So You Want to Start Your Own Business? Things People Don't Tell You

Having started a couple myself, I'd say a few of these are industry-specific.

The main thing I learned (and learned to accept) is that at the beginning, nobody cares. Potential customers don't care until you very clearly articulate something that matters to them. Friends and family care about YOU, but unless they're the target user, they also don't care about the business itself. Particularly for high achievers who are used to positive feedback, this lack of engagement can be pretty difficult. It would almost be easier if you had someone out there loudly rooting against you; at least then you'd exist to the world.

Anyway, once I accepted that as a natural part of the process, the ups and downs got a lot easier.

Yeah I appreciate all this advice, except for the "beer test".

Come on man, I don't like to drink and I am a very nice and professional person.

The beer test for social skills is probably worse than whiteboarding obscure algorithms to test technical skills.

I wish "7. THE BEGINNING IS THE MOST DIFFICULT PART" were actually true. In my experience, the beginning is hard, but it can get much, much harder than it was at the beginning. In fact, the very book ("The hard thing about hard things") that he cites in point 7 tells the story of many crazy difficult things Ben Horowitz fought through many years after the beginning of Loudcloud/Opsware.