When hitting rock bottom as a founder, the only way out is through — break time into day-by-day survival and focus only on the immediate next step
Adcock describes his coping mechanism for startup crises: abandon weekly or monthly thinking, focus only on getting through each day, and build a simple punch list. He compares this to ultra-marathon strategy of only focusing on the next small waypoint. ✦ AI generated
Brett Adcock · My First Million · 2026-08-14 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 45:38
“You said, 'I went all in on my first three startups and I pretty much hit rock bottom every year.' Can you describe what you mean by rock bottom and what is your method of dealing with rock bottom?”
the inner monologue is like this really sucks. Super painful. I think at that point you just got to go like day for day. You just got to make it like day. You got to make when things get really bad like that, you got to build a punch list and you just got to get through it. Like there's only way out is through. So you need to build a punch list and you need to get to dayto day. You got to go dayto day. You can't go week to week two days look at Friday. You look you got to go every you got to get to the next day. Pile through it. I was training for this ultramarathon and I hate like really long distance running and I read this story about this guy who kind of helped me and he was like just all you got to do is like pick something like it doesn't matter if it's 100 feet or half a mile in the distance even though you have 49 miles left to go in the race just pick something half a mile away and tell yourself once you get there then you'll consider quitting and then you get there and you're like okay maybe I have a little bit more and you pick another thing.
verbatim transcript · starts at 45:38
45:18from 2012 to 2017 was just like was like I like I had like basically like debt. Things weren't working and it was hard. >> And what's what's the inner monologue? What do you tell yourself? >> Uh the inner monologue is like this really sucks. Super painful. I think at that point you just got to go like day for day. You just got to make it like day. You got to make when things get
45:38really bad like that, you got to build a punch list and you just got to get through it. Like there's only way out is through. So you need to build a punch list and you need to get to dayto day. You got to go dayto day. You can't go week to week two days look at Friday. You look you got to go every you got to get to the next day. Pile through it. I
45:53was training for this ultramarathon and I hate like really long distance running and I read this story about this guy who kind of helped me and he was like just all you got to do is like pick something like it doesn't matter if it's 100 feet or half a mile in the distance even though you have 49 miles left to go in the race just pick something half a mile
46:09away and tell yourself once you get there then you'll consider quitting and then you get there and you're like okay maybe I have a little bit more and you pick another thing just like only 200 yards away you're like okay I'll consider quitting when I get to that. No, I was like great. I think it's exactly how I thought about it. But it was like it's like okay. So then I sold
46:25Very and then I was like doing Archer. I was like, "Oh man, I just made 110 million. We like 12xed all the adventure guys." And then I was like, "We're going to raise money. It'll be I'll be raised money. It'll be fine." And like everybody's like, "What are we what are you doing >> for Archer?" >> Yeah. Everybody's like, "What are you doing? We're not going to fund this.
46:38What are you talking about?" >> How do you fight that inner monologue where everyone says you're stupid and wrong and this is silly. Just go do software. >> It's coming from a place of conviction. Like I I know I'm right because I've done I've done the work. I understand it. I'm on the floor. >> Yeah. But the odds are still against you, right? >> But that's that's that's that that's the