Early Work

Paul Graham’s essay Early Work addresses a common barrier to ambitious projects: the fear of creating something mediocre.

The Core Problem

Early versions of promising work often appear unimpressive. This causes creators to abandon them before reaching greatness.

Why This Fear Exists

Society lacks established customs for evaluating nascent ideas. We judge preliminary work by the standards of finished products rather than recognizing their unique status as developmental stages.

Silicon Valley as a Model

This region has developed better attitudes toward emerging concepts. People there understand that dismissing unknown individuals with unconventional ideas is dangerous.

“An unknown person working on a strange-sounding idea won’t automatically be dismissed the way they would back home.”

Practical Strategies

Overestimate your project’s importance to counterbalance harsh self-judgment
Cultivate slight overconfidence to protect against skepticism
Surround yourself with colleagues working on similar ambitious ventures
Treat projects as learning experiments rather than make-or-break endeavors
Use media allowing rapid iteration without significant upfront commitment
Let curiosity drive you forward

The Deeper Truth

Early work deserves more credit than intuition suggests. By studying how accomplished people began their journeys—often modestly—we can retrain ourselves to recognize hidden potential in rough drafts and early prototypes.