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Lessons Learned from Shutting Down My Second Startup

3 points by bgraves 16y ago

vessenes 16y ago
I like this article, and agree with his core thesis and general values. Good experience, summarized, so go read it! It reminds me of something I've spent a good amount of time pondering in the last few years: survivor bias in the tech news reporting world and the duality of things an entrepreneur most hold in his/her head and heart. On the one hand: as entrepreneurs we must believe the impossible; a premium is placed on bringing a new idea or a gamechanging technology into the mix. In general, this idea must have horrible flaws, extreme difficulties, and significant unproven assumptions, or someone else would likely have done it. So, on the one hand, we must be largely blind to downside risk while working on something that we have essentially 'sold' ourselves on. On the other hand, we are typically using other people's money to go do this impossible thing. And, equally importantly, we are spending our own valuable time -- time that could be spent with our family, essentially, as PG commented in an essay, we are adding significant misery to our lives. Survivor bias means we don't hear about all the unfunded, unsuccessful startups in the news. I know this -- there are a lot. I think this is likely the most difficult thing a startup entrepreneur faces; the requirement to both blind oneself to downside risk so that the journey can be fundraised for and begun and also the ability to unblind oneself when key decisions are made, decisions that impact other people's lives -- employees, spouses, investors. Add to that the fundamentally speculative nature of the business, and I would call it a tough job! One that pays, on average, really well. Or, on average (minus every company you read about in TechCrunch) extremely poorly. I am therefore currently spending more time trying to encourage people starting businesses to erase their downside risk first; figure out how to make it work and get it financially sustainable as early as possible. That's one way to try and get a leg up on the (probably) really tough statistics.
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3 points by bgraves 16y ago

I like this article, and agree with his core thesis and general values. Good experience, summarized, so go read it! It reminds me of something I've spent a good amount of time pondering in the last few years: survivor bias in the tech news reporting world and the duality of things an entrepreneur most hold in his/her head and heart. On the one hand: as entrepreneurs we must believe the impossible; a premium is placed on bringing a new idea or a gamechanging technology into the mix. In general, this idea must have horrible flaws, extreme difficulties, and significant unproven assumptions, or someone else would likely have done it. So, on the one hand, we must be largely blind to downside risk while working on something that we have essentially 'sold' ourselves on. On the other hand, we are typically using other people's money to go do this impossible thing. And, equally importantly, we are spending our own valuable time -- time that could be spent with our family, essentially, as PG commented in an essay, we are adding significant misery to our lives. Survivor bias means we don't hear about all the unfunded, unsuccessful startups in the news. I know this -- there are a lot. I think this is likely the most difficult thing a startup entrepreneur faces; the requirement to both blind oneself to downside risk so that the journey can be fundraised for and begun and also the ability to unblind oneself when key decisions are made, decisions that impact other people's lives -- employees, spouses, investors. Add to that the fundamentally speculative nature of the business, and I would call it a tough job! One that pays, on average, really well. Or, on average (minus every company you read about in TechCrunch) extremely poorly. I am therefore currently spending more time trying to encourage people starting businesses to erase their downside risk first; figure out how to make it work and get it financially sustainable as early as possible. That's one way to try and get a leg up on the (probably) really tough statistics.

deleted 16y ago
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