6 ms·

Entrepreneurship is hard but you can’t die

120 points by cwan 14y ago

rglover 14y ago
Really enjoyed this. I'm coming up on the one year mark for my design business and I've been stressed out about time, money, and everything in between. I've always told myself that nothing truly horrible can happen, but I relapse from time to time. This, however, is an excellent way to ground yourself. Even though I've (fortunately) never had to be in the environment described here, this anecdote makes you appreciate what you have and where you are.
- harscoat 14y ago
  Talking of Steve Blank, "get out of the office" anecdote. After studying philosophy & ancient greek, I wanted to know what real life was so I joined the Paris firefighter Brigade for a 5 years contract. One evening later on, working on my 1st startup, things were tough, a Friday night after dinner with my cofounders I wanted to go back to work. When putting the key in our office door, I looked at my hands and suddenly realized I had them both… and then that I had both of my arms, my legs and my brains were in my skull, (it's not necessarily that way, like I did see brains out of a skull (that's not what shocked me btw, but that strange little pinky cube 10 meters away on that street as we were going back to the truck). That was enough for me that night. Was I an entrepreneur suffering, struggling, risking my relationship and all my savings? (with that startup I eventually lost it all). No I was the lucky one. I did not open that door, turned around and went for a walk instead. I was alive. Hey! I still am :) // In memory of four of my firestation colleagues, two, motorbike accidents (after 72 hours duty), one (a chief): heart attack 9 month after retirement, one dead in operation, rescuing the corpse of a missing speleodiver. http://www.plongeesout.com/portraits/portrait/maignan%20nicolas%20cv.htm http://www.plongeesout.com/portraits/portrait/maignan%20nico... he was 27 and the coolest, nicest guy you can think of.//
pyre 14y ago
I'm sure that you can die if you push yourself too hard and don't take care of your body. It's probably not as risky as flying into a war zone, but it's a risk nonetheless.
- mindcrime 14y ago
  Yeah, but that's not exactly the same thing. We're all going to die from our bodies breaking down, old age, wear and tear, whatever, someday (car crashes, etc., aside, and assuming some of Ray Kurzweil's more fanciful ideas don't come to fruition soon). But something that stands to "kill you right now" is a bit of a different beast to most of us. And in that regard, Steve is exactly right... put the startup in context: No matter how stressful it is, or what's going on, it's till not life and death in the sense of how most people use that term. My own version of this comes from having been a volunteer firefighter for about a decade.. a period during which I had at least 3 experiences where I came very close to being seriously injured or killed (and was lucky enough to escape all 3 unscathed). I was also a 911 dispatcher during part of that same period, so I spent a lot of time up close and personal with literal "life and death" situations. When you've been there, it changes the way you look at the day in, day out stuff that goes on in business. Yeah, it's important... but it's never that important.
- Jun8 14y ago
  Absolutely true, here's a story from 2008: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25607064 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25607064
- hopeless 14y ago
  That's what I was going to say: it's not a mortal danger but we should not ignore the fact that plenty of people have committed suicide after the battling depression brought on by a failed/failing business.
- mehulkar 14y ago
  The difference is that in one you're pulling the metaphorical trigger on yourself and in the other someone else is.
  - stickfigure 14y ago
    Some forms of death may be more romantic than others, but you're still dead.
- 14y ago
amastilovic 14y ago
So, somebody was flying a war plane in Vietnam so that you could sleep safe and sound in California?
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- doktrin 14y ago
  I think that's a little dismissive. What I read in the post was not so much a justification for the war effort as putting trials and tribulations in relative perspective. War could just as easily have been replaced by any other situation that is literally life threatening.
- nandemo 14y ago
  Not sure why this is downvoted. The article starts with this quote: We Sleep Peaceably In Our Beds At Night Only Because Rough Men Stand Ready To Do Violence On Our Behalf so it's really odd to find that a Vietnam War story follows. Of course this is orthogonal to the main point of the article (cf. the title), but it's still odd.
  - lolcraft 14y ago
    I would downvote it, not only for the historical egocentrism of claiming that somehow those fighting the Vietnam War were protecting united-statesian lives (as if the conflict ever was anything other than wrestling for political influence), but because it's inflammatory. What does the GP propose, that every single person of every country should go and fight a stupid war on another country? Or else what, be shameful of not being on the glorious warrior caste?
    - abolibibelot 14y ago
      There are several memes in the United States psyche that are quite puzzling for the rest of us (non USans), military fetichism being one of the weirdest. That said, turning the experience of making sure bombers can safely carpet bomb Vietnam into a coming-of-age story yielding uplifting thoughts about entrepreneurship steps into bizarre territory. Like an Ayn Randesque version of Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow.
juanre 14y ago
Tangential: a great source of perspective, humility and historical insight is E. B. Sledge's first hand account of the WWII battles at Okinawa and Peleliu. With The Old Breed, http://www.amazon.com/With-Old-Breed-Peleliu-Okinawa/dp/0891419063 http://www.amazon.com/With-Old-Breed-Peleliu-Okinawa/dp/0891...
j_s 14y ago
Is this in response to this comment (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4471765 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4471765): A start-up changes a person in the same way a war does - trauma, triumph, battle, and blood. on the 'I did the scariest thing I can imagine: I resigned' thread? (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4471391 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4471391)
- mehulkar 14y ago
  Or just really great timing.
- Androsynth 14y ago
  I figured it was to the parent of the comment you linked to: you will be the wrecked shell of the person you once were
jedc 14y ago
