On one hand, startups are as exciting as bank heists. You put together an amazing team, do your homework as best you can, then get killed trying to execute your perfect plan. I'm proud of what we built and we all learned a lot the hard way.
On the down-side, building a company is emotionally, physically, mentally exhausting. It wasn't really a matter of whether I could pay myself fairly; I drew a typical programmer salary along with everyone else.
However, the important detail is that you're spending someone else's money and every penny of it represents someone you respect putting their trust in you, and you feel the weight of that every day.
Ultimately, I don't exactly regret it but I certainly wish that we weren't so convincing that we convinced ourselves of a market opportunity that we couldn't access or didn't exist at all. There was so much heat for "data" in 2011 it really seemed like we just had to show up with an amazing product.
> Ultimately, I don't exactly regret it but I certainly wish that we weren't so convincing that we convinced ourselves of a market opportunity that we couldn't access or didn't exist at all.
How should you really know this without trying?
If you aren't convinced, where should the motivation come from?
Every business has about 100 questions where if you know the answer to those questions, you are quite likely to be successful. The hard part is knowing which questions need to be asked of each business.
To be clear: my co-founders and I were all seasoned, multi-startup people. We had extremely high-calibre investors with finely tuned bullshit meters. In the end, our own pitching skill undid us because I think less-convincing founders would have undergone 25% more scrutiny and that would have required us to demonstrate that we had signed LOIs from 3-5 real customers before starting.
There was a subconscious misdirection around the fact that we didn't actually have anyone beating down our door. We let the excitement for "data", our personalities and our track records carry the moment.
Of course founders have to drink their own Kool-Aid to some extent or they won't make it. But there's real power and value in the customer development mindset. People want this? Prove it.
On one hand, startups are as exciting as bank heists. You put together an amazing team, do your homework as best you can, then get killed trying to execute your perfect plan. I'm proud of what we built and we all learned a lot the hard way.
On the down-side, building a company is emotionally, physically, mentally exhausting. It wasn't really a matter of whether I could pay myself fairly; I drew a typical programmer salary along with everyone else.
However, the important detail is that you're spending someone else's money and every penny of it represents someone you respect putting their trust in you, and you feel the weight of that every day.
Ultimately, I don't exactly regret it but I certainly wish that we weren't so convincing that we convinced ourselves of a market opportunity that we couldn't access or didn't exist at all. There was so much heat for "data" in 2011 it really seemed like we just had to show up with an amazing product.
We were wrong.