awesome.
There’s a building energy here. A creating energy. A feeling that anything is possible.
We’re wrapping up and they say something that makes my little glowing spark of hope crumble.
“Well, you’re the least qualified and youngest candidate we’re interviewing.”
I walk out.
They hired me anyway.
The part no one tells you about
That was my first experience as a zero to one marketer. I loved every second.
I worked 12 hour days. The coffee shop I liked on the way to work opened at 7am and I was heading over too early, so I had to switch to a different one.
I got to learn from and build with some of the best in the business. People who I deeply respect today.
That company is now worth $1.6 billion. Eyeing an IPO.
All because I took the leap to go back to zero and build from nothing.
What most people forget about going zero to one is that you first have to go to zero. And zero is an act of courage that most people are allergic to.
It feels uncomfortable. It feels like pulling up to a house in the suburbs in a blazer that doesn’t quite fit, wondering if you should even knock.
And then I went and did that again.
Four times.
Second startup, first product marketing hire. Got acquired by Oracle.
Third, I left Oracle to be the 4th employee. Grew them to an $850 million valuation, 300 people, and a CMO title.
Now on my fourth. Left that to join a pre-seed startup.
And in between all of those, I moved. From LA to San Francisco to San Diego to Miami. Every single time I moved without knowing a soul.
Zero has a feeling
Every single time I jumped off a cliff to zero, that fearful feeling came back. And then the ensuing loneliness of building from nothing.
A CEO who doesn’t understand marketing and thinks it’s just events and case studies.
A “why aren’t we doing this?” email at 11pm on a Tuesday that makes your heart jump into your throat. And then getting those emails every few days.
The early Monday morning spiral thoughts over steaming coffee, wondering how you can possibly prioritize the 10,000 things on your to do list.
Those Friday 5pm spiral thoughts rattling around in your head, wondering if your strategy is right.
Standing sweating in front of the board presenting a plan that you feel strongly about but you know might fail anyway.
Failure follows you like your own shadow. Always looming. Stretching longer the closer you get to the light.
And underneath all of it, the loneliest part. The part I’ve written about before and will probably keep writing about because it never fully goes away. The feeling that no one around you understands what you’re building or why it matters. That you’re pouring yourself into something invisible. That the people sitting next to you, the ones who have a rhythm and a pipeline and a number to hit, look at you and genuinely don’t know what you do all day.
That feeling never fully goes away. Not after the first company hits unicorn status. Not after the acquisition. Not after the title. Every time I chose zero again, there it was waiting for me.
The world just went to zero
The thing about zero to one is this.
We’re all at zero.
The world has changed. AI among other things blew it all up. With AI, we’re all at zero.
In the past, you could go zero to one and then you’re good. You’ve made it. You can hang out. You can coast.
Today that doesn’t work.
We’re all scrolling LinkedIn feeling behind the times, like the entire world is sweeping past us while we fade into irrelevance.
Everyone is automating their entire lives while we’re still struggling with the thorny things. Keeping our sanity with a crazy calendar, with spilled coffee and typos and bad hair days. Everyone claiming to be automating their teams away while we’re still trying to find that one hire we really think we need.
We’re looking at the enthusiastic hand waving, the fake automations people have built that when you dig in have some real problems. We’re either panicking or rolling our eyes and shrugging our shoulders, but either way, we feel like we’re failing. Like we suddenly know nothing. Like we’re afraid to say it out loud in case someone judges us for being behind.
We’re all being challenged to go to zero.
It’s not about the knowledge in your head anymore. It’s about the ability to go zero to one over and over and over and over again.
New business plan. New product roadmap. New vision. New story. New tech making new things possible and old things obsolete.
I’ve heard it said there’s no such thing as expertise anymore. There’s only the ability to go zero to one, to build and rebuild.
Creative problem solving is far more valuable than “best practices” expertise that might be relevant today and irrelevant tomorrow.
The ability to jump off that cliff. Find something beautiful on the other side. Learn, grow, build, rebuild. Try again. That’s valuable forever.
The knock
I think about that girl standing in front of a house in the suburbs a lot. The one in the Nordstrom Rack blazer with the sweaty palms and the terrible cold coffee.
She had no idea what she was doing. She was the least qualified candidate.
She knocked anyway.
And for the person who has already knocked. Who sat at the kitchen table. Who is now sitting at one of those desks in the living room trying to build something from nothing.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my years of going zero to zero to zero to zero…it’s not just the most beautiful and fulfilling way to live this one wild life, it’s essential. It’s alive. It’s adventure, it’s growth, it’s beauty. It’s humbling. It’s worth it.
And it’s the most valuable skill right now.
I remember at one point painfully confessing to my executive coach that I didn’t know what I was doing.
He looks at me with wide eyes and gasps, “you’re saying you’ve never done this before? You’ve never done this job, in this market, at this time, with this team, and this product? Shocker! No one has!”
You’re not alone. We’re all right there at zero with you.
The courage to take the leap might take you somewhere you could only have dreamed of.