Yes, of course “Startups Are Hard.” BUT…
Success/Fail Rates are NOT some unchangeable “Natural Law of Entrepreneurship!” We CAN improve…
STATUS QUO BIAS — A cognitive bias that explains our preference for familiarity… to resist change and prefer the current state of affairs
[definition from PsychologyToday.com]
BUT, the content/concepts are GREAT!
(if we do say so ourselves?)
OF COURSE…
“Startups Are Hard.”
— *BUT* — there are things we can do to dramatically improve the current success/fail rates (and/or the degree of devastation experienced by failed founders) if we start thinking (and re-thinking?) more strategically and identifying / addressing the most common Problems & Pitfalls — particularly for YOUNG and/or FIRST-TIME Entrepreneurs…
Because simply following the same paths and repeating the same approaches of countless Startups/Founders for whom those paths/approaches have consistently resulted in ~99% failure (but yet somehow (magically?) hoping for suddenly different/better results!?) sounds pretty close to Einstein’s(?) definition of INSANITY…
And yet, if we take a macro view of the Startup Community — it is a dumbfounding realization that we’re seeing today’s Startups/Founders failing at the exact same rate (and for many/most of the exact same reasons!) as Startups/Founders 5 years ago! (which failed at the same rate, for the same reasons, as Startups/Founders 10 years ago!).
— And we, as a Startup Community, are doing nothing (or, at least not enough that’s new and different) to break the cycle!
#ItsGroundHogDay
It’s as if we’re perfectly content to celebrate the ~1% success stories while dismissively sweeping the rest under the rug… (as collateral damages? that are simply inevitable? unavoidable?)
#StatusQuoBias
A Few Key Factors — Contributing to a Ubiquitous Lack of Awareness of #StatusQuoBias Issues:
1a) Most people have a very skewed perception of how many startups/entrepreneurs are truly struggling/failing — AND what the most common causes are…
BECAUSE:
1b) Startups Tend to Succeed Loudly & Publicly but Fail Silently & Privately — particularly Early Stage / Idea Stage, and ESPECIALLY Pre-Revenue and/or Pre-Funding!
THEREFORE:
1c) It becomes very difficult to improve a situation when most people don’t even realize the severity of the situation or just how repetitive and predictable the underlying causes are!
ONE WAY TO LOOK AT IT:
“Yeah, that sucks… But startups are HARD, so those mistakes/pitfalls/failures are destined to keep happening to new entrepreneurs each year. That’s just how it is.”
OR… PERHAPS…
…we could maybe try to identify some of the most Persistently Pervasive PROBLEMS and PITFALLS and maybe implement some improvement initiatives (within existing startup communities?) that maybe try to educate/warn aspiring entrepreneurs (the ones who are humble enough / open-minded enough to listen!) about the hazards ahead — or the proverbial piano that’s about to fall on their head — rather than just standing by and watching them walk into the inevitable disasters we‘ve seen happen countless times before…?!?
Yes, of course we all like to say:
“I learned more from my failures than I did from my successes”
“It’s not about how many times you get knocked down, it’s how many times you get back up”
“Live and learn… Nobody said it would be easy… Hardship helps us grow… It’s always darkest before the dawn… blah blah blah”
But, let’s be honest… that’s some “HAPPY-HORSESHIT HINDSIGHT!”
If you were given a time machine and the ability to learn all those same lessons WITHOUT the failures and WITHOUT the avoidable mistakes and WITHOUT repeatedly getting knocked down — because those who had “been there, done that” were willing to guide you based on a community’s collection/analysis of enough first-hand experiences, second-hand observations, and retrospective realizations to see all the same patterns (all the same Mistakes & Missteps, all the same Problems & Pitfalls) experienced by new entrepreneurs year after year after year — Wouldn’t the vast majority of us choose to just learn all those lessons faster, more efficiently, WITHOUT all the failures, mistakes, knockdowns, and distress?!?
“If only I had known then what I know now…”
I’ve said that…
…and many of YOU have said that...
…and I GUARANTEE that, one day in the future, many young entrepreneurs of today and tomorrow will also be saying “If only I had known then what I know now…”
SPOILER ALERT: To the more experienced entrepreneurs out there (particularly the more self-aware, observant, insightful, analytical entrepreneurs), many of us DO currently know many of the things that these young entrepreneurs will one day be lamenting “If only I had known then…”
Or is failure really THAT MUCH a “rite of passage” that the more experienced, most insightful members of the startup community should literally hold back our collective knowledge/experience/wisdom to force young entrepreneurs to learn it the hard way on their own?!? (Why? Just because that’s how WE had to do it??)
IN CONCLUSION…
It will likely be a bit disorganized initially, but please contact us here if you might be interested in working with us — or at least discussing/debating some of this! — particularly:
A) experienced entrepreneurs who share any of our thoughts
B) young/aspiring entrepreneurs interested in “Learning While Launching?”
C) anyone/everyone in between – even those who may have never even thought of themselves as an entrepreneur before! — who just want to work on some cool sh*t!
