It was the middle of the call when the founder started going through the list of speakers at my event: “Impressed, unimpressed, unimpressed, unimpressed, impressed, unimpressed, unimpressed”. I had been introduced to the founder via one of his investors who suggested he attend my upcoming SaaS Masters event. I wanted to get his feedback and more importantly, see if he wanted to attend.

The irony was that every single speaker at the event has been individually responsible for millions of dollars in sales, much of which has taken place in the past year. The founder on the phone was not as successful. He was now onto his second pivot and was paying the salary of six employees with absolutely zero revenue to date. Despite my initial emotional response (in which I took offense to his statement), I couldn’t help but laugh inside.

Here he was, revenue-less yet full of confidence. So much that he could quickly dismiss others who are more successful than himself. Such confidence is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it gives you the ability to believe you can accomplish anything. On the other, it makes you blind to the lessons you can learn from others. Lessons that could help you avoid some of the pitfalls that you will no doubt encounter along the way.

There are far too many similar individuals floating around Silicon Valley. While there are a lot of things I could say about this attitude, there’s one word to easily sum up my perspective: unimpressed.