
The Struggle - ximeng
http://bhorowitz.com/2012/06/15/the-struggle/
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daniel-cussen
"Remember that this is what separates the women from the girls."

OK, I appreciate that he's trying not to be sexist, but this crosses the line
into meaning nothing.

~~~
jessedhillon
If you're saying that the entire meaning of this post is contained in the
gender of a transitory person, conjured merely to be a demonstrative object of
his essay, then what you are saying is dumb.

He's not trying to avoid being sexist. What's sexist is to assume that there
is some ulterior reason why the object of his essay would be a woman. This
despite your professed appreciation for counter-sexist efforts.

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hornbaker
Discussion from June: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4113428>

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thaumaturgy
This was a good read, something that everyone -- every business person,
entrepreneur, and ordinary Joe -- should hear or read in some form or another
sometimes. So, what I'm about to say isn't directed at what he wrote, but at a
somewhat larger attitude.

To over 90% of business owners, hearing someone describe "The Struggle" with
problems like, "my venture capitalist said we'd have trouble raising funds
this year" is ... I'm not honestly sure how to describe it. Some mixture of
hilarity and deep, wretched, hopeless sadness.

A tremendous number of business owners don't have access to capital to grow
their business, beyond what they can accumulate in credit and savings. Nor do
many of them have a soft landing if their business falters; they rely on their
business, every month, to make a living wage. They don't start worrying when
Europe has a crisis, they start worrying when the local gas prices go up 20
cents overnight because they've seen first-hand what it does to their
business.

They don't just have to deal with losing a loyal customer over the phone or
email, they have to deal with an irate customer _in person_. How many startup
founders do you think can handle that with grace and dignity?

One of my favorite business clients is a strong mother of 2 who runs a small
boutique shop. Her industry has been hard hit by the economy. I was there
working on her equipment one day when the last customer left and she
spontaneously broke down in tears because it had been a tough day, a tough
week, a tough and relentless Summer. She couldn't solve her business's
problems by getting in front of a bunch of employees and giving them a pep
talk; she had to solve it by getting up the next morning and sticking with it
even when it looked hopeless.

Don't put it all on your shoulders? If you're a small business owner, what the
hell else are you going to do? Nobody else is going to figure out where the
next invoice is coming from. Nobody else is going to say, "That was my fault,
not yours." You're responsible for all of it. Every single aspect.

Funding? I've never -- not _once_ \-- had anyone believe in me or my business
enough to offer me money to make it bigger. Not even credit. Not even a loan.
At some point you accept that this actually is your fault, that people have
really good reasons for not wanting to support your business, despite the fact
that you have built it from absolutely nothing, despite somehow managing to
attract one or two really bright people, despite having hundreds of customers
who _love_ you to the extent that you no longer spend any money on marketing
because your customers do a better job of telling other people about you than
any marketing can.

But you keep going anyway.

Nothing in that piece was wrong, and I'm certainly not dismissing the
challenges that CEOs of well-funded companies face. But, I sure wish that more
people had more respect for small businesses, because if you really want to
know how to handle The Struggle, _go talk to a small business owner_.

Regarding the checkers/chess game reference, there's an even better game to
reference. It's the oldest continuously-played board game in the world, it was
originally developed as a tool for teaching business, it takes minutes to
learn and I think nobody has ever mastered it, it's a great way to develop
intuition about when to be aggressive and when to be defensive, and it has a
perfect balance of tactics and strategy: it's called Go.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_(game)>

~~~
dools
I felt the same way when I read the "startups are hard" post from jazzychad. I
think he talks about taking a cruise in that?

The real lesson is just that things are only hard if you let them be hard. The
good news there is that you can control how hard things are. You just need a
bit of perspective on life.

I used to find things hard, then I started charging more, worked less, had 2
kids, moved to a beautiful seaside town and stopped caring about "success".
Now I find things awesome, but I'm still broke :)

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mbesto
Basically, the emotional side-effects of determination.[1] In the book _Art of
Funding a Startup_ [2] pg says "There are two things we care about: how
determined people are and how smart they are"

[1] - <http://www.paulgraham.com/startuplessons.html>

[2] - [http://www.amazon.com/Paul-Graham-Funding-Interview-
ebook/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Paul-Graham-Funding-Interview-
ebook/dp/B005MEG11Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1350474519&sr=8-1&keywords=art+of+funding+a+startup)

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manishsp
"If you don’t want to be great, then you never should have started a company"

My goal behind starting company is not to be great, but to do something i like
most.

