Hard Startups

There are different paths to success in the building of a startup, and it’s important to choose the one that aligns with your goals and values. Do you want to build the biggest business possible, or do you want to build a business you’re proud of and want to continue working at?

We all know “startups are hard,” but I think we tend to imagine that this difficulty is bounded, contained, modelable, a bit like running a marathon: yes, legs and lungs hurt, but that’s normal and appropriate, and we know the route, the distance, and that there’s a finish line. This is a kind of difficulty we can contend with without losing oursel... See more

Andreessen and Horowitz argued that,

“It is just as hard to start a small boutique thing that means nothing in the world and build it as it is to build a world dominating monster. It's no more work to do the latter, so we were never interested in anything but the latter.”

What I Wish Someone Had Told Me

1. Optimism, obsession, self-belief, raw horsepower and personal connections are how things get started.


2. Cohesive teams, the right combination of calmness and urgency, and unreasonable commitment are how things get finished. Long-term orientation is in short supply; try not to worry about what people think in the short t

... See more

A startup miracle is the key difficult thing you need to pull off for your startup to work. If your startup requires zero miracles to succeed, it probably isn't a defensible startup. If your startup requires multiple miracles, you are multiplying a low probability event to get even smaller expected outcomes.