

Why founders should burn the bridges - TheAuditor
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/235997

======
onion2k
There's a problems with this sort of blog post. It's a survivor story. The
author severed the links to his old life, put everything in to his startup,
and came through it successfully. But that's only one data point. There are
_thousands_ of people who have done the exact same thing and failed, and
deeply regretted severing those ties. Equally, there are plenty of stories of
people who didn't cut their ties to their old lives and gone on to be
successful (Mark Zuckerberg being a good example - many of the first hires at
FB were his friends). Consequently you can't really learn anything from it.
You can't tell ahead of time whether or not cutting ties is a good idea. The
implication is "If you don't cut the ties to your old life you will fail!",
but that just isn't true. Even if you're more generous and read it as "If you
cut the ties to your old life you're more likely to succeed" that (probably)
isn't true either - having ties to things outside of your startup doesn't have
a big impact compared to some of the other, much more important things (cash,
market, product, etc).

It's a great story of how one founder refused to quit and created something
amazing, but that's all. As a lesson in how to succeed in your startup it's
not really telling you anything at all.

~~~
TheAuditor
Can't label it bad advice, because it certainly did help many and for some
other it was a red line. No advice in the world of startups should be absorbed
as is. :)

------
qwerta
That is bad advice.

My wife was in 4th month of pregnancy when I founded my startup. I left my old
job in good terms, and could probably return to it.

Burning bridges would put me under much more pressure. I do not think I would
manage it.

~~~
TheAuditor
Nothing in a entrepreneurs life is objective. Nor can any experience be
generalized. We all have to make our of decisions and work with it.