I served in the US Navy for six years, spending three of those as a submarine officer. Even though I've never seen a shot fired, I've been in some hairy situations. Steve's message is the same thing that I took from my experiences, and why my (non-Navy) colleagues always cite me as being "calm in the center of a storm". No matter how crazy or insane things get at work, I know there's no chance that if I screw up that 100+ people would die. It absolutely puts perspective on problems. :)
- mej10 14y ago
  Now the question is: how do you get this trait without being put in such dire situations?
  - snowwrestler 14y ago
    In my experience adventure sports like mountaineering can provide a similar sense of perspective. Even if things are going well, it's clear that decisions can have real physical consequences. Training programs like the National Outdoor Leadership School can be a good jump start into the leadership aspects of those sports.
  - colomon 14y ago
    Not on the same scale, but I've found having screwed up badly in the past helps me keep my calm in the present. My favorite example: about twenty years ago I accidentally played a note during a grand pause (the entire orchestra silent) in the first movement of Beethoven's Fifth. In concert, at Hill Auditorium. That's one of the worst musical mistakes possible, in the one piece of classical music almost everyone knows, in what is almost certainly the nicest concert hall I will ever get to play in. Ever since then when getting ready for a concert where I'm not the soloist, I can just tell myself "What can I possibly do wrong that would be worse than that?" and the tension goes away.
    - EzGraphs 14y ago
      Music performance is an interesting analogy. It is simply impossible to learn music without making mistakes. One of the things that separates amateurs from pros is the ability to recover from a mistake, failure or disruption. Regardless of how great things sound in a practice room, the goal is the performance. Its funny, failure in front of an audience is rarely fatal, but a huge fear for many.
BrainScraps 14y ago
This is a nice compliment for Brad Feld's recent post about the need for Boulder, CO to welcome Veteran entrepreneurs. http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2012/08/a-class-of-entrepreneurs-that-we-need.html http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2012/08/a-class-of-entrepren...
coltr 14y ago
Excellent post. From another point of view: we're all going to die eventually, nothing is scarier than that (excluding torture, but you get the idea). Compared to death, what is there to be afraid of in life?
saurik 14y ago
I'm not certain which I would feel worse about: making a mistake that kills me (as in, dead), or making a mistake that causes someone else economic ruin (unable to send children to a good education, for example). It is that latter situation that keeps me awake at nights being an entrepreneur: that other people are relying on me... that in some way, I am responsible for them and their families... I often ask "am I worthy of this?".
- te_platt 14y ago
  If it helps, I would much rather you made a mistake that hurt me financially than while working on my behalf you made a mistake that got you killed.
- run4yourlives 14y ago
  As a veteran, I think I can safely speak for a majority of my compatriots when I suggest that most soldiers/airmen/sailors aren't afraid of making mistakes that get them killed, they are afraid of making mistakes that get others killed. It's similar to your current fears, but still on a larger scale.
- munin 14y ago
  hey don't worry, in the USA, causing someone else economic ruin can also kill them, by depriving them / their family of health insurance! hooray!
  - philwelch 14y ago
    Please don't post snarky political pot-shots like this.
larrys 14y ago
"Entrepreneurship is hard but you can’t die." I liked this post by Steve. However one thing to keep in mind is that people can suffer greatly in their mind as a result of their wrong actions, failures and the consequences of their mistakes. For many many years. While the current culture in SV (and on HN) celebrates success but also attaboy's some of the failures there is an entire other world out there (spouses, children, parents) that create pressure on stress on and individual that fails and only really care about success.
callmeed 14y ago
I have a client (we build websites for photographers) who went from being a war photographer serving around the world (including Africa and the former Yugoslavia) to being a wedding photographer. I told him how I didn't like photographing weddings because it was too stressful and tiring. He laughed and said "no one is going to shoot you, though"
microtherion 14y ago
I'm all in favor of perspective, and against the misuse of military metaphors, but as a matter of fact, people CAN and DO die of entrepreneurship, as in this case, where I think it was widely suspected that entrepreneurship was a major contributing cause: http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/14/technology/diaspora_cofounder_died/index.htm http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/14/technology/diaspora_cofounde...
- moocow01 14y ago
  Im not going to comment or speculate on that individual situation but suicide is usually caused by a pattern of unhealthy cognition that can be changed. If an entreprenuer is considering suicide I would strongly advise them to tackle their depression and anxiety directly through professional therapy rather than dropping entreprenuership with the assumption it will cure their depression. In other words entreprenuership is not the direct cause of depression although it may somewhat exacerbate a person's depression who is more susceptible to it (just like any other lifestyle situation could).
michaelochurch 14y ago
This is going to sound dramatic, but there are different dangers to the career game. War is obviously a lot scarier (and I literally have no idea how scary) but the kinds of fear are different. When you're 18 and single, death doesn't scare you much because you don't have a spouse and kids. No one's being let down in that way. It will be rough for your parents, but teenagers usually aren't thinking about that, because we're programmed (either by genetics or culture; not sure which) to be a bit selfish at that age. The effects of the career game (not just one business) are, on the other hand, deeply generational once you have kids and the die is cast. If you fuck it up, your kids won't have the connections and resources they need to thrive and they end up as mid-grade meat for society to munch on. This means they will have worse careers, and the effect propagate. The poor know what the stakes are, and the rich are terrified of being the one to drop the ball. Dying at 18 when single means you don't have any kids. That's a lot less scarier to me than having kids and a mediocre career and having it affect them. That said, what would keep me from a war is not the fear of death, but the fear of injury, especially the psychiatric kind.

