You need some guts to start a startup. And you need it everyday.

This seems too obvious, I know. Without guts, you are a coward and you would be trembling even by the thoughts of starting up a company.
But in reality, many people don’t seriously consider their strength of mind or their guts when deciding to startup an organization, which will inevitably produce more stressful situations than they’ve ever dreamed encountering.

I was a financial trader in South Korea for roughly 7 years, so I experienced many mind crumbling afternoons when I wished I could run to a nearby bar right away and drink the fxxk out of myself and think about my next career the next morning. Sometimes I was crushed between the idea for another merciful chance of trading what little loss cut I had left, and the idea of getting fired quickly and getting the painful process out of the way and being free. When I was a junior trader, I once lost about 5 times my permitted daily loss cut in the beginning 7 seconds of the market, and when I realized what I have done, the world seemed to literally wave as if I was in a sinking boat. Some juniors are known to throw up in those situations.

But even as I matured as a trader, and even as I excelled at what I did, the almost unbearably stressful moments never ceased to surprise me. Many traders rely on medicines, and most traders know they can’t keep up with the pressure for more than 10 years. It’s somewhat like playing in professional sports. I enjoyed the pressure more than most traders, mostly because I arranged my circumstances so that I cannot be surprised anymore. I made hedges that almost completely hedged whatever contrarian situation that can be conceivable, though few people ever realized what I was doing. And I felt very comfortable earning money when others were losing. I was a natural contrarian, and tried to organize my life so that I could only be surprised to the upside. But still, the level of pressure was just so high.

I started a fin-tech firm last January in Seoul. The idea is to use the dynamic and high tech financial techniques that only a very few hedgefunds or traders provide to their wealthy customers, merge it with IT technology and provide it to the mass. The media calls it a robo-advisory service, but I don’t think robot is the key factor here. It is the idea that high performance can rarely be hacked, but medium level profit (3~10%) can be achieved in a much more financially engineered way, if done right. At least it can sort out most of the rip offs that large institutions try in a daily basis. It can also clarify what most financial retail customers really need — a reduction of risk relative to their attitude of risk. And the technology is really fit for restructuring the financial services sector.

Anyways, I had the chance to observe myself and many new startups in Seoul. Many fail in the process, and to me, a major reason why teams break down seems to be a lack of discipline, or strength of mind, or, guts. And since the South Korean government is pushing hard on the idea that the next wave of economic growth would come from a wave of young and creative entrepreneurs innovating their way into the World startup scene, many young students are starting up companies. I think this is a very timely and insightful idea, only that these young kids have really not much other options, because the unemployment rate is climbing quickly. I cannot agree that starting up businesses is a casual way of replacing employment, mainly because the inexperienced are not experienced enough to endure different pressures.

Hence I wish to alarm people on one aspect of doing business: the daily level of stress. The overall stress level is of course extreme. We all know of the high risk high return, no pain no gain lessons. But these stresses are not just outside factors that you can decide to endure. The way you interact and react to them, the strength of your guts, will ultimately lead to all sorts of outcomes. They are tightly interrelated. If you cannot manage an outburst while dealing with the daily harsh betrayals and let downs, you will show it to your colleagues, or you will accumulate the angst inside, and will go crazy one day. The co-founder you truly put faith into will someday start acting strange, disappoint you, and will be disappointed with you when you are disappointed at her, and the relationship will break apart quicker than you can handle it. Without guts, you will feel sick everyday, or at least every week. What doesn’t break your back will often make you stronger, but this is business we are talking, and people try to break your neck, or at least cheer when it does. And you need trained guts to react to them.

The amount of experience is the most important factor in maintaining your calm and knowing how to react in every situation. You do need guts to start acquiring that experience, but you need experience to have those guts to build a sustainable teamwork.

So, never underestimate experience. You should seek for building the character to lead a team, so go for the experience that will lead you to that. Seek experience in any way available. Don’t just start doing dangerous things. Experience anything, hack any circumstance to gain that useful XP, and don’t spend time building a seemingly beautiful career that doesn’t provide the right type of XP. That XP will lead you to the thick and heavy guts you need to face extreme front wind in the business world.

They say idea is worth nothing, or maybe worth 1/1000, and that the rest is execution. Well, execution comes from a mixture of talent and cool and clarity and grit and insight and strength and guts, which are all traits that must be learned, but especially guts. You must get slapped a hundred times to not be afraid of getting another slap. It’s just human nature, you can’t avoid being shocked in your first slap. When the time comes when you don’t blink an eye when someone swings their fist wide, you get a chance to quickly slap them in their surprise.

So, guts is not the ability to make a wild bet. That’s called a wild bet, and it has its own market. The guts you need is the daily strength to suck up all the miserable surprises and return a peaceful, trustful smile. If your eyes shake, everyone and you will know it. Junior traders are known to throw up in extreme cases, and businesses encounter more extreme cases. Make sure you are not the kind who throws up.