Founder thoughts

I say this because I live on an opposite environment. I am a solo founder in São Paulo, Brazil. There is a startup scene in here, but as an early one, not as helpful and omnipresent as in Silicon Valley. So when I actually founded my startup I quit it. I quit the events, the meetings, everything. These were either for wantrepreneurs or "lets-congrat-ourselves-how-successfull-founders-we-are" kind of events. I am neither.

So, sure, I have no one to go ask for advice, to talk problems through (that's why I read so much HN and this founder's blog posts). But I also do not have this pressure, this insecurity. I personally also were always very self-confident, don't know why, just knew everything would turn out good on the end. But I do feel a lit bit of this because of my angel investors. They are the ones I want to impress. So I imagine if had this urge to impress not only for the three of them, but for lots of VC investors, fellow founders, mentors, press, etc.

Another difference in the environment that makes my life easier as a founder is that no one here actually expect me to succeed. Sure, my friends and family hope I will get lucky, be a millionaire, etc. But all the time they offer me job opportunities, talk about possible carreers, companies to work. It is not that they expect me to fail, they actually think it is worth a try at being a founder. But they know that probably I will fail and I need to have a plan B, a job.

In Silicon Valley, i imagine a culture where fail ocasionally may be ok, but not quiting. You see this "fail is accepted" everywhere, but actually is ok to fail if you are still trying. You fail a company, if you found another and another, everyone will still have hopes for you to someday succeed. Even the investors of your failed one. But I don't see the same praise if you fail your company and accept a job on Google (or god forbids, a small, humble software company) and tell people you will retire there. Oh no, this failure and quitting will not be accepted. Then you will be a loser.

But here in Brazil is not like that. If I fail this company and try to found another, I will be irresponsible. But if I fail this one and get a good job, i will have succeed. I will be seen as having done a risky thing that could compromise my carreer (founding an startup), but in the end I got a good job, so everything is ok.

As I believe I could get a good job in the end, I feel less the pressure for not to fail and this "impostor syndrome" is not a thing for me.

The doubt is: is the easy going environment bad for my chances to succeed as a founder? Is this meat grinder culture that is SV actually good for its founders? At least the ones that survive it? I like to think that no, that this is just a negative externality of the real factors that make the difference for SV founders (a lot of mentors, investors, developers, successfull founders, etc.). I like to think that I may be very successfull without the onus of overwhelming peer pressure. But who actually knows?

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome - for clarity, not actually a disease, just something everyone feels once in a while.

Yeah, it's a weird place to be. I recall another local founder speaking at an even last year and telling the crowd something like "being a founder you're simultaneously ridiculously optimistic and expectant about the future, AND scared shitless and terrified".

I heard that and immediately thought "Yeah, that's me lying in bed before going to sleep every night."

Am I scared we'll fail? Absolutely. Am I completely confident we'll succeed? Absolutely. Sounds like a contradiction. Maybe it is, but what can ya do?

I also recall somebody (pg?) saying something to the effect of "the most important thing in founding a startup is managing your own emotional state". That strikes me as very, very true. It's OK to be afraid, but you still have to do what needs to be done anyway.

This is one reason I think sports (like football, wrestling, whatever) are more important than many geeks give them credit for. You learn a lot about perseverance, "intestinal fortitude", etc. from sports. And sports can serve to reinforce that mindset that says "Success isn't permanent and failure isn't fatal; it's the courage to continue that counts". Your team fumbled the ball near the goalline while down by 5 pts with 59 seconds to play in the 4th quarter? Great, guess what, the game isn't over. Keep playing, score a safety, return the free-kick-after-safety deep, and kick a lst second FG to tie the game. It can happen. And if it doesn't, well, there's always another game.

Here's something motivational for anybody who's doubting themselves... It's 2002, at the NCAA National Wrestling Finals. Rob Rohn is wrestling Josh Lambrecht, and Rohn is down by something like 10 or 11 points with around a minute to go. He's close to losing on a technical fall, and certainly has no chance to come back. The TV announcers are already starting to congratulate Lambrecht on the win.

Watch what happens:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRB6m4VdeJQ&feature=kp

She needs to concentrate on the job, and more importantly, the duty, and stop thinking of non-existent worries and bad potential possibilities/outcomes. Duty is sometimes placed in a bad light, but for a founder, it's the only thing that matters. In fact, I will argue with anyone that duty is much more important than passion. Duty gets one through the shit times and grunt-work, passion does not.

She says she doesn't worry about customers and yet that is the only thing she should worry about. Not (as she writes) investors, advisors, and the craziest one of them all, other founders (jeez). She needs to worry about getting and satisfying customers. Period. They are the only things that matter.

The job of a founder is to create a self-sustaining business. And by self-sustaining, I mean the ability for a business to operate based on its own cash-flow. No investor, or advisor, or other founders are necessary for this, but customers are.

So she needs to concentrate on duty. And her duty is to attract, keep, and satisfy customers, so that they sign and continue to sign cheques. And by doing this, all those other fears will dissipate.

Right now, I'm still in my first week of full-time startup work. I wake up worrying in the middle of the night.

http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html

I don't go to counseling but I do have a mastermind group that I talk with daily. We discuss the things we're working on and get help from each other, both technically and emotionally. I very much recommend either joining or starting one.

The fact that you are no longer afraid tells me that you are no longer insecure.

I'm for the trend of people at start ups talking more openly about what their experiences are like, Australian or not.