Today is a day for gifts.
And I want to talk about the ones that don't show up on your changelog.
This year, you probably shipped features. Fixed bugs. Maybe launched something new. Those are the visible wins — the ones you can point to and measure.
But there are other gifts. Quieter ones. The ones you gave yourself without realizing it.
The patience you developed when things took longer than expected. The clarity you gained after that feature flopped and forced you to rethink everything. The resilience you built from surviving the months when nothing seemed to work.
These don't go in your pitch deck. You can't put them in a tweet. But they're the things that actually make you a better founder.
Progress isn't always visible. Sometimes it's internal. Sometimes the biggest growth happens in the spaces between launches, in the quiet moments when you're just... enduring.
So today, while you're thinking about the year — don't just count the features. Count the failures you survived. The doubts you pushed through. The version of yourself that's stronger now than it was in January.
Those are gifts too. And they're the ones that compound.
This is Founder FM. Merry Christmas to those who celebrate. I'll see you tomorrow.