The World Doesn’t See You Yet — Good. That’s When You’re Becoming Dangerous

I remember sitting alone in a room late at night, with nobody watching my code compile or my email send, reminding myself: “The world doesn’t owe you anything – not attention, not applause, not opportunity.”

For years I built in silence, grinding while it felt like nobody cared. My name is Deric Yee. I’ve spent the last five years bootstrapping tech ventures (including Sigma School, which now does about $80K/month) and diving deep into AI.

But none of that success came by accident. It came from embracing a simple truth: you become unstoppable not when the world is watching, but when you commit to growth even in the shadows.

In this post I’ll share the mental shift that took me 25+ years to learn – and how you can start today.

You’ll learn how I built a foundation in the invisible season, the practical practices I used, and how even small private victories set you up for big public wins. Let’s dive in.

The Season of Invisibility

Everyone wants to be seen, but here’s the paradox: you don’t get noticed by demanding attention. You get noticed by becoming someone worth noticing.

I know this season well – I spent years in it. In Sigma School’s early days I wrote code, designed curriculum, made sales calls, handled support – all without a single like, follower, or validation from the outside.

It felt like screaming into a void. But that invisible season is sacred. Like a tree whose hidden roots anchor it through storms, the work you do now will hold up everything when success comes.

To cultivate growth in this quiet time, I started a simple daily practice: jotting down private victories. Every evening I’d use Notion to record one small win – a bug I fixed, a tough email I sent, a lesson learned.

This wasn’t for anyone else to see; it was an internal scoreboard for myself. Modern psychology backs this up: consistently writing down even the littlest wins can literally rewire your brain, making you more aware, focused, and confident.

Those secret pages filled with progress became my proof of progress, boosting my confidence when the outside world was silent.

Be Your Own Hero (The Hero Premise)

You are already somebody – but you have to choose to believe it in private. I call this the Hero Premise: see yourself as a winner before anyone else does.

When I was a kid in Malaysia, I’d stare at the night sky from my apartment parking lot and tell myself, “One day people will know what I built.” I didn’t just hope it – I was certain of it.

This wasn’t luck or ego, but a mindset. Dreamers wait for permission; doers grant it themselves. Early on, I tested this belief the hard way. I created an online course that flopped – it only sold one copy for $97. Hardly a million-dollar validation.

But that single sale proved something critical: people will pay for real value, and I was capable of delivering it. Instead of giving up, I took it as permission to keep going.

That tiny victory lit a fire in me to double down on creating value. If you see yourself as a hero first – if you celebrate your own small successes – you give yourself permission to pursue bigger ones.

Private Victories Come Before Public Ones

If you only show up when the crowd’s watching, you’ll get nowhere. The biggest wins in my journey happened quietly, before any applause.

I still remember locking in our first B2B contract: no press release, no video cameras, just a whiteboard meeting with a client who said “yes.”

That deal changed my life, but nobody outside our small team heard about it at the time. Those private victories were invisible but they became the bricks of our house.

I also made it a habit to track progress in silence. Every sales call, every failed experiment, every hire (and every time we had to fire someone) went into a private Google Sheet.

Recording these data points wasn’t glamorous, but it kept me grounded and informed. Research shows that tracking your goals and outcomes is one of the simplest, most powerful strategies for success.

In other words, keeping score – even in a “boring” spreadsheet – actually unleashes your internal strengths: you become more focused, creative, and motivated. The next time you hit a wall, open that private tracker. It will remind you how far you’ve come.

Stacking Skills, Not Hunting Shortcuts

Everyone wants a shortcut or a quick win. But the fastest path I found wasn’t a hack – it was skill stacking. I deliberately learned one thing at a time and layered them.

I started with the technical foundation (coding and product), then taught myself sales and customer support, then marketing and storytelling, then fundraising, hiring… and now AI. Each skill built on the last.

This approach is backed by countless entrepreneurs: rather than being a specialist, a startup founder must be a generalist.

As one entrepreneur writes, “The premise of skill stacking is simple: be a generalist instead of a specialist…Skill-stacking can enable you to increase your value while advancing your career”.