120 points by cwan 14y ago

Really enjoyed this. I'm coming up on the one year mark for my design business and I've been stressed out about time, money, and everything in between. I've always told myself that nothing truly horrible can happen, but I relapse from time to time. This, however, is an excellent way to ground yourself. Even though I've (fortunately) never had to be in the environment described here, this anecdote makes you appreciate what you have and where you are.

harscoat 14y ago
Talking of Steve Blank, "get out of the office" anecdote. After studying philosophy & ancient greek, I wanted to know what real life was so I joined the Paris firefighter Brigade for a 5 years contract. One evening later on, working on my 1st startup, things were tough, a Friday night after dinner with my cofounders I wanted to go back to work. When putting the key in our office door, I looked at my hands and suddenly realized I had them both… and then that I had both of my arms, my legs and my brains were in my skull, (it's not necessarily that way, like I did see brains out of a skull (that's not what shocked me btw, but that strange little pinky cube 10 meters away on that street as we were going back to the truck). That was enough for me that night. Was I an entrepreneur suffering, struggling, risking my relationship and all my savings? (with that startup I eventually lost it all). No I was the lucky one. I did not open that door, turned around and went for a walk instead. I was alive. Hey! I still am :) // In memory of four of my firestation colleagues, two, motorbike accidents (after 72 hours duty), one (a chief): heart attack 9 month after retirement, one dead in operation, rescuing the corpse of a missing speleodiver. http://www.plongeesout.com/portraits/portrait/maignan%20nicolas%20cv.htm http://www.plongeesout.com/portraits/portrait/maignan%20nico... he was 27 and the coolest, nicest guy you can think of.//

pyre 14y ago

I'm sure that you can die if you push yourself too hard and don't take care of your body. It's probably not as risky as flying into a war zone, but it's a risk nonetheless.

