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Comment by applecore | Hacker News Reader

This is closely related to Aristotle's concept of potentiality[1] and the active intellect. More succinctly, a startup must build up the potential energy of its product prior to transforming it into the kinetic energy of growth.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potentiality_and_actuality

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I like this. I am also reminded of something I read about agriculture and food forests. The idea was that all land "wants" to return to its forest state, and that traditional agriculture requires constant energy inputs to hold the land in a raw, tilled state that can be quickly planted. The alternative is planting multiple compatible canopies—an edible forest—so it can stably sustain itself without inputs.

I think something similar happens socially... Whenever you diverge from the standard model of doing things (as startups do) it requires a massive amount of energy to stay in that raw state. Markets, employees, everything "wants" to pull you back to the typical way of doing things. The forest of the status quo fights like hell to grow back.

So ideally what you want to do is clear a little land and ASAP plant a complete ecology that can fill that little space. I think this is where I get to the potential energy.... If you are going to have to wait a long time to plant all the different parts of the ecology, you need more potential energy to hold the land open. If you are going to plant a balanced ecology right away, you can get away with less energy.

Anyway. Mixed metaphors but I appreciate the opportunity to mix in your idea to things I've been thinking about.

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