Am i missing something ?

~~~
bennyg
Just abstract the phrase to what you mean. Are you half-assed doing what you
like the most, or trying to do it better than everyone else?

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nodesocket
I'm I the only one who loves the rap songs Ben always has on his posts? Lupe!

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orangethirty
The older you get and the more of your business fail, the more used to the
struggle you get. It becomes a part of you rather than something external.
Every decision will now have the struggle as one of the deciding factors.
There is no way to remove it, but experience does provide ways to soothe the
effects on you. I'm overly negative with every business. Can't help it. I
refuse to even think about anything succeeding too much. Dreaming is allowed,
but it must now hold hands with actionable plans. There is no sense in just
dreaming, things must also appear to be possible.

One of the things that people here should understand is that a
startup/business is hard. Its not a landing page, or a cute/catchy angle at
some niche. No. Those are product features. The business is you. Whatever
resides between your ears. When they get going and stuff doesnt being to
happen as they planned you can notice what really resides in their minds. A
lot of these so called smart people are just full of doubts and have a lot of
self-esteem issues. They start feeling less and less because they can't reason
why their business is failing. Its horrible to watch and experience. I went
through that numerous times until I understood that a business is not logical.
It doesn't add up. Never does. You can't approach it as it were some
mathematical formua. Not happening. Its a living thing, and it is driven by
emotion, feelings, and things that we are not usually comfortable dealing
with. The struggle hits that right in the center, and that is why so much
starry-eyed dreamers get hit so hard. They were not emotionally ready to deal
with startup. Nothing prepares you for a startup like a startup itself. In
order to build up some resistance to the struggle you just have to try and
build more businesses. Struggle a bit more.

As an amateur marathonist, father, and husband I can tell you that the stuggle
is just part of life. Every day that I go to the track the struggle is right
there with me. It tries to convince me to _stop_ because I'm tired and out of
breath. But I won't stop. Not today. The struggle will try and hold me back
fron running faster. Not happening. It will focus on reminding me of the pain
I'm feeling. I say bring it. The struggle is also hard when your kid is in a
hospital getting some treatment. When she is sick and you can't do anything
about it. Prayer doesn't work, and the only thing in your mind is will she
come out of this all right? When the kid goes to school you dont know if she
will have a good day or scrape her knees. The struggle makes you think about
if she will make friends or will she be a loner like her dad. There is also
the marriage struggle. Did I marry the right person? Will this fail? Why wont
my partner do X or Y? Am I being good to them? Am I doing the right things?
Will this end up in divorce? Those are all part of the struggle in marriage.
Everyone goes through that. The way I deal with it is that I made a choice to
get married, and not a choice to get married and get divorced if something
happens. You stick to your guns no matter what. Its what is missing from this
world.

Dear young startup person reading this. If you want to deal with the struggle
just pick up the phone, and try to sell something through it. Struggle to make
that sale. Get your hands dirty. DOnt sit back and tweak your website to look
right, go out and sell something. Get used to the word no. As it will be the
word you will most hear while in business. Go and read the lean startup book
and put a learning system into place. Try and systemize as much as you can in
your business. Make it so that most business decisions come from knowledge and
not fron gut instinct. But realize that your mind will take a daily pounding.
Its all right. Rocky got his shit beat out of him, but he still got up and
kept fighting. Like Rocky says: "Its not how hard you get hit, but how hard
you get hit and still move forward." Life is about stumbling down to your
knees. Picking yourself up. Dusting yourself. Putting your head up high, and
taking another step forward. Remember that winning is a habit. Its a habit
that you make by giving the best of yourself at every moment and not doing
half assed stuff. Keep that in mind. Above all, stop and smell the flowers.
Most of my ideas and solutions have appeared while having fun. Don't ever stop
having fun. Ever.

 _Sorry for the long post._

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lucian1900
Flash elements for slightly bigger text? Wtf?

