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You missed the most important part: Keep your sanity. Trying to get funding is described as "soul sucking" even by Paul Graham and in our experience this is a

You missed the most important part: Keep your sanity. Trying to get funding is described as "soul sucking" even by Paul Graham and in our experience this is a startup killing move. Very few people talk about mental health for entrepreneurs and for us the most challenging times was talking to investors. If a constant stream of people told you, your business was not worth spending time or money, after how many rejections will you start doubting your company and even yourself? Investors asking for a stream of documents, asking us to drive down for partner meetings, arriving late at meetings, un-responsive to emails: They all take a toll on the startup and more importantly on entrepreneurs. Getting funded is a rat race. You get the money and then clock starts ticking for sales, series A,B,C , 10x the returns etc. The startup newsletter are full of wins, and VC fundings and "we are killing it bro" mentality but how often do we stop to talk about those that failed?

InternetUser 9y ago
Exactly; you are referring to survivorship bias - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
- jasonkester 9y ago
  They need another catchy phrase to reply to this, along the lines of "if you never try, there's nothing to survive". Survivorship Bias is at the top of the list of "reasons not to try", and it's a shame to see it dragged out every time you see a success story. The thing I live on today was Job Quittin' Sideproject #5. The first four died without ever letting me quit any jobs. Is #5 "survivorship"? Or is it "persistance"? Let's say the chance of getting a business working, even for a smart guy, is only 10%. Does that mean you shouldn't try? Or does that mean it will take on average half a dozen attempts to make it work? I like to think it's the latter. Here's a bit that I wrote about all this a week or so ago: http://www.expatsoftware.com/Articles/what-if-your-bootstrapped-product-dies.html http://www.expatsoftware.com/Articles/what-if-your-bootstrap...
  - amorphid 9y ago
    > They need another catchy phrase to reply to this, along the lines of "if you never try, there's nothing to survive". I like "you gotta be in it to win it".
  - smt88 9y ago
    > Let's say the chance of getting a business working, even for a smart guy, is only 10%. It's much, much lower, according to any reasonable estimation. For all startups, I've seen "less than 1%" on many occasions. That obviously excludes tons of failures that are never reported anywhere -- sometimes that are never even incorporated, despite trying to build/sell a product. > Does that mean you shouldn't try? For the vast majority of people, yes! "Try" has costs -- time, money, life, and relationships. To really try will often cost tens of thousands of dollars. Most people can't afford to gamble so much with such a tiny chance of success.
    - jasonkester 9y ago
      "less than 1%" Are you thinking VC-backed startups, or maybe lumping them in to your calculation? Remember, we're talking bootstrapped businesses designed for profitability. I think you'd be hard pressed to make ten real efforts in a row, learning lessons as you go, without getting one of them to stick. For VC's, where "profitable and growing linearly" equates to failure, then sure, the odds are worse. But that's just another reason not to go that route. tens of thousands of dollars For what it's worth, the 4 big multi-year failures I reference above cost maybe a few thousand dollars total over the span of 10 years, and happened primarily in spare nights & weekends during the course of an otherwise active and non-ruined life. Most people who met me never knew it was happening at all, and no friday beers were missed as a result of the aforementioned bootstrapping.
    - marz0 9y ago
      I suppose it depends on how you differentiate between startups and small businesses, but the failure rate might not be as bad you would think depending on how you expect to run your business. Only 50% of small businesses will have failed after 5 years[0], which is a significantly lower rate of failure than you typically hear for startups. If you decide to start a lifestyle business as opposed to a high-growth startup you may be more successful in terms of wealth and health. [0] https://www.fundera.com/blog/what-percentage-of-small-businesses-fail https://www.fundera.com/blog/what-percentage-of-small-busine...
dudul 9y ago
This is a post about self funded startups. One bullet point explicitly calls out not getting involved with investors.
- ak39 9y ago
  Even still, the point about sanity after being rejected "all over the show" is very much relevant. I couldn't agree more that keeping your head in the game when nay sayers and sometimes downright jealous or mischievous characters get you doubting yourself. It is soul crushing. The psychology of living in startup purgatory is where it's at.
jasode 9y ago
> but how often do we stop to talk about those that failed? The failures of VC-funded startups (e.g. recently Juicero, Rethinkdb, etc on HN) are discussed more often than the failures of self-funded startups. Also, as far as I can tell, a significant number (most?) of the startups listed at autopsy.io[1] are VC-funded. In contrast, the self-funded startups that fail usually die a quiet death without discussion because they were never big enough to be mentioned in Techcrunch/Wired/Engadget/etc. [1] http://autopsy.io/ http://autopsy.io/
- Xeoncross 9y ago
  > die a quiet death without discussion Perhaps the reason they died
harel 9y ago
I guess if we started talking about those who failed we'll never stop... For every one that makes it there are scores who didn't.
segmondy 9y ago
Are you speaking from experience or just repeating what you have read from other sources?
hw 9y ago
The funding race is soul sucking, but there are many people who like to play the startup+funding churn game. Lots of $ involved, and some people like the nature of it Not seeking funding can also be soul sucking especially when it comes to hiring and you don't have enough resources to hire. Of course, if you're self funding, the ideal scenario would be to build something that doesn't require a lot of human resources and maintenance and cost, and run it as a lifestyle instead of an actual job.
contingencies 9y ago
My tip would be that if you squint and view your own time as unsalaried (to a defined point within bizdev, eg. raising external financing) and your initial capital as equivalent expense versus another option (eg. doing an MBA) then you can psychologically hack yourself to justify a larger commitment than you would otherwise. This also works for skipping college, but with time as the key resource. In the end, so much is subjective!

