The Truth about a Failing Startup

A CEO of a company I worked for once told me that the best thing to do here is realize the end is near and do everything to save some of the money from going down the drain early so you can return something to the investors. This will get you more respect than just waiting hopelessly for the bottom to fall out and losing everything. They may respect your effort and invest in you again, or at minimum protect your reputation enough to stay in their network (useful for getting a day job afterwards).

Once your startup actually fails and is behind you, here's the surprise:

You will feel an immense sense of freedom and lightness.

It's pretty obvious why: a weight is about to be lifted from your shoulder. Where your path was a narrow funnel leading to one specific destination, you will now have the infinity of all possible and reachable paths ahead of you. You couldn't do anything but worry about the startup - now you can do anything you want.

The end of a start feels very dramatic before it happens, but once it's done, you will feel a whole lot better. Trust me.

My company has a really good chance of succeeding, but I still face these doubts every day. Here are some of the things that make the game worth the candle for me, even if we end up failing:

  * I'm proud of the product we've built. Even if it doesn't take off,
    nobody can take that away from me.

  * I'm incredibly proud of my engineering team. We're "a bunch of kids"
    who've built something incredible. Even if the company ultimately
    doesn't survive, we will have done really well.

  * I love my work and I love the people I work with. There are
    conflicts, sometimes I have to deliver bad news, deal with stress
    and monotonous work, firefight problems, etc. but in aggregate the
    work I do and the people I do it with bring me joy. I will always
    remember this time fondly.

  * When I started, I was a good engineer and a terrible product
    manager. Now I'm a good engineer and a good product manager, which
    makes me 100x more valuable. There is a bazillion other things I've
    learned, but this alone makes everything worthwhile.

  * Facing doubt every day made me face the darkest corners of my
    soul. I stopped being an obnoxious cynical windbag and started
    appreciating the nuances of life, people, art, poetry, strength of
    human spirit and true magnitude of human dignity.

  * We're taking a real shot at building hard, sustainable technology
    that has a good chance to change the world. Even if we fail, I'll
    never regret taking the chance.

  * I met hundreds of people on my path. I dismissed some of them, but
    in retrospect I've learned from them all. I appreciate humanity a
    lot more now, and I understand where the dark parts of it come from
    much better.

  * Perspective is worth 80 IQ points. If you start a company you gain a
    lot of perspective.

I could keep going, but I hope I've made my point. I'm not trying to sugar-coat anything -- failing may very well be the worst thing you've ever experienced emotionally to date. But keep everything in perspective and don't get cynical. You might still change the world in a big way. You might still change it in a small way. It doesn't matter. Enjoy the people around you. Get into adventures. Try to do something meaningful. Do the best you can -- things may not turn out how you wanted them to, but they'll probably turn out ok.

get up start and start working. be optimistic . FTW

You failed, it sucks and it wasn't your fault.

Investors saw an opportunity the same way you saw one, that's their game, its a numbers game for them. They invest in lots of promises, they win some, loose more but the wins cover the losses so don't worry about them.

You did your best and that's all that matters; the rest was beyond your control.

People fail like you every single day. In fact, almost every successful entrepreneur has a CV of failure much longer than you would have guessed, but no one ever talks about these failures; by the time they hit their big win, the failures are long forgotten.

Only the successes ever make it to TechCrunch and hardly anyone ever gets there on their first try.

So stop beating yourself up; get up, dust-off your shoulders and get to work on your next gig. When you reflect on this experience as you work on your next startup, you'll be able to see just how much you've learnt from this failure and maybe even be able to appreciate it.

Keep tossing the coin and your win, your success, will come soon. You haven't failed until you quit.

Best of luck.