Don’t Compare Your Beginning to Someone Else’s Middle
Excellence isn’t magic. It’s compounding persistence -- and YouTube is a surprising treasure trove of proof that greatness starts off pretty awkward.
It’s one of my favorite quotes in the world — and one of the most violated.
Don’t compare your beginning to someone else’s middle.
You pick up tennis for three weeks and wonder if Serena Williams was just “natural.”
You record your first YouTube video and assume MrBeast was born with a ring light and viral instincts.
From afar, excellence looks effortless. Up close, it’s decades.
And here’s the corollary — one I feel strongly about:
Saying “they’re just natural” isn’t praise. It’s an erasure.
It erases the thousands of hours. The awkward early drafts. The trade-offs. The obsession. The lonely reps.
When we call someone “natural,” we flatten their story.
The Magic of YouTube: You Can Actually SEE the Beginning
In most fields, you can’t rewind history. You can’t easily watch a 12-year-old Serena miss her backhand. You can’t watch a first-time founder stumble through their first pitch deck.
But YouTube is different. It preserves the beginning — and it’s glorious.(Just search for a YouTuber, click on “Videos”, “Oldest”)
Below are three of the biggest and most famous creators we all think of as polished, confident, and “natural.” Let’s rewind to their beginnings:
Mark Rober
Early Mark Rober (October 29, 2011): Awkward camera angles. Basic editing. Finding his voice.
Today’s Mark Rober (70 million subscribers): Hollywood-level production. Precision storytelling. Masterful pacing. Tens of millions of subscribers.
Was he “natural”?
Or did a former NASA engineer decide to nerd out — relentlessly — for over a decade?
MrBeast
Early MrBeast (September 19, 2015): Grainy gaming videos. Quiet commentary. A teenager experimenting.
Today’s MrBeast (a decade later… 450 million subscribers!): Global productions. Massive logistics. Industrial-scale creativity.
He didn’t wake up one morning and know how to orchestrate million-dollar challenges.
He spent years studying thumbnails. Studying retention curves. Studying the craft.
Total nerd behavior.
Marques Brownlee (MKBHD)
Early MKBHD (Jan 1, 2009): Teenager in his bedroom. Webcam. Low lighting. Straight into the lens.
Today’s MKBHD (20 million subscribers): Cinematic studio. Clean delivery. Industry-defining reviews.
He has been publishing for over 15 years. Fifteen.
That’s not “natural.”
That’s reps.
The Middle Is Built on Invisible Trade-Offs
Here’s what the middle really means:
Turning down distractions.
Choosing practice over comfort.
Making thousands of small refinements no one applauds.
Repeating something long after the novelty wears off.
When you see someone “in their middle,” you’re seeing the compounding of obsession.
And this matters deeply in startups.
At Ubiquity, we back founders who are willing to nerd out for a decade on something unglamorous — perception stacks, robotics middleware, agricultural sensing, logistics optimization.
The outside world might say, “Oh, they’re just brilliant.”
No. They’re committed. There’s a difference.
And in venture, we bet on the difference.
Why This Is Encouraging
If excellence were “natural,” you’d either have it or you wouldn’t.
Game over.
But if excellence is built — slowly, awkwardly, imperfectly — then your messy beginning is not a verdict. It’s a starting line.
The most inspiring part of YouTube’s time capsule isn’t that creators improved. It’s that they kept going. And one day, without realizing it, they were no longer at the beginning.
They were in the middle — and now someone else is watching them, thinking, “Wow. They’re just natural.”
Don’t make that mistake. If you’re at the beginning — good. Lean in. Nerd out. Put in the reps.
One day, someone will compare their beginning to your middle.
And you’ll know exactly how much work that illusion required.
Ubiquity Ventures — led by Sunil Nagaraj — is a seed-stage venture capital firm focused on startups solving real-world physical problems with "software beyond the screen", often using smart hardware or machine learning.
If your startup fits this description, reach out to us.