By Chris Heivly, Managing Director at Build The Fort and Startup Community EIR @ Techstars

Gertrude Stein once wrote, “That joy you feel is life.” (According to my deep research, it could be a widely attributed aphorism, not a direct quote. Don’t worry, I had to look up aphorism too.) Simple, right? But if you’ve ever poured yourself into a startup — or a startup community — you know this isn’t some cute line to toss on a t-shirt. It’s a way of life.

When I began my work as a community builder in the Raleigh-Durham startup community back in 2009, I experienced something I didn’t expect: not just momentum or traction or whatever buzzword of the day was floating around, but a genuine transformation. A personal seismic shift. I began to notice more. The nuances of people’s efforts. The little wins. The small, tough conversations that actually moved things forward. The connections that created wonderful sparks.

That joy? It wasn’t some made-up outcome at the end of a rainbow. It was the rainbow.

Too often in and around startups, we get obsessed with the end goal. The big thing. The future unicorn. The big funding round. The exit. The ranking. All reasonable - and I might add superficial - milestones, sure, but they’re not the work. They are all outcomes of the work. The real work — the good work — is in the unglamorous and often invisible daily actions: showing up for a founder coffee with no ask. Connecting two people who didn’t know they needed each other. Listening to someone’s pitch, not because you have capital, but because you have time.

This isn’t the work we do alongside our lives. This is the life.

Startup communities aren’t something you build and then live in. A startup community is not an end goal. They are not something you finish then move on. They are something you invest in every day. When I began to live that truth in Durham — letting go of grand timelines and choosing to focus on the here and now — I finally understood what Stein was talking about. That joy wasn’t a byproduct of community building. It was the fuel. The reward. The reason.

So here’s what I’ve learned:

• Small wins matter more than you think. Celebrate them. Share them. Bake them into your culture.

• Challenges aren’t interruptions. They are the path. That messy meeting where everyone has a different opinion? That’s OK. That’s growth.

• Stop focusing on some end goal. Lean in on the small stuff and release the pressure to meet some arbitrary goal.

So next time you catch yourself thinking, “When we finally get that grant, land that Series A, get TechCrunch to write about us… then it’ll all be worth it” — stop. Take a breath. Look around. You’re already in it.

That’s the joy you feel in life.

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