4 ms·

Try and fail faster.

• bugmenot 15y ago
  What he said. I had a (relatively) similar experience, and if I could go back I'd be: 1. More apt to part ways with founders who couldn't execute on their part of the business, 2. More willing to raise money sooner (it's awfully easy to get focused on maintaining a % of ownership despite how laughably worthless it still is at that point -- we self-funded and that meant we didn't have enough to do what we needed to, but we still spent everything we had), and 3. More willing to adjust the business plan to fit the market, whether that means changing your product, business model, minimum feature set, strategy to appeal to investors, amount of capital needed, ownership terms, etc. I'm still convinced the model was completely sound, but we could have done much better (and by that I mean actually turned a profit) by biting off less on the product, and giving up more to secure funding. That said, it was still worth it every penny. Learned far more practical knowledge than one picks up in any MBA program, and the lessons were internalized in a way, and to a degree, that I (personally) couldn't have gotten any other way. Sure, I wish it would have worked out, but I think it did far more for me than spending those years working in some generic job to pad someone else's bottom line would have.