Building a business feels like wandering through fog with too many variables to track.
This morning I realized: it’s exactly like gradient descent in high-dimensional space.
Stick with me. This analogy explains why most advice fails and why success never looks like a straight line.
What’s Gradient Descent?
Picture this: You’re standing on a fog-covered mountain. You want to reach the lowest valley, but you can’t see more than a few feet ahead.
What do you do?
Feel the ground beneath your feet. Take a small step in the steepest downward direction. Repeat.
That’s gradient descent:
- Local decisions: You can only use information from where you’re standing
- Iterative movement: Each step gets you closer
- Multi-dimensional: In complex terrain, you’re adjusting multiple directions at once
Business Is a High-Dimensional Space
Success isn’t one variable. It’s dozens moving simultaneously:
- Product features
- Market timing
- Customer needs
- Pricing
- Marketing channels
- Operations
- Team dynamics
- Competition
You’re not optimizing one thing. You’re adjusting all of them at once, trying to find your way through fog.
Your Map Isn’t My Map
Here’s the part everyone misses: success is subjective.
Your definition of success creates a completely different map than mine.
- A solopreneur hitting $3k MRR? That’s success. Their local minimum.
- A VC-backed startup hitting $3k MRR? That’s failure. Wrong map entirely.
Same revenue, different outcomes.
One person’s peak is another person’s valley. We’re not even navigating the same terrain.
Why Single Tactics Fail
School taught me that success follows straight lines. Do X, get Y. Study hard, get good grades, get good job.
Real world doesn’t work like that.
Moving in one direction in high-dimensional space? You’ll walk right off a cliff.
Building the best product but ignoring marketing? You built a masterpiece in a forest no one visits.
Nailing marketing but shipping garbage? Your reputation dies before your product does.
Success demands movement in multiple directions simultaneously. Product, marketing, sales, operations—all at once.
Why “Success Recipes” Are Bullshit
There is no one-size-fits-all playbook.
People selling courses promise guaranteed success with their “proven system.” But they’re giving you directions for their map, not yours.
Even good advice reflects someone else’s definition of success. Force-fitting it into your journey creates frustration, not results.
This is why X, Reddit, and HN are full of disillusioned builders. They followed someone else’s path and ended up lost.
How to Actually Navigate This
Understanding the complexity is liberating. Here’s my approach:
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Experiment broadly Don’t commit to one tactic. Try different strategies. Test multiple directions.
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Move toward what’s working Pick a direction that looks promising. Take a step. Evaluate. Adjust.
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Embrace the zigzag Your path will look erratic. That’s fine. Make it consciously erratic—driven by evaluation, not randomness.
Over time, you’ll move toward your definition of success, not someone else’s.
This beats following someone else’s straight line into their destination.
The Takeaway
Success in business works like gradient descent in fog:
- Small, informed moves compound into big progress
- You need to balance multiple variables simultaneously
- Your definition of success determines your destination
- The path will be messy—embrace it
- Conscious experimentation beats rigid planning
Stop looking for the straight line. There isn’t one.
Navigate the fog, one informed step at a time.