InternetUser 9y ago

Exactly; you are referring to survivorship bias - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

jasonkester 9y ago
They need another catchy phrase to reply to this, along the lines of "if you never try, there's nothing to survive". Survivorship Bias is at the top of the list of "reasons not to try", and it's a shame to see it dragged out every time you see a success story. The thing I live on today was Job Quittin' Sideproject #5. The first four died without ever letting me quit any jobs. Is #5 "survivorship"? Or is it "persistance"? Let's say the chance of getting a business working, even for a smart guy, is only 10%. Does that mean you shouldn't try? Or does that mean it will take on average half a dozen attempts to make it work? I like to think it's the latter. Here's a bit that I wrote about all this a week or so ago: http://www.expatsoftware.com/Articles/what-if-your-bootstrapped-product-dies.html http://www.expatsoftware.com/Articles/what-if-your-bootstrap...
- amorphid 9y ago
  > They need another catchy phrase to reply to this, along the lines of "if you never try, there's nothing to survive". I like "you gotta be in it to win it".
- smt88 9y ago
  > Let's say the chance of getting a business working, even for a smart guy, is only 10%. It's much, much lower, according to any reasonable estimation. For all startups, I've seen "less than 1%" on many occasions. That obviously excludes tons of failures that are never reported anywhere -- sometimes that are never even incorporated, despite trying to build/sell a product. > Does that mean you shouldn't try? For the vast majority of people, yes! "Try" has costs -- time, money, life, and relationships. To really try will often cost tens of thousands of dollars. Most people can't afford to gamble so much with such a tiny chance of success.
  - jasonkester 9y ago
    "less than 1%" Are you thinking VC-backed startups, or maybe lumping them in to your calculation? Remember, we're talking bootstrapped businesses designed for profitability. I think you'd be hard pressed to make ten real efforts in a row, learning lessons as you go, without getting one of them to stick. For VC's, where "profitable and growing linearly" equates to failure, then sure, the odds are worse. But that's just another reason not to go that route. tens of thousands of dollars For what it's worth, the 4 big multi-year failures I reference above cost maybe a few thousand dollars total over the span of 10 years, and happened primarily in spare nights & weekends during the course of an otherwise active and non-ruined life. Most people who met me never knew it was happening at all, and no friday beers were missed as a result of the aforementioned bootstrapping.
  - marz0 9y ago
    I suppose it depends on how you differentiate between startups and small businesses, but the failure rate might not be as bad you would think depending on how you expect to run your business. Only 50% of small businesses will have failed after 5 years[0], which is a significantly lower rate of failure than you typically hear for startups. If you decide to start a lifestyle business as opposed to a high-growth startup you may be more successful in terms of wealth and health. [0] https://www.fundera.com/blog/what-percentage-of-small-businesses-fail https://www.fundera.com/blog/what-percentage-of-small-busine...

dudul 9y ago

This is a post about self funded startups. One bullet point explicitly calls out not getting involved with investors.

ak39 9y ago
Even still, the point about sanity after being rejected "all over the show" is very much relevant. I couldn't agree more that keeping your head in the game when nay sayers and sometimes downright jealous or mischievous characters get you doubting yourself. It is soul crushing. The psychology of living in startup purgatory is where it's at.

jasode 9y ago

> but how often do we stop to talk about those that failed? The failures of VC-funded startups (e.g. recently Juicero, Rethinkdb, etc on HN) are discussed more often than the failures of self-funded startups. Also, as far as I can tell, a significant number (most?) of the startups listed at autopsy.io[1] are VC-funded. In contrast, the self-funded startups that fail usually die a quiet death without discussion because they were never big enough to be mentioned in Techcrunch/Wired/Engadget/etc. [1] http://autopsy.io/ http://autopsy.io/

Xeoncross 9y ago
> die a quiet death without discussion Perhaps the reason they died

harel 9y ago

I guess if we started talking about those who failed we'll never stop... For every one that makes it there are scores who didn't.

segmondy 9y ago

Are you speaking from experience or just repeating what you have read from other sources?

hw 9y ago

The funding race is soul sucking, but there are many people who like to play the startup+funding churn game. Lots of $ involved, and some people like the nature of it Not seeking funding can also be soul sucking especially when it comes to hiring and you don't have enough resources to hire. Of course, if you're self funding, the ideal scenario would be to build something that doesn't require a lot of human resources and maintenance and cost, and run it as a lifestyle instead of an actual job.

contingencies 9y ago

My tip would be that if you squint and view your own time as unsalaried (to a defined point within bizdev, eg. raising external financing) and your initial capital as equivalent expense versus another option (eg. doing an MBA) then you can psychologically hack yourself to justify a larger commitment than you would otherwise. This also works for skipping college, but with time as the key resource. In the end, so much is subjective!