Something time has taught me is that I'm terribly incompatible with people who feel great by undermining you and your abilities. I've never understood the motivation. What do you gain from making someone feel small? I don't know. But they exist, they've crossed my path more than once, and every time they've made me feel terrible.
This is especially true in business, and I find it terribly irritating there. Since Marek and I started building a company around Tuist, we've noticed a kind of gravitational force around us. A constant "you won't be able to do it." It rarely comes alone. It usually arrives dressed up as concern, something like "maybe you should let me sell your technology, because I care about the users." As if we didn't. As if the people who built the thing, who answered the issues, who sat with the community for years, somehow stopped caring the moment there was a business attached. And when you politely decline, the framing flips. Now you're making a mistake. Not "we see it differently," not "I hope it works out." A mistake, stated as fact. I'd never tell anyone they're making a mistake for not following my advice. Advice is an offering, not a toll. It's very disturbing the first few times. Then you learn to recognize the shape of it, and you learn to put a hard stop on it. We don't have time for that.
What makes it hard is that you can't fully ignore them. They come from places you don't expect, and at times you don't expect either. Sometimes from people you thought were on your side. And because the doubt arrives wrapped in reasonable words, part of you entertains it, replays it, wonders if they see something you don't.
Here's the thing though. Marek and I have a particular vision for how we want to shape this company and how we want to do things. We don't want to delegate Tuist to someone else's perspective on how things should evolve. We care about our users. We care about our domains. And yes, we are capable. We were told runners would be too complicated, that we shouldn't do it. We have runners today, we're expanding the offering, and we're getting ready to enter the market at the frontier. The pattern repeats often enough that I've stopped giving the doubt the benefit of it.
The mindset I want to surround myself with is the opposite one, and it's the one I want to emanate too. I don't see it any other way. Whenever I meet someone venturing into business, especially developers taking that leap, I cheer them on. I support them. If they ask for my input, I just give it, as input, not as verdict. I never approach those conversations from the position of owning an absolute truth, especially in business, where everything is fluid and everyone is improvising more than they admit. What worked for us might not work for them. What everyone says is impossible might be their whole opportunity.
Today we moved on from one of those relationships, and it felt great. These conversations had been draining us for a while. Talking in circles, always landing on the same message, that we wouldn't be able to survive without them. Ending it felt like putting down a weight we'd been carrying without noticing how heavy it had gotten.
And if we die? Fuck it. All the fun we've had building something unique and different, trying to bring our own perspective into a space that badly needs perspectives, that matters much more than anything else. We'd rather be remembered for having tried something different than for incrementally copying what everyone else does while undermining competitors along the way. I genuinely believe money follows having fun, not the other way around. And nobody who tells you that you can't is having any.