Over the July 4th weekend, I had brunch with two new friends who recently moved to Boulder from New York. We ended brunch around 12:30 on Saturday.

I went home, did some work, took a nap, wrote a bit, and about 8 hours later, realized that I hadnt uttered a single word.

Could I be quiet for 30 hours? Given that Sunday night was the 4th, and I was planning on hanging out with friends, I figured that it would be pretty rude if I didnt say anything. 30 hours put me at around 6:30 pm, which seemed like a good time to stop.

As I was sitting outside the Boulder Century Theaters, on a bench watching a squirrel run around, I responded to a text from my friend Dustin about the plans for the evening.

Literally, at almost exactly 6:30pm, Ben, Rachel’s boyfriend, drove by the parking lot on a scooter, and stopped to say hello.

“Hey dude,” Ben said.

“Fuck,” I thought to myself, I cant not respond. He would have no idea why, and it would be rude.

“Hey man,” I responded. It was amazing how hard it was to say something after being quiet for just 30 hours. Its not like I was silent for 17 years like John Francis, who literally walked the Earth and stayed silent for 17 years…

Watch the video. In it, John says that he stopped talking because he found that as he was silent he learned more. For me? Im not sure if I learned more, but I definitely heard more.

And not just people, but all the sounds around me. I could hear my dogs and cats wander the house. I could hear people playing around outside. I could hear the flow of life. Ok, that might sound a little hippish, but the truth is that the world has a melody, a consistent beat, a reverberation that I only hear when I have been silent for an extended period of time.

Know what I did hear? My thoughts. My brain. I was certain I would be stuck in my thoughts all day, and lose clarity, but the truth was exactly the difference. My brain slowed down. I started to have clarity of thought. My mood shifted. I was actually in better spirits.  I think my constant internal dialogue stopped.

There is something about the power of silence that we forget. We spend so much time focused on communication via Facebook, Twitter, cell phones, and what not, that we forget to realize that removing ourselves from flow of sound is just as important.

I now find myself defaulting to silence. I find it easier to listen. I find it, like John, easier to learn.

Who knew that silence was really golden?

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Every year when people start applying to Techstars (now in 3 cities!), I get emails and phone calls asking for my advice.

I always ask the same question, “Do you have a Hacker and a Hustler?”

Sometimes, I get the response, “Im both.”

To which I suggest that they rethink their application. Its nearly impossible for a single founder to have much success building his startup, let alone getting through a program like Techstars (or Y-Combinator or any of the dozens of others). One person can not do it all. Its really that simple.

What do I mean by a Hacker and a Hustler?

A Hacker is more than a code monkey, who can quickly build software and find interesting ways to hack together code. Thats a developer. Thats someone who is definitely an important part of a startup, but not critical to its success. A Hacker is someone who looks the problem, and solves it in a unique and special way. A Hacker finds the process of problem solving exciting and interesting, and spends the majority of their time looking at the problem in multiple ways, finding many potential solutions.

Often the Hacker is a coder, but not always the best coder you have on your team. Nate and Natty, of Everlater, are decent coders at best. In the last couple of years, they have taught themselves, by trial and error, how to code. I would imagine if you asked either one of them if they considered themselves amazing developers, they would probably indicate otherwise. But as Hackers? They are amazing.

A Hustler on the other other hand is a relationship builder. Someone who can build direct relationships with their customers. They arent really promoters, although they do a lot of promotion. They arent salespeople, although they do a lot of selling. They are passion people. They have the ability to articulate their passion clearly and in a way that gets other people equally passionate.

A true Hustler can get people using their product, or raise money, with little to no capital expenditure. Any one can run a Google Adwords campaign, or buy a billboard. Only a Hustler can get you to love their product in a way where you will speak passionately about it to your friends. A true Hustler is patient zero in a viral campaign.

My favorite young Hustler is Garry Tan of Posterous. Their recent campaign about switching from “dying” services to Posterous is genius, and a great example of the Hacker/Hustler dynamic. To figure out how to import data from one system to another is never easy, yet Posterous has hacked together some great importers. Rather than just releasing an “All-in-One” importer, Garry decided to release one a week, and build some noise around it. Not only has their been noise, but Posterous’ growth has been reported on (since they are self-proclaimed not dying) several times.

