No glam in the startup camp.
Approximately 1 year ago, I met a friend over coffee at Starbucks to catch up. He knew that I had started out on my own in 2016. Amongst other things, he asked me, “how do you cope with the stress of cash flow (or the lack of)?”.
“It takes a bit of time to condition yourself psychologically but after awhile you just get used to it.”
On hindsight, I realised that this simple answer doesn’t say enough about what most founders have to go through on a day to day basis. The media frequently sensationalizes entrepreneurs, start ups and new funds that are coming to the market. And a handful of friends and acquaintances that I’ve met at countless meetings and conferences often tell me:
"Wow! So good, you must be doing well! Running your own business!”
Don’t get me wrong, I am not a pessimist. I am at worst, a hard-core realist. I like to say, “If I can’t see a dotted line to the end goal, I probably won't do it”. This goes against the conventional wisdom in which most start-ups don't really follow a fixed trajectory in the development stage of their businesses. The model is constantly evolving and the reality is that many founders often do not end up at where they had initially set out to be - which may not necessarily be a bad thing.
But running a business takes a lot of work. More than what you can imagine and think.
You think working for a boss is tough? Go start a business, be your own boss, work for everyone - clients, suppliers, partners, employees, vendors, etc. Want to make a million bucks before 40? Climb the corporate ladder in an MNC or work in a large investment bank. Even if you don't get to the top, we still can live a very good life. A lot of people don't realise that just diligently being an employee allows you to cover your bills comfortably and very possibly, fund the purchase of your second property, pay for trips to Europe, Japan or any other vacation destination of your choice. Want to turn your life upside down? Go start a business. Burn a lot of cash. Meet nasty people. Open your eyes up to a whole new world.
Bottom line, starting up isn't for everyone.
On top of maintaining sanity, founders deal with the day to day chores of hiring, accounting, invoicing, designing websites, collaterals and many countless miscellaneous things. If you can afford to ignore the rapidly declining cash balance in the bank, it can be quite fun. You are literally building an enterprise from ground up. You get to decide on the corporate colors and fonts to use, the type of projects to take on, the types of products to sell, who you want to hire and/or work with. That said, you are also responsible for sales and overheads.
Pain that does not go away.
These days I wake up with a pain in my head that just does not go away. It is the nagging feeling of upcoming payments, bills, payroll, secretarial fees etc.
It’s really a struggle sometimes - to keep the lights on not only at work, but also at home.
Once you come to terms with this, you realise that all your
Whining
Griping
Dissatisfaction around puny year end bonuses
Annual leave days that you could not take
Overtime hours spent in the office and;
Countless weekends burned because of a working on a deal or RFP
just don’t matter. They really don't matter.
Rain, shine, bull market, bear market, pandemic or not, everyone who is employed in a full-time job gets a fixed pay-check at the end of the month.
The smartest people in the world are not the entrepreneur 'heroes' portrayed in the news, but those who have managed to stay in their jobs for the last 10-20 years, drawing pay-check month after month, surviving through the ups and downs of the economic cycles.
As Steve Schwarzman from Blackstone once said, “There are no brave old people in finance”. If you are doing well today, it is not because you had a billion dollar idea that can change the world, but because you were boring. You adapted well to the times and had a good handle of managing risk at every stage of your life and career.
In the toughest of times.
In the toughest of times like these, I remind myself of the various resources that one has.
Experience. You can acquire specific experiences and memories, depending on how much money you have.
Knowledge. You can get access to the pathways and platforms that offer knowledge. But there's no guarantee that it can be internalized.
Health is a 'depreciating' asset. You can attempt to prolong this "asset life" but it'll catch up with you eventually. Also, there are always some parts of your biological system that cannot be replaced.
Friends. You can acquire the means to make friends - at the workplace, meetings, gatherings and at school. But friends who have been around for many years and been through ups and downs together, cannot be substituted, especially those who have shared specific experiences and memories with you.
Family and time. There is no way that you will ever get back family and time.
After you lay them all out: money seems to be the one thing that can always be replaced - either immediately or at some point of time in the future. Not that it is a resource that is easy to acquire, but, money is just money.
To acquire the rest of everything else, you either have to nurture, build and develop them progressively, or earn them through heart-felt experiences. Or, sometimes, you just gotta make the best of it while it lasts.