No one ever said it was easy, that’s for sure, and working on all sorts of interesting projects, working with startups, helping them define model, strategy, what have you has definitely shown me one thing that is pretty evident in the sphere of the start-up entrepreneur.
Cyclical, or better yet “Group Manic Depression”.
What I mean by this is that at any startup, there are….
the good times:
Hanging out with your co-founders over a beer,
talking about how your product can change the world,
augment experiences, initiate new behavior in people, so on and so forth
and the bad times:
You’re down in the dumps,
finding bugs that are virtually impossible to fix with your limited coding skills,
being rejected by venture capitalists (who by the way are lovely people, but sometimes miss the big picture, Google anyone),
permanently on the cusp of bankruptcy and …
racking up ridiculous credit card debt.
You float between the two, because the mania keeps you going, and the depression, keeps you in check, and the cycle repeats itself until that moment when you launch your product and lo’ and behold start getting users or clients, or both, and start getting in those first trickles of cash, that soon turn into clumps, and lumps, and then heaps of the green stuff, of course given your idea actually had mettle.
And the next thing you know, it’s rinse and repeat, because unfortunately entrepreneurship is a drug.
