The Hell of Entrepreneurship
Part 13 of a Multi-Part Series “Towards Religion and Meaning”
Note: This is a multi-part series, if you haven’t read the previous posts, I highly recommend checking them out to catch-up before proceeding, here.
- Part One: Why I Turned Away From G-d
- Part Two: Declaring My Atheism
- Part Three: The Repugnancy of Religion
- Part Four: The Superficiality And Thoughtlessness of Religion
- Part Five: The Silencing of Religion
- Part Six: It’s Cool To Be An Atheist
- Part Seven: “Culturally Jewish”
- Part Eight: I Am The Seeker
- Part Nine: Stealing Fire
- Part Ten: Phish — The Ultimate Spiritual Experience
- Part 11: Chained to the Loom
- Part 12: Quitting My Job To Pursue My Dream
After quitting followed a few days of shock where I would wake up, stare at the ceiling, and realize that I didn’t have to answer to anyone. Eventually, I got over this and fell into a good groove of working.
It was a bit lonely for the first month or two until the second co-founder quit her job and we got accepted to Techstars. Fast-forward a few months and we had raised $1.5M and our last co-founder jumped ship on his job, as well.
Things were on the up, but we seemed to be distancing ourselves from the original intention behind the business — to provide digital identities to refugees who, without any government-issued identification documentation, would often face a dozen years in refugee camps. This, in part, was fine — we were playing a long game and a lot of people didn’t understand the value of blockchain technology.
We went through a number of iterations on value proposition and there was a lot of butting of heads. Most of this contention came from me, after a point, for the fact that I was deeply focused on the product-side of things and wanted to ensure that what we were provided focused on value instead of talking about blockchain. This sort of attitude is exactly what would see my ultimate bowing out of the business as an advisor.
Initially, I was bitter. I was the one who had gotten everyone into blockchain, was the first to jump ship on my job, had closed all of our paying business. This bitterness would, for a period, preclude me from stepping up as a good advisor to the business and assist with partnerships, strategy, investing, etc… but eventually, I realized that exiting the business was for the better.
You simply can’t have that much dissent between founders when you’re trying to pursue a vision. Sure, there can be pivots, but you’ve got to all be in on it. If not everyone is aligned, you’re going to have communication issues which will devolve into arguments and toxic engagements. These will wear away at morale, trust, camaraderie, etc…
I skimmed over a lot in this post, but I want to stress that creating a business is like raising a child; and the emotional turmoil one goes through whilst rearing said child can be immense. To eventually separate yourself is one of the hardest things you can do.
So, there I was. Less than a year after quitting my job to pursue my dream and I was once again, one the sidelines of life, aimless.
