
When to kill your startup - ryancarson
http://ryancarson.com/post/25041202750/when-to-kill-your-startup
======
larrys
"I failed miserably at this for two simple reasons: I hate rejection"

Rejection is tough on everyone. Good sales people do a few things to mitigate
this that I've noticed and practiced. One thing is to think of it as a game to
expect a certain amount of rejection as part of what you do in advance.

I mean if I told you right now to pick up the phone and call someone and pitch
them and there was no outcome and I paid you $20 to do it you probably
wouldn't have a fear of doing that. If I told you that I would pay you if they
hang up on you $20 but $0 if they don't you probably would all the sudden not
be afraid of the hangup, right? It's all a psychological game. Same thing with
approaching a girl in a bar.

Second thing though is that some good sales people don't pick up on social
cues as well as others. So they don't feel the rejection as much as sensitive
people do. If you are cold calling the same micro expressions that might turn
a sensitive person into jelly completely escapes many good salespeople. Same
with just a voice. It takes time to get over this automatic reaction but it
can be done with practice just like anything else. (Although you don't want to
turn it off because the same skill is really good for negotiating.)

~~~
rgraham
My experience with sales people is that they pick up on social cues much
better than average. The good ones just don't take rejection poorly. It's part
of success and often you can learn to prepare or target better from the
experience.

~~~
larrys
True. I should have qualified what I said. By "some sales people" what I meant
to say is salespeople that have to cold call.

------
mikeleeorg
"Worse, I had to admit to my wife that I failed. I couldn’t even pay my half
of the mortgage."

Three cheers to the significant others that are patient with entrepreneurs and
willing to put up with us!

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bromley
6 customers at $199 a month is almost $1200 per month. Sure, it's not a
fortune, but I wonder why it wasn't enough for "leave it running, work on
something else, cash the checks, see what happens" to at least be one of the
options.

~~~
9oliYQjP
I wish more entrepreneurs would be honest about how they're actually doing
with other entrepreneurs, so that they could reveal options that haven't been
thought of. Forget amongst fellow entrepreneurs though. Even within business
partnerships honesty is hard to come by, lest one partner be accused of being
a cynic and not having the faith. Still, I think every entrepreneur should
have his or her own personal set of trusted advisors just for discussing
topics like this.

~~~
sliverstorm
Gotta keep up that bravado. It's in the same vein as HN's steadily inflating
estimate of "what salaries do most half-decent new college grads get". I think
I heard 120k most recently.

------
joshfraser
We'd been running EventVue for 3 years, were exhausted and at the end of our
runway when Brad Feld (one of our investors) asked us one question: "Are you
still having fun?" When we couldn't honestly answer "yes", his advice was
"Then quit! Life's too short." We announced we were shutting down the company
the next day and I've never felt more relieved.

~~~
joshfraser
More context: <http://blog.eventvue.com/post/372936164/post-mortem>

~~~
alabut
And to think that shortly after you unplugged and went to New Zealand to shake
it all off before jumping back into your next awesome new venture (which seems
to be going really well).

I bet you would've burnt out if you hadn't and Torbit wouldn't have happened,
even if you had the idea or bandwidth for it. I've flirted with the crispy
edge of burnout a bunch of times since moving to SF. You haven't really been
working hard unless you've at least once seriously considered chucking it all
to become a forest ranger, surf instructor or dog walker.

~~~
joshfraser
Probably true

------
larrys
"2 - Hire a good salesperson" - "I couldn’t afford #2 "

Why not partner with a good salesperson someone who isn't afraid to pick up
the phone and make sales calls?

~~~
ryancarson
I didn't think of that option, to be frank. It's amazing how much you learn
over the years, simply by screwing up and trying again.

------
lcusack
How about a blog post on why Ryan Carson consistently writes the best blog
posts?

~~~
ryancarson
That's too kind, but thank you.

------
porter
Great post. I'd love to hear about the other failed startup.

~~~
ryancarson
I'll get there :)

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julian25
I remember hearing once (possible on Marco Arment's Build and Analyze) that
million dollar ideas aren't created overnight. Companies like Rovio (creators
of Angry Birds) had to suffer through tons of failed products before they
struck gold. I think this article shows the value of perseverance and poses a
very important question: when do you quit and try something new.

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ckluis
Excellent post Ryan. Working in enterprise software our sales guys here No a
hell of a lot more than Yes.

When I hired the last two new guys, I said .2 is a great batting average in
baseball. You'll never be close to that in enterprise software. It's a numbers
game. Heard those types of speaches all the time in grad school regarding
startups and sales.

------
jp
Designers do not like strangers. Hard to build up trust unless you got direct
connections and phone numbers. Lots of pressure in the biz.

