Been too busy to be reading much but caught these two PD articles that I like – I always find people to have a warped view of what a startup is or their role in it. I also find it funny when people think after a year or even two of a startup that started at zero is not bigger than it is. Sure – we all wish we could have worked at or created Instagram or Snapchat or you name some other amazingly fast, well funded started up that is suddenly worth a ton of zeros. My hat is off to you if you made or worked at one of these but let’s be honest – this is NOT the norm. The norm for us mere mortals is to doggedly work on something over many years to see it grow into something that makes money, is big enough to withstand the toils of the free market and is hopefully fun, engaging to work at. Executional prowess over time is not easy and is not going to give you the glory over night. It is just that simple.
So this post by Sarah was spot on for me:
In exchange for all of that, you get to help build something. You will likely have more fun than working at other companies. You have the chance to get rich– no matter how slim that chance is. And you have the opportunity to have more responsibility and professional growth than you might on a typical career tract.
So basic but yet so true. You could go for the bigger paycheck, the sure thing, and the proven company but you won’t get the rocket ship ride and the chance to take something from nothing to hopefully something a lot bigger. For me that is the prize.
Lots of other nuggets in that article.
Then Bryan Goldberg writes this:
A real entrepreneur needs to prepare himself for a marathon, and stop thinking of everything as a sprint. You don’t want to be the next Viddy, you want to be the next Tumblr or Bleacher Report, and those types of companies take time to build. So when an investor begins to piss his pants over last month’s traffic, or tries to delay a term sheet to see how next week’s unique visitors look… tell him to take a chill pill. Or, better yet, move on to a new investor.
Smart money can see through temporary traffic — and just because you are pitching a VC, that does not mean that you are sitting face-to-face with smart money.
I am a stats junkie. We have quite the ever evolving dashboard at Spuul and I check it a lot. Maybe too much but that’s because I am bonded to this living, breathing organism called a product and I love to see the user signups, the payments, the consumption, the countries and the issues. I thrive on it. However I always have to caution myself to look at the month to month – not the day to day (unless we rolled something out or have an issue) – real long term success will be growing active users, subscriptions and consumption month over month. That is really all that matters. So it is key to sort your metrics and focus on that ones that matter.
Two great reads, one summarizing blogpost, and another great day ahead!
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