Never regretted not striking out on my own, but I suspect people who have the cojones to try, would utterly hate not having tried.
It's not symmetric.
Raising money fucked me up
81–90 of 147 posts
Re: Raising money fucked me up
#82> It's much more comfortable to be the person that "could be X" than to be the person that tries to actually do it. Brilliant insight. Reminds of me this, from Theodore Roosevelt's Citizenship in a Republic: > It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose…
Yeah but the US presidents would say that - they typically have track records of wanton destruction that are rather easy to criticise. It is notable that Roosevelt was part of a generation of global political leadership that bungled their way into first an economic then a literal bloodbath, the magnitude of which the world has not seen before or since. And US policies had a major hand in setting up 50 years of communist ascendance across a big chunk of the globe. I think he might have nuked two cities on the way through too, don't recall if it was him [EDIT].
If those were events I was involved with, I too would be giving powerful speeches about the importance of disregarding critics. The decision makers only handled the situation well if you assume that the catastrophe of the early part of the century was a bit like weather, sort of coming form nowhere in a way no-one could foresee or really influence.
[EDIT] I checked, he set the program up but it was his successor that actually dropped the bombs. If Truman had any sense he'd also be talking about the importance of disregarding critics.
Re: Raising money fucked me up
#83> It's much more comfortable to be the person that "could be X" than to be the person that tries to actually do it. Brilliant insight. Reminds of me this, from Theodore Roosevelt's Citizenship in a Republic: > It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose…
Yeah but the US presidents would say that - they typically have track records of wanton destruction that are rather easy to criticise. It is notable that Roosevelt was part of a generation of global political leadership that bungled their way into first an economic then a literal bloodbath, the magnitude of which the world has not seen before or since. And US policies had a major hand in setting up 50 years of commun…
Are you thinking of FDR? Theodore Roosevelt was long before nukes.
Re: Raising money fucked me up
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah but the US presidents would say that - they typically have track records of wanton destruction that are rather easy to criticise. It is notable that Roosevelt was part of a generation of global political leadership that bungled their way into first an economic then a literal bloodbath, the magnitude of which the world has not seen before or since. And US policies had a major hand in setting up 50 years of commun…
Are you thinking of FDR? Theodore Roosevelt was long before nukes.
Oh yes, sorry. I was thinking FDR when I wrote the comment - but happily I can leave it unchanged since the same complaint applies to Theodore Roosevelt as well with only some minor tweaks. They weren't as bad as the Europeans, but the quality of the US leadership was not good given what they teed up in the early 20th century.
It is similar to the Bush family, but from an era where the internet wasn't around to let people compare notes. These political dynasties deserve criticism and should listen to it.
Re: Raising money fucked me up
#85> It's much more comfortable to be the person that "could be X" than to be the person that tries to actually do it. Brilliant insight. Reminds of me this, from Theodore Roosevelt's Citizenship in a Republic: > It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose…
Yeah but the US presidents would say that - they typically have track records of wanton destruction that are rather easy to criticise. It is notable that Roosevelt was part of a generation of global political leadership that bungled their way into first an economic then a literal bloodbath, the magnitude of which the world has not seen before or since. And US policies had a major hand in setting up 50 years of commun…
A) wrong Roosevelt
B) there's no way for the US to not get involved in WW2 other than pre emptive handover of the Philippines to Japan.
Re: Raising money fucked me up
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah but the US presidents would say that - they typically have track records of wanton destruction that are rather easy to criticise. It is notable that Roosevelt was part of a generation of global political leadership that bungled their way into first an economic then a literal bloodbath, the magnitude of which the world has not seen before or since. And US policies had a major hand in setting up 50 years of commun…
A) wrong Roosevelt B) there's no way for the US to not get involved in WW2 other than pre emptive handover of the Philippines to Japan.
There is a lovely synthesis of A and B though - looking at the Wikipedia page for the right Roosevelt, he was involved in the Philippine–American War where they occupied the Philippines in the first place (or pacified, if you prefer, I suppose they'd probably already occupied the place in advance of the war). So if you're complaining about the Japanese conquering the Philippines you'd have to agree that Teddy Roosevelt deserved some criticism for also doing exactly that?
The criticism basically writes itself. These people are very easy to criticise, they were mostly horrible. Just saying, it is easy to see why there are speeches around about how the critics ought be discounted. The track record invites harsh criticism.
Re: Raising money fucked me up
#87> As I dug deeper into these feelings, I realized I was feeling pressured. Except they're not saying this, I am.
That's a great insight.
Once you've realized that, I think the best thing to do is to talk to the person whose pressure you imagine. Then you can find out what they're really thinking. Perhaps they really are thinking that (in which case the pressure is real and you can act on it) or they aren't (hearing them say that will alleviate the pressure).
Once when freelancing I asked a customer what they liked and disliked about my work. They had previously seemed happy with me, so I was pretty sure I know what they'd say. I believed I wrote good stable software. What they actually said was they were a small company, and they had had previous developers who, when there were server problems etc., just shrugged and said they didn't know how to fix it. They felt I wasn't like that, that I'd sit there and get it fixed, call up friends if necessary, etc. So yeah, they were happy, but not for the reason I'd imagined.
So my learning was: So you always have to talk to people to find out what they think. You really can't guess.
Re: Raising money fucked me up
#88This hit close to home..!
I had a startup some years ago and took angel funding from family. When we were later running out of cash and had to raise professional money to stay alive, the pressure of the expectations I thought my family had because I was on the verge of losing their money caused me debilitating panic attacks.
I still feel the effects 6 years later, but have learned to cope whenever I feel the pressure begin to build. But man did it scar.
OP if there is any advice I can give, it's that you should have a chat with your investor friends about and make sure you feel like you can always walk away.
Re: Raising money fucked me up
#89This is absurd! The author raised money without a concrete execution plan, treating capital as permission to “think,” and then panicked when thinking alone didn’t magically turn into value. The post implies there was no wedge, no market insight, not even a search strategy... just the weird hypothesis that people say 'I fit the founder profile, therefore I should found something' It frames the absence of structure as…
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Re: Raising money fucked me up
#90This is absurd! The author raised money without a concrete execution plan, treating capital as permission to “think,” and then panicked when thinking alone didn’t magically turn into value. The post implies there was no wedge, no market insight, not even a search strategy... just the weird hypothesis that people say 'I fit the founder profile, therefore I should found something' It frames the absence of structure as…
I dont want to dump on the founder here. I appreciate their guts for saying the uncomfy part out loud and being so honest, open and aware of their own thoughts. Major kudos in my book. But dont quit without a quit criteria - a problem, customer conversations, recurring problem insight. Fuck the VCs that say just do it, its advice for rich kids not people who worry about finances running out. Given that this author worked at Posthog, it probably means they lived in London and got paid a decent salary but not a good one. eg Posthog lists their comp at 120k pounds with equity (that thing doesnt have liquidity yet). Thats not a top of the line offer in London where Meta / Goog and others would beat it. Once you have say 100k pounds saved up and mortgage for the next 2 years, maybe then you can think of bootstrapping without an insight. Until then, Leetcode, promotions, better offers are your ticket out of a middle class life. VCs wont show up with more money if and when you're hungry.