Yep, easy to say failing is cheap on paper. But once you experience it, it feels morally excruciating. Hard to come back from a couple of failures
Re:Once
by marklindhout on Tuesday May 08, 2012 @04:05PM
(#3945550)
True that. Losing money hurts, and will always be connected psychologically to that 'failure'.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com) in his book “The Black Swan” talks about one of his friends, a stock trader, with a very specific strategy. This strategy involves losing lots of small amounts over time, and once every 6 years or so, one enormous win. He explained that his trader friend needed to check his track record continuously to remind him of the actual benefit of this strategy, because even the small losses were eating away at him. Up to a point where he wanted to give up.
Isn't that the whole point of Lean Startup? Lower the cost of trying which means you get more swings of the bat for a given amount of capital.
And for a given amount of time. (Which can be more valuable in dollar terms than the capital needed.)
That being said, I don't buy the "entrepreneurship is very risky" line. I think it's a lot less risky than many other careers that are commonly considered "safe".