Will is "very competitive" and felt the pressure that "we should be better, we should be bigger." Looking at where Phonely actually was, he landed on the reframe that "comparison is the thief of joy."
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Will says the personal thought "we should be better, we should be bigger, we should be blah blah blah" was a really hard question for him. Looking realistically at where they were when they raised the Series A — "still top 5% of YC companies, our valuation is top 5% of YC companies ever created" — he realized "we are objectively moving faster than most." Where he landed: "comparison is the thief of joy. There's always somebody doing better, somebody bigger." His anchor was the sticky note he wrote from day one: "there are no shortcuts for you," credited to Bo Davis, and "nothing in life has ever really been handed to me."