Re:What it's like to bootstrap a business before it can fina...
by robomartin on Wednesday December 25, 2019 @03:26PM
(#21880261)
These are important questions with very difficult answers. I think one of the fallacies in business is to actually think you are in control. You can plan and have the best intentions, but reality is the business tells you what you are going to do each and every morning and it has absolutely no sympathy for the fact that we are a human beings with very real limitations.
I equate it to sailing in stormy weather, something I've done a bunch of times. It is important to know the general direction you need to go and establish a few goals, yet is it foolish to think you are actually in control. The ocean tells you what to do from wave to wave and you work hard to do as it desires while constantly pushing towards your desired outcome. It's an art, a science and, yes, a bit of luck never hurts.
That's the challenge of entrepreneurship. You can either let the ocean, the business, sink you by taking you off-course and causing you to make bad decisions and face dangerous circumstances or you can navigate what it puts in front of you every day as best as you might be able while also pushing hard to generally point in the direction you want to go.
Sure, there are cases where people get on that boat and the thing just pushes forward with favorable winds and it's go-go-go (Facebook comes to mind). Yet that's not what a typical business looks like. Most businesses are like the aforementioned storm. Which is to say: Hard work, uncertainty, fear, joy, trepidation, doubt, bad decisions, good decisions, bad luck, good luck and, maybe, if things align, a good outcome on the other side of the storm.
This is why I think --conjecture on my part-- groups like YC have found that multi-founder teams consisting of young people without prior business experience do better than single founders with the same life experience.
Anyone can operate when the weather is great and winds blow in the desired direction. Yet that's not reality. You are going to tear a sail or break a mast here and there. In these situations the right team can be much better than a solo founder, even if they lack life and business experience.
My best advice is to not use the past as a source of regret but rather as a source of wisdom. Failures hurt (I've had a few, I've been bankrupt, penny-less) but they are also absolutely invaluable if one is able to remove emotion and learn from them.
At the moment I am in the process of starting yet another company, this time in the vertical farming space. I can say, without a shadow of a doubt, that my failures in life and business have helped me and will help me along this new journey far more than the success I have enjoyed.
Don't dwell in the past, use it to make you a better entrepreneur in your next adventure. Make something that solves a real problem and give it all you got. If you are willing to navigate the storm the market will reward you for it.
I equate it to sailing in stormy weather, something I've done a bunch of times. It is important to know the general direction you need to go and establish a few goals, yet is it foolish to think you are actually in control. The ocean tells you what to do from wave to wave and you work hard to do as it desires while constantly pushing towards your desired outcome. It's an art, a science and, yes, a bit of luck never hurts.
That's the challenge of entrepreneurship. You can either let the ocean, the business, sink you by taking you off-course and causing you to make bad decisions and face dangerous circumstances or you can navigate what it puts in front of you every day as best as you might be able while also pushing hard to generally point in the direction you want to go.
Sure, there are cases where people get on that boat and the thing just pushes forward with favorable winds and it's go-go-go (Facebook comes to mind). Yet that's not what a typical business looks like. Most businesses are like the aforementioned storm. Which is to say: Hard work, uncertainty, fear, joy, trepidation, doubt, bad decisions, good decisions, bad luck, good luck and, maybe, if things align, a good outcome on the other side of the storm.
This is why I think --conjecture on my part-- groups like YC have found that multi-founder teams consisting of young people without prior business experience do better than single founders with the same life experience.
Anyone can operate when the weather is great and winds blow in the desired direction. Yet that's not reality. You are going to tear a sail or break a mast here and there. In these situations the right team can be much better than a solo founder, even if they lack life and business experience.
My best advice is to not use the past as a source of regret but rather as a source of wisdom. Failures hurt (I've had a few, I've been bankrupt, penny-less) but they are also absolutely invaluable if one is able to remove emotion and learn from them.
At the moment I am in the process of starting yet another company, this time in the vertical farming space. I can say, without a shadow of a doubt, that my failures in life and business have helped me and will help me along this new journey far more than the success I have enjoyed.
Don't dwell in the past, use it to make you a better entrepreneur in your next adventure. Make something that solves a real problem and give it all you got. If you are willing to navigate the storm the market will reward you for it.