Was it just Garry’s idea? I would guess that with investors/advisors like Tim Ferriss, Chris Sacca, Paul Graham and others that it may have originated from the larger group, but his execution of it has been perfect.

A Hacker and a Hustler. Every great startup has a pair. Woz and Jobs are probably the most successful Hacker and Hustler tandem out there, there are thousands.

Ask yourself, as you begin down the path of building a great startup, are you a Hacker or a Hustler? Does your team have both pieces?

If you lack one or the other, your ability to be successful greatly diminishes.

(BTW: A topic for another post, but a company doesnt need a Hacker and a Hustler forever. Its why most startups see at least one founder leave.)

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I’ve been traveling a ton. For example this week, I was in SF Saturday – Tues AM, flew back to Boulder (got in around 4pm), am leaving on Wednesday at 11am back to California and will return on Friday at midnight. And, while in California, I will drive from San Diego to LA, taking several meetings and press interviews on the drive.

Why does it matter? Because all that traveling gives me a lot of solitary time to think.

Yesterday, I read a post by Chris Dixon, who posed the question: “If we were to start over today, would we build our product the same way we had so far?” and then went on to talk about pivots.

What I spent much of the airplane ride today thinking about is do pivots have to have a specific moment in which they must occur, or is it possible to do multiple smaller pivots constantly. In essence, can a startup be successful if it lives in a constant state of change?

People, in general, are not comfortable with a constant stage of change. Its more comfortable to have consistency and reliability in day to day interactions. Even if the change itself is reliable, over time, people just lose productivity, as they begin to work the expectation of change into their daily routine.

Couple with the strong belief most entrepreneurs have in their decision making skills and ability to understand the market, and most companies will, if necessary, create a pivot as an “event,” with planning, discussion and then action as components.

Ive tried both. Ive tried to make multiple smaller changes, hoping that the team will discover the right direction (almost through trial and error) and settle in on that path. If it works, its great. There is a minimal loss of productivity, most employees stay on staff, and as far as the external world knows, business continued as usual. But, its hard, and it only works if you have a mature work force that is trusting.

Making a hard pivot also has its downfalls. Usually, there is a loss of team members. Either the new direction removes the need for certain skill sets, or the team member just isnt into the new future of the company. This was part of the reason that I left Lijit. As they moved more towards providing a really slick ad network and tools, I realized that after 15 years of online marketing and advertising in one way or another, I was not as jazzed about building another ad network. I love what they are doing, and I often think about if I stayed how I could have affected them positively, but the change was the right thing (plus I now get to read comic books every day!!)

Sometimes, the market is so comfortable with your current path, that any change could be seen as a sign of weakness or failure. Fear stops many companies from making pivots.

Pivots arent always external either. For us, we have grown quickly, and have team members strewn all over the globe has proven to be more difficult than expected. In addition, as we focus on the business opportunities in front of us, we needed to make an adjustment to how we did business. We needed to create a new company culture, and for that to happen, we had to be all in the same location. Sure, there are many companies that successfully make the distributed workforce work for them. But, not for us. Not now. So we internally pivoted. And, like an external pivot, we will lose employees. We may find the short term a bit more difficult while we deal with the build of the company along with the movement of people. But, its the right, and only, decision for us.

Living the startup life is learning to deal with the potential of a constant state of change. With removing the personal from the professional, and focusing solely on long term success. When that requires a shift or change–a pivot–its imperative that its done with the minimal effect on the team (be honest, dont hesitate and stand firm).

Pivots dont need to be large events, and they should come with excitement and the comfort knowing that the right decision for the business was reached. As Chris said in his post:

You aren’t throwing away what you’ve learned or the good things you’ve built. You are keeping your strong leg grounded and adjusting your weak leg to move in a new direction.

Dont fear the pivot. Fear the stagnation that is always the precursor to losing.

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