mindcrime 14y ago
Yeah, but that's not exactly the same thing. We're all going to die from our bodies breaking down, old age, wear and tear, whatever, someday (car crashes, etc., aside, and assuming some of Ray Kurzweil's more fanciful ideas don't come to fruition soon). But something that stands to "kill you right now" is a bit of a different beast to most of us. And in that regard, Steve is exactly right... put the startup in context: No matter how stressful it is, or what's going on, it's till not life and death in the sense of how most people use that term. My own version of this comes from having been a volunteer firefighter for about a decade.. a period during which I had at least 3 experiences where I came very close to being seriously injured or killed (and was lucky enough to escape all 3 unscathed). I was also a 911 dispatcher during part of that same period, so I spent a lot of time up close and personal with literal "life and death" situations. When you've been there, it changes the way you look at the day in, day out stuff that goes on in business. Yeah, it's important... but it's never that important.
Jun8 14y ago
Absolutely true, here's a story from 2008: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25607064 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25607064
hopeless 14y ago
That's what I was going to say: it's not a mortal danger but we should not ignore the fact that plenty of people have committed suicide after the battling depression brought on by a failed/failing business.
mehulkar 14y ago
The difference is that in one you're pulling the metaphorical trigger on yourself and in the other someone else is.
- stickfigure 14y ago
  Some forms of death may be more romantic than others, but you're still dead.
14y ago

amastilovic 14y ago

So, somebody was flying a war plane in Vietnam so that you could sleep safe and sound in California?

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
doktrin 14y ago
I think that's a little dismissive. What I read in the post was not so much a justification for the war effort as putting trials and tribulations in relative perspective. War could just as easily have been replaced by any other situation that is literally life threatening.
nandemo 14y ago
Not sure why this is downvoted. The article starts with this quote: We Sleep Peaceably In Our Beds At Night Only Because Rough Men Stand Ready To Do Violence On Our Behalf so it's really odd to find that a Vietnam War story follows. Of course this is orthogonal to the main point of the article (cf. the title), but it's still odd.
- lolcraft 14y ago
  I would downvote it, not only for the historical egocentrism of claiming that somehow those fighting the Vietnam War were protecting united-statesian lives (as if the conflict ever was anything other than wrestling for political influence), but because it's inflammatory. What does the GP propose, that every single person of every country should go and fight a stupid war on another country? Or else what, be shameful of not being on the glorious warrior caste?
  - abolibibelot 14y ago
    There are several memes in the United States psyche that are quite puzzling for the rest of us (non USans), military fetichism being one of the weirdest. That said, turning the experience of making sure bombers can safely carpet bomb Vietnam into a coming-of-age story yielding uplifting thoughts about entrepreneurship steps into bizarre territory. Like an Ayn Randesque version of Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow.

juanre 14y ago

Tangential: a great source of perspective, humility and historical insight is E. B. Sledge's first hand account of the WWII battles at Okinawa and Peleliu. With The Old Breed, http://www.amazon.com/With-Old-Breed-Peleliu-Okinawa/dp/0891419063 http://www.amazon.com/With-Old-Breed-Peleliu-Okinawa/dp/0891...

j_s 14y ago

Is this in response to this comment (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4471765 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4471765): A start-up changes a person in the same way a war does - trauma, triumph, battle, and blood. on the 'I did the scariest thing I can imagine: I resigned' thread? (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4471391 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4471391)

mehulkar 14y ago
Or just really great timing.
Androsynth 14y ago
I figured it was to the parent of the comment you linked to: you will be the wrecked shell of the person you once were

jedc 14y ago

I served in the US Navy for six years, spending three of those as a submarine officer. Even though I've never seen a shot fired, I've been in some hairy situations. Steve's message is the same thing that I took from my experiences, and why my (non-Navy) colleagues always cite me as being "calm in the center of a storm". No matter how crazy or insane things get at work, I know there's no chance that if I screw up that 100+ people would die. It absolutely puts perspective on problems. :)

mej10 14y ago
Now the question is: how do you get this trait without being put in such dire situations?
- snowwrestler 14y ago
  In my experience adventure sports like mountaineering can provide a similar sense of perspective. Even if things are going well, it's clear that decisions can have real physical consequences. Training programs like the National Outdoor Leadership School can be a good jump start into the leadership aspects of those sports.
- colomon 14y ago
  Not on the same scale, but I've found having screwed up badly in the past helps me keep my calm in the present. My favorite example: about twenty years ago I accidentally played a note during a grand pause (the entire orchestra silent) in the first movement of Beethoven's Fifth. In concert, at Hill Auditorium. That's one of the worst musical mistakes possible, in the one piece of classical music almost everyone knows, in what is almost certainly the nicest concert hall I will ever get to play in. Ever since then when getting ready for a concert where I'm not the soloist, I can just tell myself "What can I possibly do wrong that would be worse than that?" and the tension goes away.
  - EzGraphs 14y ago
    Music performance is an interesting analogy. It is simply impossible to learn music without making mistakes. One of the things that separates amateurs from pros is the ability to recover from a mistake, failure or disruption. Regardless of how great things sound in a practice room, the goal is the performance. Its funny, failure in front of an audience is rarely fatal, but a huge fear for many.

