Because when you were doing anything else, you were thinking about it. You do it because you couldn’t stop yourself. Startups are not something you do to make ends meet or a “necessary evil” en route to what you “really” want to do.Ī startups is an obsession. “Barista” is one of many necessary means to ends, where the “ends” are the basic human needs, followed by creating art.Ī startup founder lacks this distinction between personal identity and work identity, and this is the key to the “sale-blues” phenomonon and other behavior.Ī startup is the founder’s personal identity. No, she’s an artist because that’s what she really is. Is she a barista because she pours coffee for money? Is she a driver because she drives a car to work? Is she a maid because she cleans her apartment? If you ask her, “What do you do for a living?” She would answer: “I’m a barista, but that’s just my day job. If you ask her, “Who are you?” She would answer: “I’m an artist.” The answer is important and fundamental for all startup founders, whether or not they ever intend to sell their company. “What the fuck?” I thought, “Why am I feeling this? I’m supposed to be feel… happy? I guess? Something other than this.”Īlmost all startup founders experience a deep and prolonged sadness after selling their company, even when the sale is an outrageous success. Not depression - not hopeless or rudderless - but a pure sadness, when your lungs sink into your belly, the punch-in-the-stomach of discovering your dog was hit by a car or that your dad is terminally ill. The 73rd page spat out confirming the successful transfer of the previous 72.Ī profound sadness. The scrounging and scrabbling and begging and fighting the assholes for those morsels of revenue, those crumbs of validation. The inner doubt suppressed for the morale of the team. The experience you get just after you need it. The hard lessons you have to recover from learning. ![]() The care and feeding of becoming an expert in something. All those sleepless nights worried about making payroll. ![]() The self-inflicted unflagging optimism despite no evidence to support it. This is what the last six years were all for. My fingers trembled as I fed page 34 of 72 into the fax machine, deftly pressing the head of each page into its creaky jaws so that this shitty cheap-o machine wouldn’t snag two pages at once, slantways, obscuring the precious scribblings adorning the footer of each page where it read: “Seller’s Initials: _”. Startup identity & the sadness of a successful exit A stranger they will by no means follow but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers.” Jesus spoke this comparison to them but they did not know what the things meant that he was speaking to them." John 10:1-6 When he has got all his own out, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, because they know his voice. The doorkeeper opens to this one, and the sheep listen to his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. But he that enters through the door is shepherd of the sheep. ![]() "Most truly I say to YOU, He that does not enter into the sheepfold through the door but climbs up some other place, that one is a thief and a plunderer. They are so lenient and never know that their reply to such text is the first step into immorality. Some are lured off by the "Voice of the Strangers" and become victims. ![]() Here in the Philippines which is considered the Text Capital of Asia, it is common to receive such message. Have you received a message that says: "Can I be your Textmate?" Now even if you locked all your Doors and Windows, the strangers can penetrate your homes thru the airwaves of your Cellphone. You already double locked all the doors and windows of your house, so there is no stranger can enter your house.
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