Startup failures are only a matter of point of view

This article proposes thinking of yourself as a neural network learning something.

Funny enough, I find pretending I'm a self-driving car helps remove my ego while driving. Someone wants to speed up to cut me off? I'm not going to get angry. I'm a self-driving car algorithm, and I only care about doing the safest, most predictable thing.

It looks incredibly silly when I write it out like that but it actually helps to think that way.

I agree with the notion of learning from your mistakes, but it's so disingenuous I'd call it bullshit to say it's not a failure. The startup failed. That doesn't mean you're a failure. But don't sugarcoat what happened for the sake of your feelings. If you can't even admit it's a failure, you're not likely to learn from your failures.

Yes, I realize there is a lot of semantics in my point, but I just fucking hate sanitizing communication. Be direct. Be transparent. Say what you mean. Don't turn it into some feel-good what-a-wonderful-journey bullshit.

If a startup is trying to create economic value, then there is no point of view. You either made money or you did not.

If the real startup is the friends we made along the way while spending investor cash, then sure.

Yes, we should try to learn from our failures, but this article overlooks the very real emotional and economic damage that can happen to early-stage founders and employees (and their families/friends). Even when trying to view failures as learning opportunities.

Source: I've been a part of many early stage startups, am working on one right now, and have many close friends who have done the same.

It's indeed a point of view. If I factor in the opportunity cost of my failures it's even greater and harsher.

The article paints is a hooray-optimist view of praising failure as learning which might help someone who just folded its dream startup, but offers no revelation.

It also fails to mention that you can keep trying as long as you have money. Few privileged people can spend its life trying to build startups and fail constantly.

That failure can be a teachable moment is well-known and is applicable in all aspects of life, it is not particularly interesting to read about that in this specific context. In some ways, it is also insulting.

For some there are real-world (often financial) consequences to failure, and that an article about why their egos shouldn't be bruised when facing a failure is the least of their worries.

The key is failing successfully. Try hard. Ask lots of questions. Be humble. After all of that you can still fail.

“It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life".

No one should be proud of failing and learning from their own mistakes if they did not bother learning from the mistakes of others first.

I've been struggling with motivation in recent months so have been writing todo lists as a way to stay on task. One technique that has been helping is to write all steps, even when I don't know how to do some of them yet. Normally I do the opposite and only start working after I've solved the entire problem in my head (which sounds crazy but worked up until I hit 40 and bigger life questions added too much distraction).

Anyway, what if some failures are unavoidable? Like, what if some things are external to what you can anticipate or accomplish? For example, here is a todo list for a typical startup:

1) Learn the tools so you can make stuff

2) Optionally find a handful of teammates with similar interests or pain points to help

3) Get funding

4) Work on your startup for 6 months to 2 years

5) Get traction by hard sells or going viral

6) Scale by improving the product, adding employees, etc

7) Exit and move on to the next startup or retire with millions of dollars

There is currently no solution for steps 3 or 5. The rest of the steps are straightforward and done by most software developers in one form or another dozens of times over a career (except for 7 obviously). Most people on the outside only see steps 2, 6 and 7 so have a distorted view of the startup process because those tend to be the easiest steps or take care of themselves after the startup acquires a life of its own. On top of that, they may only dream about startups because step 1 tends to depend on demographics. Step 4 (the part we care about because it’s our lifestyle so we’d almost do it for free) tends to be the least important, but also the riskiest because your idea will manifest when someone else does it after the 2 years window of opportunity passes.

So as far as I can tell 20 years into my career, until we solve steps 3 and 5, startup failure will hover around 90% or more. Learning from mistakes only eats away slightly at that number, perhaps by giving people more of what they want in step 5, or expanding your professional network for steps 2 and 7. So the smart thing to do is play it safe contracting or working for companies, never accomplishing anything of any importance other than making rent or raising children like humans have done for thousands of years.

So since it’s Friday, I’d like to put out a thought to meditate on that maybe we should be trying to make a startup to solve startups, along the same lines as what Y Combinator is doing.

In theory, yes. In practice, startups fail for common reasons. If you want to start a company, talk to every startup founder you can about their experience. It really is a different life path.

I get the point, but this is pretty heavy on cliches.

Also, when a startup fails, a bunch of people lose their jobs and have to scramble to get their lives back on track. If an entrepreneur walks away from that saying "That wasn't a failure becayse I learned a lot!" they kind of come off as a sociopath.