BrainScraps 14y ago

This is a nice compliment for Brad Feld's recent post about the need for Boulder, CO to welcome Veteran entrepreneurs. http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2012/08/a-class-of-entrepreneurs-that-we-need.html http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2012/08/a-class-of-entrepren...

coltr 14y ago

Excellent post. From another point of view: we're all going to die eventually, nothing is scarier than that (excluding torture, but you get the idea). Compared to death, what is there to be afraid of in life?

saurik 14y ago

I'm not certain which I would feel worse about: making a mistake that kills me (as in, dead), or making a mistake that causes someone else economic ruin (unable to send children to a good education, for example). It is that latter situation that keeps me awake at nights being an entrepreneur: that other people are relying on me... that in some way, I am responsible for them and their families... I often ask "am I worthy of this?".

te_platt 14y ago
If it helps, I would much rather you made a mistake that hurt me financially than while working on my behalf you made a mistake that got you killed.
run4yourlives 14y ago
As a veteran, I think I can safely speak for a majority of my compatriots when I suggest that most soldiers/airmen/sailors aren't afraid of making mistakes that get them killed, they are afraid of making mistakes that get others killed. It's similar to your current fears, but still on a larger scale.
munin 14y ago
hey don't worry, in the USA, causing someone else economic ruin can also kill them, by depriving them / their family of health insurance! hooray!
- philwelch 14y ago
  Please don't post snarky political pot-shots like this.

larrys 14y ago

"Entrepreneurship is hard but you can’t die." I liked this post by Steve. However one thing to keep in mind is that people can suffer greatly in their mind as a result of their wrong actions, failures and the consequences of their mistakes. For many many years. While the current culture in SV (and on HN) celebrates success but also attaboy's some of the failures there is an entire other world out there (spouses, children, parents) that create pressure on stress on and individual that fails and only really care about success.

callmeed 14y ago

I have a client (we build websites for photographers) who went from being a war photographer serving around the world (including Africa and the former Yugoslavia) to being a wedding photographer. I told him how I didn't like photographing weddings because it was too stressful and tiring. He laughed and said "no one is going to shoot you, though"

microtherion 14y ago

I'm all in favor of perspective, and against the misuse of military metaphors, but as a matter of fact, people CAN and DO die of entrepreneurship, as in this case, where I think it was widely suspected that entrepreneurship was a major contributing cause: http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/14/technology/diaspora_cofounder_died/index.htm http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/14/technology/diaspora_cofounde...

moocow01 14y ago
Im not going to comment or speculate on that individual situation but suicide is usually caused by a pattern of unhealthy cognition that can be changed. If an entreprenuer is considering suicide I would strongly advise them to tackle their depression and anxiety directly through professional therapy rather than dropping entreprenuership with the assumption it will cure their depression. In other words entreprenuership is not the direct cause of depression although it may somewhat exacerbate a person's depression who is more susceptible to it (just like any other lifestyle situation could).

michaelochurch 14y ago

This is going to sound dramatic, but there are different dangers to the career game. War is obviously a lot scarier (and I literally have no idea how scary) but the kinds of fear are different. When you're 18 and single, death doesn't scare you much because you don't have a spouse and kids. No one's being let down in that way. It will be rough for your parents, but teenagers usually aren't thinking about that, because we're programmed (either by genetics or culture; not sure which) to be a bit selfish at that age. The effects of the career game (not just one business) are, on the other hand, deeply generational once you have kids and the die is cast. If you fuck it up, your kids won't have the connections and resources they need to thrive and they end up as mid-grade meat for society to munch on. This means they will have worse careers, and the effect propagate. The poor know what the stakes are, and the rich are terrified of being the one to drop the ball. Dying at 18 when single means you don't have any kids. That's a lot less scarier to me than having kids and a mediocre career and having it affect them. That said, what would keep me from a war is not the fear of death, but the fear of injury, especially the psychiatric kind.