What’s it really like to be a startup founder?
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Today’s question comes from Tom. What are some things you hate about being a startup founder? What should new founders be aware of to get a real picture of what startup life is like or how the things you hate change as it grows?
In the beginning
The thing I hated in the beginning was being alone. When you first start your company it’s usually just you and a co-founder and the feeling of loneliness is real. If you’re having a hard time it’s challenging to go talk to others about it, so often founders won’t even go to networking events. Some of the products we put together, such as the Facebook group, is so that founders don’t have to feel so lonely.
When it’s growing
As our company started to grow and we had a handful of employees, I really hated accounting. I didn’t like having to manage the cash flow for everything. I wanted to do the work of sales and marketing but I didn’t want to manage the outcome of those things, such as accounts payable, invoices, and payroll.
Once you scale up to a certain point, you have to give up some of the things that you held tightly to in the beginning, you will stagnate your growth that way. You can grow into liking operations, but in the beginning I really didn’t like it.
When it’s big(ger)
After we hired an accounting firm and some of the operations stuff was able to come off of my plate, I had to take on new aspects of the business that were out of my comfort zone. For example, last year we went through a big round of layoffs because we hadn’t put enough thought into the culture of the organization. And I’ve had to focus a lot more on HR and culture, which has been hard for me.
Being a startup founder is challenging. And it’s challenging at every stage of your business, the challenges just change. Nothing as a startup founder is easy. The best startup founders are rational optimists — you are hopeful things will go well but you are rational in understanding how to plan for the worst along the way.
“Once you scale up to a certain point, you have to give up some of the things that you held tightly to in the beginning.”
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