i realized an interesting concept while building my new company Acta that i call the vision-reality gap.
and i think it extends more broadly to creative work—which i define as bringing something that doesn't exist yet into existence.
it all starts with a spark.
an inspiration for something that could be but doesn't exist yet. a problem you believe can be solved in a better way. a song that expresses a feeling you felt. a book you cannot not write. a video that may inspire just one person to do something differently.
whatever it is, once you have this insight or inspiration that leads you to create something new—and then start acting—you will face the inevitable reality that the thing you created is not living up to the ideal you envisioned. there is a gap. after giving birth to the thing you imagined, you are confronted with it not being perfect. there are flaws. things that are not working yet. decisions you made that turned out to be wrong. a gap between your ideal vision and the reality you created.
i'm feeling this right now with Acta. we started building three companies. all serving a real need people have. with a clear vision of what it takes to solve each problem. but we're not making revenue yet. we're still in that pre-product-market-fit time—working week after week on making the gap smaller. and a part of me always questions whether i'm doing enough. whether we're working on the right things. whether anyone even cares. that voice is there every day.
there's an almost physical pain i feel when the thing i made is not living up to what it could be.
and this is what drives my next actions. the features i fix. the decisions i need to make.
for a long time (and still to a fair degree today) i interpreted this gap as failure. i am the only one responsible for the gap. i could've made things better from the start. made different decisions. moved along the critical path this vision required of me. this attribution of lack toward me, the creator, is what quickly snowballs into self-doubt. asking myself: "do i have what it takes?"
this is also why criticism gets to me. despite me wishing it wouldn't. critics hit a vulnerable spot—right between the courage it takes to go create something and the self-limiting part doubting yourself because of the vision-reality gap. but i try to remember that critics rarely create something new. they stay in the safe zone. never putting themselves on the hook.
this is also why negativity shouldn't have room in a startup. you need to see the gaps clearly. see what the market is telling you. but approach it with optimism about how you can pick the one path that works. if you cannot do this, you shouldn't be building a company.
interpreting the gap as personal failure is wrong.
the vision-reality gap is inevitable. although we romanticize the idea that we can one-shot creation, chances are we cannot. the nature beneath is iteration. it's the same as evolution. something gets born and over many generations nature adapts—keeps the good stuff, removes the bad stuff. and nature doesn't stop. it's a cycle that repeats endlessly.
but here's what i used to get wrong about the evolution metaphor: i thought it was aimless mutation. it's not. evolution has a direction—toward a healthier, stronger, more adapted species. creative work is the same. with every iteration, you have the opportunity to discover that the direction you initially set out toward was wrong. and this is okay. this is what the pursuit of truth looks like. you don't just close the gap. sometimes you realize the gap was pointing somewhere else entirely.
so if you are a founder, musician, writer, creative—this is the heuristic you should operate from. give birth to the vision that found you. see the gaps clearly. then work iteratively to close them. and stay open to discovering that your original direction needs to change.
the difference between the one who succeeds at realizing their vision and the one who doesn't is that the one who does did not stop creating and iterating. this becomes a game of persistence in the long run.
the cheesy line of "simply don't give up" becomes true with evidence we find in mother nature.
but how do you actually keep going when things haven't worked for weeks or months on end?
for me, it's meditating. writing about it. giving these thoughts space instead of suppressing them. then looking at them as objectively as i can—and returning to obsessing over closing the vision gap. that's what gets me going. i am learning to make peace with the doubting part. to see what the market tells us for what it is. and to keep building from there.
maybe it's something else for you. but if you're serious about turning professional with your creative ambition, you need to find a good answer to this question. because the gap will always be there. the only choice is how you relate to it.
go create.