
Lessons Learned from Shutting Down My Second Startup - bgraves
http://socialstrategist.com/2010/12/04/lessons-learned-from-shutting-down-my-second-startup/
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vessenes
I like this article, and agree with his core thesis and general values. Good
experience, summarized, so go read it!

It reminds me of something I've spent a good amount of time pondering in the
last few years: survivor bias in the tech news reporting world and the duality
of things an entrepreneur most hold in his/her head and heart.

On the one hand: as entrepreneurs we must believe the impossible; a premium is
placed on bringing a new idea or a gamechanging technology into the mix. In
general, this idea must have horrible flaws, extreme difficulties, and
significant unproven assumptions, or someone else would likely have done it.

So, on the one hand, we must be largely blind to downside risk while working
on something that we have essentially 'sold' ourselves on.

On the other hand, we are typically using other people's money to go do this
impossible thing. And, equally importantly, we are spending our own valuable
time -- time that could be spent with our family, essentially, as PG commented
in an essay, we are adding significant misery to our lives.

Survivor bias means we don't hear about all the unfunded, unsuccessful
startups in the news. I know this -- there are a lot. I think this is likely
the most difficult thing a startup entrepreneur faces; the requirement to both
blind oneself to downside risk so that the journey can be fundraised for and
begun and also the ability to unblind oneself when key decisions are made,
decisions that impact other people's lives -- employees, spouses, investors.

Add to that the fundamentally speculative nature of the business, and I would
call it a tough job! One that pays, on average, really well. Or, on average
(minus every company you read about in TechCrunch) extremely poorly.

I am therefore currently spending more time trying to encourage people
starting businesses to erase their downside risk first; figure out how to make
it work and get it financially sustainable as early as possible. That's one
way to try and get a leg up on the (probably) really tough statistics.

