
Feeling like a fraud while doing startups - vanwilder77
http://joel.is/post/37111202497/feeling-like-a-fraud-while-doing-startups
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Killah911
Impostor/fraud syndrome is quite common amongst quite a few founders I know. I
personally believe it's just a cognitive deficiency one has to overcome. As
long as it doesn't get in your way, it's OK.

Truth of the matter is, you're not entirely responsible for all of your
successes. Time, space, opportunity and many other factors far beyond our
control are always necessary.

However, lack of success does not mean you have nothing valuable to
contribute. Most "successful" entrepreneurs often attribute their success to
"Luck" & hard work. the hard work part is something you can definitely speak
to regardless of how the luck part went for you.

Reference: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome>

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monkeyfacebag
I am no psychologist, but this sounds very much like impostor syndrome, which
is by no means the exclusive domain of the startup world. When I was in grad
school, the school offered seminars and workshops on it. I never went, but I'm
not sure what a seminar is supposed to do for someone who has difficulty
recognizing their accomplishments.

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akeck
According to my wife (PhD), impostor syndrome is a huge issue for new woman
scholars - especially those in traditionally male-dominated fields. I think
part of it is the lack of female role models in those fields. When all of your
committee, and all of the scholars you reference, are male, I think you get an
implicit signal that you shouldn't be where you are - despite having
successfully completed your doctorate.

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startupstella
there is an awesome TED talk by Amy Cuddy that touches on this subject (in
addition to how to combat it)
[http://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_shapes...](http://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_shapes_who_you_are.html)

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mbesto
I 100% feel like this. I work in the enterprise space and it's amazing how
many people have never heard of a MVP. When I tell them that their mobile
version of their on-premise software needs to follow a lean approach they
usually respond with "so you mean like how we used to build software?!?" When
I go through this drill, their eyes light up like I've just told them that the
new messiah is coming tomorrow. It's really powerful stuff and while I don't
have a single massive success under my belt (but hopefully on my way), I do
truly believe it's the way to go, and if it's not, I'll die trying to figure
out the right way to get companies to support disruptive technology.

I've personally had many failures in my past, which I've only recently been
happy to be very public with people about. My greatest personal success has
been the realization that those failures are by far my greatest
accomplishments.

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krmmalik
Interesting i'm in a very similar boat to you. Although with me; i think i
need to reconcile with the fact that the failures are accomplishments. I still
need to get to that point - Do you have any advice for me?

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mbesto
What specific challenges do you have?

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krmmalik
Any chance we can take this discussion "offline" so to speak? Do you mind if I
email you at your gmail address?

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mbesto
Absolutely...address is in my profile.

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mmaunder
I had this same crisis in 2006 after realizing that I've never created a
business that generates any significant cash. I figured out I have no right to
mentor, do talks, etc of which I was doing plenty. So I completely withdrew
and have spent the last 6 years trying to earn the right to mentor again. I'm
about there, so will be reengaging starting next year.

Avoid mentors who fall into the following list: Made money off stock options
in a non exec role. Made money through talent acquisition exit. VC/Investor
experience only. Old money.

First prize is that you get an angel investor who has built profitable
businesses. There is no better mentor than someone like this with a vested
interest in your success. They are very, very rare and don't like to talk
much.

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badclient
In the pick up community, this is called keyboard jockeying ... basically the
blind leading the blind. I think this is extremely prevalent in the start-up
world except people don't get called out as often as they should. Just look at
half the guys who claim to be experts at lean. For most of them, their biggest
success has been their ability to brand themselves as experts at lean.

So while we begin with agreement that at times you feel like a fraud, I think
in many cases we _are_ being 'fraudulent' by offering untested, unproven
advice. The best guys I know, especially ones who _have_ been successful, say
'I don't know' to a lot of questions. Meanwhile, the armchair experts with a
thin history always seem to know the answer.

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supersaiyan
If you feel like a fraud doing a start up, imagine how it feels making flash
games for a living

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PaulHoule
It's a general problem when you're pursuing social mobility, particularly when
you're in an area where there isn't a single well-defined path to success
(computing or startups as opposed to medicine or MBA)

It takes many forms, from working with people who've got more faith in me than
I do, to working on stuff that sounds like science fiction and dealing with a
lot of skepticism until you release the right product to convince people it's
fact, not fiction.

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OoTheNigerian
This December, I will be speaking to some students that want to pursue a
career in tech.

How I have catered to this feeling is this: I told the organizer I would not
speak about being a success since I am not yet successful. So I will be
speaking about what I know, which is about bringing products to life.

Even then, I still do not feel so comfortable doing it.

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vrajesh5
In any failure or lack of success, it is not the individual who is a failure.
It was the event / activity or effort that failed or did not succeed.
Similarly the success can be attributed to timing, luck, team, as well as hard
work. I feel people to often impose a failed effort on themselves. In my
opinion, the real failure is failing to try. Success is when you get up and
start again with the pieces you like.

