4 ms·

I speak partly from family experience, unless your partner really understands the subtleties of risk, it's a hard convince that person that you are not gambling

I speak partly from family experience, unless your partner really understands the subtleties of risk, it's a hard convince that person that you are not gambling or just lazy. Gambling because that's unfortuantely a similar enough activity in more ways than we'd like to admit: jacking everything in for the hope of getting a successful startup, and doing it time and again, is like going to the casino to the outsider. The real difference which most people fail to see is that gambling is not skills based. It's luck based, ie everything you learn in entrepreneurship is valid next time round. In gambling the odds never change no matter how many times you play. Lazy, or as it was once said to me - "you ought to go and get a proper job" is still a very strong viewpoint for outsiders. A partner leaving you and giving failure as an excuse is not and never was a partner.

hoodoof 15y ago
It understandable though that years of financial pressure can take a toll on a partner. Even worse, consider the case where your personal finances would have been great if the money had not all gone in to the business - hard for a partner not to feel resentful about not having a house, but instead having 100,000 lines of code that no one wants.
- chris_dcosta 15y ago
  I fully understand this, as it is hapenning to me. I tried looking at it from the partner's perspective: At the outset when optimism was high, the mind can work in wonderful ways to spend all that cash. But it can take a very long time to realise. Maybe not even in this project. I always end up questioning the motivation of the partner. Cash, a house, holidays, clothes... this is all very well, except it ignores the elemnt of risk that lies at the heart of any venture. That risk at the end of the day has to be shared by a partner. It is what it is love me, love my dog. If the partner was not prepared to share the risk ( and not have all those fancy things when it didn't happen at this point in time) then this is tantamount to misleading me (you) over a time. I don't know if you can agree with this, of course being in the centre it's hard often to rationalise.

hoodoof 15y ago

It understandable though that years of financial pressure can take a toll on a partner. Even worse, consider the case where your personal finances would have been great if the money had not all gone in to the business - hard for a partner not to feel resentful about not having a house, but instead having 100,000 lines of code that no one wants.

chris_dcosta 15y ago
I fully understand this, as it is hapenning to me. I tried looking at it from the partner's perspective: At the outset when optimism was high, the mind can work in wonderful ways to spend all that cash. But it can take a very long time to realise. Maybe not even in this project. I always end up questioning the motivation of the partner. Cash, a house, holidays, clothes... this is all very well, except it ignores the elemnt of risk that lies at the heart of any venture. That risk at the end of the day has to be shared by a partner. It is what it is love me, love my dog. If the partner was not prepared to share the risk ( and not have all those fancy things when it didn't happen at this point in time) then this is tantamount to misleading me (you) over a time. I don't know if you can agree with this, of course being in the centre it's hard often to rationalise.