Oliver Stafurik
July 29, 2024 ⢠Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes
Happy Monday everyone!
Like this video illustrates, sometimes highlighting the negatives helps you understand the full picture more clearly. By exaggerating the downsides, you can better appreciate the positives.
This being saidâââfounding a startup isnât for everyone; itâs crucial to recognise this before diving headfirst into your first venture.
Marc Andreessen understands this well and he wrote a guide in 2007 why not to start one. Itâs almost 20 years later and the advice is still relevant.
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đ Oliverâs Picks
My favourite finds of the week.
Startups
Stevenâs Behind the Diary on his investment to Perfect Ted (Link)
AI Is a Services Revolution (Link)
Why the democrats lost tech (Link)
Business storytellingâââusing stories to inspire (Link)
A branding exercise (Link)
Create your own world-class newsletter (Link)
Mindset
Grit: the power of passion and perseverance (Link)
Tutorial on how to quickly ruin the rest of your life (Link)
How burnout happens (Link)
My deep work Spotify playlist (Link)
Now, it is true that there are a lot of great things about doing a startup:
Being in control of your own destiny (you get to succeed or fail on your own merits)
Opportunity to create something new
Leaving a world in a better state than you found it in
Creating a dream team along with the ideal company culture
Freedom and agency (through money)
However, being founder is not for everyone. Itâs not cut for everybody. Some people just donât thrive in ambiguity or uncertain environments where you need to fight for your life every. single. day.
Hereâs the main reasons why you might not want to do a startup:
Emotional rollercoaster unlike anything you have ever experienced
Your days fluctuate from thinking you are the next Elon Musk owning the world, to days being a complete mess not being able to achieve anything, struggling to pay rent and thinking you failed everyone.
This switch flips constantly. Over and over and over again.
This is the first real test for founders. Will you overcome these and become mentally resilient (arguably the most valued trait a founder can possess), or will it break you and you just find out 9â5 sounds better for your scenario.
Nothing happens unless you make it happen
The cart does not move until you donât push it. No sales are being done until you call someone. The product wonât get build until you start building. You are the only force that moves your future. The only responsible person for what happens to you and your startupâââis you.
If you happen to be the glass half-full guy, you understand how this works. This is not purely negative, itâs up to your interpretation. If you work your ass off, itâs more likely that you succeed here than anywhere else. However, if you donâtââââŚ
You hear ânoâ more often than any other mortal on the planet
Having a startup is the rejection therapy at its best. Itâs ânoâ all around the board. Funding, hiring, partnerships, co-founding, salesâââa big no.
You need to try to move swiftly through the rejection, learning from each one and re-evaluating your past approaches. If you learn from the mistakesâââthey are for the greater good. If you donât learn from themâââyou are just an idiot.
Hiring sucks
Thereâs a separate term for people that you come acrossâââwindow shoppers. Many potential employees think they want what you offer, yet at the last second they decide their work at big tech is the safer, better option for them (they are not wrong). The more someone would accelerate your startupâs growth, the harder it is to convince them to join your cause.
After hiring employees, you might realise theyâre not the best fit for your companyâââor that your company isnât the best fit for them. Achieving a 50% success rate in hiring is an ideal many strive for, but only the top hiring managers achieve.
What happens to the people that donât work? Well, you either live with them or fire them. Surely helps the job not being an emotional rollercoaster. Fun, eh?
The hours
You might have quit your 9â5 for your next âbigâ business, because you heard Andrew Tate yapping about how free he really is. If you donât want to do hard workâââgo back to your corporate job with a decent salary, low impact and 0 braincells necessary for the tasks delegated to you.
80+ hour weeks in the beginning of your startup are close to mandatory. 100+ hour weeks happen often. Your social life dies, work-life balance crumbles under your fingers, vitamin D levels slowly decrease to 0.
Soon enough, you find yourself watching Youtube videos on proper time management. But guess what, it wonât save you. Sorry Ali.
Itâs really easy for the culture of your startup to go sideways
Usually, this is the major cause the aforementioned emotional rollercoaster wreaking havoc on not just you but your whole company. Startups get sidetracked all the time for all the unexpected reasons.
However, in the end, you are the only one responsible for your startupâs success or failure, even when everything is out of your reach.
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If you are still convinced the startup path is the correct one for youâââcongratulations, you just passed most of your competition. Now itâs just you and the other 50 million startups emerging each year. First step done, now get back to building.
Oliver.