In my case, each new skill made me a little rarer and more valuable. First-principles thinking helped: the market pays for value, and skills are how you create value.

Every time I added a skill – mastering that coding framework, learning a sales pitch, hiring my first team – I was in effect adding another pillar to my foundation.

Be patient. Collect skills like Lego bricks. Over time, you’ll have a skill stack so unique that opportunities can’t help but notice you.

Play Long Games with Long-Term People

Business is too often transactional. I learned early to play the long game. When I partnered with an AI team in Taiwan, my focus wasn’t what they could do for me next month; it was building trust over the next ten years.

Think of every relationship like compound interest. I follow a simple rule: write down the five people who make you feel expansive, and invest deeply in those relationships. The rest – the energy vampires and fair-weather friends – you can let go.

This isn’t just my advice; it’s a core truth of success. Investor Naval Ravikant says, “All returns in life come from compound interest in long-term games”.

In other words, the benefits of trust and cooperation grow exponentially over time. I strive to do right by the people I work with because I know we’ll be dealing together in years to come.

Long-term players make each other rich. So pick relationships where people signal they’ll be around for a while – like the co-founder or mentor who doesn’t bail after the first rough quarter – and nurture those bonds.

It pays off in trust, referrals, and opportunities that never come to the short-term thinkers.

The Invisible Season Is Identity Formation

Most people treat this quiet grind as a test to endure. I treat it as the answer key. This is when you become the person who can hold onto success.

When I was invisible, I also built my discipline: waking up at 6am, selling even when I hated it, saying no to every distraction, and showing up every day even when I didn’t feel like it.

That’s how I answered the question, “Who am I?” Looking back, it’s clear: if success had come to me too early, I would have wasted it.

I simply wasn’t ready yet. The trials of that season shaped my character. If you’re grinding in obscurity right now, remember you’re in the laboratory of your identity.

Every time you choose to do the hard thing privately – to send that cold email, to code one more hour, to stay in when you could party – you’re declaring who you are.

These small decisions write your character. When the world finally pays attention, you’ll be the person who was built in silence – capable, disciplined, ready.

Outlasting Beats Outshining

The truth is, you don’t have to be a flash in the pan to win. You just have to outlast everyone else. Most people give up in Year 2 or Year 3.

I didn’t even see real momentum until Year 4. Everyone wants to be the oak tree, but few want to be the stubborn root. Be that root. Keep growing quietly under the surface.

I handled this by thinking in big chunks of time. I set three-year goals and broke them into 90-day sprints. This wasn’t sexy, but it worked.

We grew Sigma School one sprint at a time – no miracle virality, just consistent compounding effort.

It reminds me of the finance principle behind The Compound Effect: success isn’t built in grand gestures, it’s built in small, consistent actions taken every single day.

Every extra cold call, every evening learning a new algorithm, every small improvement – those were deposits in my future.

If you can keep showing up, one step at a time, day after day, you will outlast those looking for shortcuts.

You’re Building Something Bigger Than You

Here’s the part people often miss: this isn’t really about you. It’s about your family, your community, even your future kids.

When I was growing up, my favorite book was The Great Gatsby – not for the wealth, but for Gatsby’s vision.

He saw something the world didn’t, and he refused to let go. I feel that way. I see a future in technology and entrepreneurship that few people recognize yet, and I keep pushing. You do, too.

So if you’re a fresh grad or an early-stage entrepreneur reading this: know that your work matters, even if nobody’s standing by to applaud.

Start planting your roots now. Journal those private wins tonight. Pick one new skill to learn this week. Reach out and strengthen a key relationship.

Write down a 3-year goal and break it into your first sprint. These simple, actionable steps will compound over time.

The world won’t see you yet, and that’s exactly when you’re becoming dangerous. Keep showing up. Every silent effort today is an invisible vote of confidence in your future.

In years to come, you’ll look back and realize that while nobody was watching, you were busy building something incredible. And then, when that spotlight finally finds you, you’ll be ready to shine.