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chimi
A couple comments have suggested this is Imposter Syndrome and it might be a
little of that, but additionally it's the opposite. Imposter Syndrome is about
feeling like your successes are not your own. This article is about not
feeling like your successes are significant enough. Imposter syndrome is about
your successes being bigger than you are worthy of accepting responsibility
for. This article is about your responsibilities being bigger than you're
experienced for.

That understood, I think a lot of this problem stems from our fascination with
survivor bias -- only those companies that have big successes. We think big
successful exits are where we should concentrate our learning and if we aren't
one of those big exits then the experience we have isn't significant enough to
help others.

It's like the Don't read TechCrunch article also on the front page right now.
Those blogs and even here, we spend a lot of time talking about the
exceptional startups. Those with exits (Zynga, GroupOn, Instagram) or those
scrappy little dogs fighting the man (AirBnB, Uber), or fighting the 600 LB
gorilla (DDG) -- you know, the ones PG would consider "trying to be
successful."

The reality is, the vast majority of startups out there are building
businesses slowly. They've been at it for 5 or 10 years already and you've
never heard of them. Some of those will be acquired or get investment next
year and you'll think they are overnight successes. All those thousands, maybe
tens of thousands of startups who have made it 5 years are already successes.
They are run by individuals who have escaped the machine, the rat race, the
enslavement to the corporatocracy! YEAH!

I say that's a success. I say that takes risk. I say that takes understanding
the world and what it values and being able to add enough value to support at
least yourself, maybe your family, and even some other families.

Every entrepreneur I know with success talks about how they did it all
themselves in the beginning. Don't hire until you can't do it all yourself
anymore. Wake up, work, go to sleep. Not these tiny population of stories
where you get 10 million dollars and then hire someone to do tiny little
things that don't really need to be done anyway. I can't imagine paying
someone full time to manage a Twitter stream but there are entire companies
built around enabling entire teams to work together on a twitter stream! Wow.

That kind of stuff seems like a big waste of time and money to a lot of "real"
entrepreneurs. A lot of "real" entrepreneurs don't even know what Twitter is.
Or even use the web at all. We could all stand to learn a thing or two from
them and none of that knowledge is at TechCrunch. We could also stand to share
a lot of the knowledge we have gained never having achieved the success we are
constantly reminded the startup world appreciates even though our successes
are amazingly awesome when compared to those outside the startup world.

~~~
Lost_BiomedE
About the 'real' entrepreneurs who don't know what Twitter is, I often see
small companies who could save or make a lot of money if they had one full-
time programmer or engineer. The cost is usually too high for them, or it is
unlikely they would find someone passionate enough about their business to do
everything that could be done without well defined directions.

An advantage every engineer or programmer has is that if he/she starts any
business, he/she could also play that role. I think it is a huge advantage,
and it is a big reason why I like to be a part of non-engineering endeavors.

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fcatalan
I felt the same during my Masters. I was gulping down papers and books on
stuff very new to me and churning out papers at a crazy rate. I was
overwhelmed.

When every paper came back with very high grades I actually questioned one of
my professors about those grades. I literally said "I feel like I'm faking
that I actually know what I'm talking about". She was amused.

Looking back at it: I was working an awful lot, loved the subject, and have a
way with words (at least in my native Spanish). So the output was good, what
else would I expect?

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indiecore
>"I feel like I'm faking that I actually know what I'm talking about".

I have a theory that pretty much everyone feels like this and the only reason
anything gets done is because people are trying to stop other people from
finding out that they think this about themselves.

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gyardley
I don't understand what's so hard about qualifying one's advice. I've given
people advice more than a few times in the past, but I usually stress that I
may have just gotten lucky, it might not be applicable to their present
situation, whatever I've achieved was also thanks to others, etc. As long as
I'm open with people about that, I feel very comfortable offering my opinion.

If I passed myself off as an infallible guru, _then_ I'd be a fraud, but
there's absolutely no need for me (or anyone else) to do so.

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hpagey
After reading this article I realized that I have the Impostor/fraud syndrome.
My co founder on the other hand doesn't suffer from it and attend events, tech
meetups and is often invited to speak about startup experience and stuff. I
feel very uncomfortable giving advice as our startup is not successful yet.

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stusmall
This seems more like feeling like a fraud while talking about doing start ups
before yours take off. This is also the reason I generally avoid going to
classes and events for entrepreneurs. I don't really want advice from someone
who hasn't done this and been successful.

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mdkess
I think that a useful skill for anyone is to be able to listen to someone's
opinion on something and gain information or knowledge from it, without
agreeing with what the person is saying or even taking a position on it at
all.

This skill that surprisingly many people lack in any capacity.

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OldSchool
Better to make money you don't think you deserve than to stay poor because
deep-down you don't feel worthy.

Chances are, if you're fresh out of college, you know more about current
demand and technologies than the seasoned executives out there.

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frozenport
I wonder if we should draw motivation from our feelings and use them as goads,
instead of trying to make them go away.

Maybe there is a way to not merely harvest our insecurity, but use it as
motivation?

I always thought there was a dark side to the Force.

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el_cuadrado
Sometimes I too think it is OK to feel like a fraud, because I am actively
expanding my comfort zone.

Sometimes I think that I am a fraud who is just reasonably good at
rationalizations.

Mostly the latter.

