Hey everyone,

Six weeks ago, I walked into the boardroom of one of the biggest investment platforms in South Africa, carrying a pitch deck and an unshakeable conviction about the future of wealth management.

They were going to be my first major platform partner.

I was going to revolutionize how people invest with AI.

I'd be building the next fintech unicorn.

Everything was clicking into place.

But reality had different plans.

Reflecting on what's been the most chaotic six weeks of my entrepreneurial journey, I've stumbled onto a paradox that every founder needs to understand.

~4 minute read

Building Blind

Dark forest

Building something from scratch is like sprinting through a dark forest, blindfolded.

You kinda know which direction you're heading.

But it’s anyone’s guess where the exit might be.

You've got your North Star pulling you forward.

But you're constantly tripping over roots, backtracking from dead ends, and getting scratched up by branches you never saw coming.

The price of every step forward is having to go two steps back.

As painful as it is, here's what I've realized.

You're still moving, despite the chaos.

The chaos doesn’t mean you're lost.

The chaos is what movement looks like when you're charting a new path.

My Chaos

Let me paint the picture of my last 6 weeks, because I think it'll sound familiar to anyone who's genuinely tried to build something new.

Week 1

The meeting goes well, but I leave with mixed feelings.

They liked the vision, but they'd seen it before.

Other companies had tried similar things, failed and faded into irrelevance.

My idea wasn't big enough to sound like a bad idea, which Sam Altman would say is actually a problem.

Week 2

I'm questioning everything.

Maybe my vision isn't ambitious enough?

Should I be swinging for bigger fences?

I spent days reading about the most successful founders in my industry and realized they all had ideas that sounded absolutely insane.

Until they didn't.

Week 3

Partnership meetings with other investment providers.

Polite rejections everywhere.

Read between the lines and what they’re actually saying is: “With more volume, anything’s possible.”

I don't have any leverage.

And unfortunately it isn’t built overnight.

Week 4

Complete strategic pivot.

Forget the consumer app approach.

What if I automate the existing wealth management business first?

Build a full-stack AI company?

Week 5

This approach starts making sense.

Test the concept in the existing business.

Build the engine first, worry about a software frontend later.

Week 6

The final breakthrough comes during a conversation with a close friend who asked me a devastatingly simple question:

“Why are you trying to build a consumer app when you have a perfectly good business that just needs a systems upgrade?”

Everything clicked.

The path forward became obvious.

All that chaos led me to the answer that was right in front of me the entire time.

Reframing

From the outside, it probably looks like founder flip-flopping.

Lack of focus. Indecision. The kind of thing that make investors nervous.

From the inside, it felt exactly like that too.

Stepping back, I now see it differently.

I tested my assumptions against reality and they evolved.

I gathered critical data about the market that I could never have learned from brainstorming.

I discovered what leverage I actually have versus what I thought I had.

Most importantly, I found the path of least resistance that still accomplishes my ultimate vision.

It’s a feature, not a bug

Chaos isn't the opposite of progress when you're trying to go from zero to one.

Chaos is progress.

When you're genuinely innovating, there is no roadmap.

There are no case studies.

There's no playbook.

You have to figure it out as you go.

That means constant uncertainty, iteration and pivoting.

The anxiety you feel isn't a sign you're doing something wrong.

It's a sign you're doing something that matters.

If the path was clear, someone would’ve walked it already.

Navigation

So how do you actually navigate the dark forest without losing yourself?

First, remember your North Star.

My vision has always been to build a wealth management company of the future.

The details of how to get there have changed weekly, but the destination hasn't.

That undying vision is what keeps you steady amidst the chaos.

Second, embrace the data, especially the uncomfortable data.

Every ‘no’ I received taught me something valuable about how the industry actually works.

Every failed partnership attempt revealed constraints I didn't know existed.

The market was trying to teach me something, and I needed to listen rather than fight it.

Third, prioritize movement over perfection.

I stopped trying to plan the perfect path and started taking the next logical step with whatever information I had available.

Perfect information doesn't exist when you're building something from scratch, so you have to get comfortable with incomplete data.

Fourth, reframe every setback as course correction.

Each pivot wasn't a failure.

It was my iterative learning process.

Constantly incorporating new data and adjusting my approach.

Finally, trust the process.

Building anything worthwhile requires wandering through uncertainty to gain clarity.

The forest is supposed to be dark.

That's how you know you're in uncharted territory.

Keep running

Summing up the past 6 weeks, I’ve never felt more disconcerted about my progress while simultaneously making more actual progress than I ever have.

If you're in the middle of building something right now and it feels similar, congratulations.

You're in the right place.

Remember:

• Theory will get you only so far.

• The dark forest has an exit.

Every founder who's ever built something meaningful has found their way through.

You just have to keep running.

Questions

• What's your dark forest?

• What data is the market trying to teach you that you might be resisting?

• How might your anxiety actually be a signal that you're moving in the right direction?

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Thanks for reading,

— Luca

P.S. Want to work together?

1. Get your free AI audit: If you’re still manually doing work that AI could handle in minutes, I'll show you exactly where you're bleeding time and money. In 25 minutes, I'll audit your current workflow and map out your personalized AI transformation roadmap. This is the same process I used to save 15+ hours per week in my own business. 🤖

2. See my complete tool stack: Beyond what I've shared today, I maintain a living document of every AI tool I test, why I use it, and which ones actually move the needle. Access my complete AI toolkit by reaching out here. 💼

That’s it from me. See you next week, Luca 👋

P.P.S Let’s connect on LinkedIn and X.