>> But from now on, I'm either gonna be a successful founder, or I'm not. And if I'm not, I'll have to deal with having broken with the expectations that people had of me.
Don't worry, they expected you to fail. They hoped you'd succeed, but expected failure. Statistically most businesses fail, and failure rates are faster when your customers are VCs not users.
I say this as encouragement, not criticism. Accepting that failure is (by far) the most likely outcome is both realistic and freeing. The anxiety of failure is gone.
Frankly, your lack of marketing experience would worry me. Without the ability to reach users (much less customers) how can you do anything but fail? New businesses are not bounded by technical ability (especially in the age of AI) they are bounded by Marketing.
If your target customers are "VC funded companies" then sure, getting in bed with as many VCs as possible is certainly one marketing approach (and probably a good one.)
Certainly you're are a lot of products targeted at businesses who are flush with cash and eager for kit like fancy chairs.
The important part of marketing is knowing who your potential customers are, and the best way for them to get to know you.
If those were events I was involved with, I too would be giving powerful speeches about the importance of disregarding critics. The decision makers only handled the situation well if you assume that the catastrophe of the early part of the century was a bit like weather, sort of coming form nowhere in a way no-one could foresee or really influence.
It is similar to the Bush family, but from an era where the internet wasn't around to let people compare notes. These political dynasties deserve criticism and should listen to it.
B) there's no way for the US to not get involved in WW2 other than pre emptive handover of the Philippines to Japan.
The criticism basically writes itself. These people are very easy to criticise, they were mostly horrible. Just saying, it is easy to see why there are speeches around about how the critics ought be discounted. The track record invites harsh criticism.
What is difficult is being in the position of ultimate responsibility over the lives of many people, making a decision and living with it. Everyone thinks they know what is best or what they would do, I don't think so.
Criticism (IMO) should always have a response on what should have been done instead, given the information at the time. Otherwise it's just playing Monday morning quarterback.
The only reason the US managed to look good coming out of the 1900s is because they were doing a much better job of limiting the government than the Europeans or Asians. Both of whom had significant authoritarian factions that managed to get embedded in the official power structures and refused to see sense for an embarrassing number of decades. Very much critics-don't-count people, the authoritarians. It is amazing looking back at the trials Europe had to go through to see out the monarchies.
"It is not the critic who counts..." was a great speech and there is a kernel of truth there, but it just so happens that there is a reason it is a US president who gave it. The reason the US does so well is it makes it as hard as possible for the president to do anything because the critics are shooting fish in a barrel when they start making legitimate, accurate and important criticisms of US president that certainly do count. It is a dream of the US presidents that the critics would stop reminding everyone that there are better options that said president should be choosing.
It’s much more impressive to say you have done something than to say you’re going to do it.
A friend of mine has all these failed hobbies he tells everyone he’s going to do, then gives up on. I wait a few months before telling people I’m doing something so I’m fairly confident it’s something I will carry on.
IME over years, when you're talking about doing something your actually doing it is thwarted. I've noticed that that both with myself and with others.
Keeping mum and going about it privately, then sharing it when done, seems to have much higher success rates.
I've tried to reason through it in many different ways: talking about it satisfies you and you don't seek satisfaction from the actual implementation of the idea; talking about it "dissipates the energy"; and a number of other attempts at explanation.
But beyond explanations, the anecdata seems to suggest that doing much precede talking about. Even when you're developing something (say, software) in public, first you do then you talk about it in the commit message.
This seems to parallel the old dictum that ideas are easy, while working to realize them is the actually hard part. Who'd have thought.
From my experience, you have to do both otherwise someone else takes what you do, markets as his own and you get scraps. It keeps happening to me, since I don't generally like to talk about what I do. And I think fundamentally it's a big difference between European and American culture.
The entrepreneurial spirit isn't visiting you to talk about things.
Even more impressive to do and not say.
>It's much more comfortable
It can be even more amazing what can be accomplished during a time when comfort is not being sought.
That exact line in the OP's article reminded me of that exact quote from T.R. and it's great to see another mind had exactly the same thought to post it.
Trump is an example of someone who wants to fight, and now all of us who just want to get along are now playing catch-up, trying to figure out how to respond.
The individual American goes along with the strongest voice in their head. There have been a valiant few, this is a time of self satisfying rhetoric. Sweet lies over bitter truths, on all sides.
Now, the seeds of hypocrisy long since sewn, blossom into a mass mind sickness of self identity we see today. On all sides. Every side, even those twelve sides deep you would not recognize.
Power is everyone’s burden, it may only be delegated irresponsibly for so long before it collapses upon itself.
A succinct condemnation of our times.
I know people who have talked that talk, never dared walk it. I am happy with myself that I have walked that walk—many times. Most of the time they have not ended up how I had hoped they would in my imagination. Other times, they did. Regardless, in all cases, I am not left here now wondering what would have happened if…
Getting a game I wrote published in 1989 or so was one that worked out. Hitchhiking from Alaska back to the Lower-48 when the salmon season closed was another.
Quitting Apple to write games for the iPhone was a big fail. When I realized it though I applied and was hired back at Apple. Until that little experiment though I had been watching apps skyrocket to the top-10 while I unable to submit an app of my own (Apple policy, of course).
I had an idea for a great fantasy novel in my head for years. Only when I finally forced myself to start to write it did I realize I really didn't have an idea for a great fantasy novel. I had part of an idea for a great fantasy novel. And then there's the middle of the story you have to write, has to be interesting…
But as I say, in all cases at least I'm not stuck in Walter Mitty's [1] shoes for the rest of my life.
I rarely regret the things I did that didn't work out, it is always the things I could have done but didn't do. Reducing the number of compelling yet unexplored branches in life significantly increases life satisfaction.
Brilliant insight.
Reminds of me this, from Theodore Roosevelt's Citizenship in a Republic:
> It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
Good luck, and go get 'em.