What They Don't Tell You About Starting a Startup

As women forget the pain of childbirth once they hold their babies in their arms, so it is with startups. New life is awkward, messy, and painful. The antidote and the amnesia for startup pain is the creation of a product or service that people like enough to pay for.

Hi all, I wrote that article because I'm experiencing few things that I wanted to share. I'm working on starting a startup, handling all marriage and day job responsibilities. I find it very challenging, but I still push myself because it's my character flaw - that I want to start a startup. To make this happen, I'm also looking for building a founding team. For that, I'm talking to few people who shared their interest of starting a startup.<p>Whenever I talk to some young professional, the most common observation I have seen is - almost everyone wants to start a startup, literally almost everyone. But the fact is - they just don't know what it takes to make it work -- the insane hard work at initial stages. They just talk about success stories, but when it comes to put the time and build stuff, they disappear. And that's how I got inspired to share this thought on my blog.<p>I am not saying we should take that advice seriously and stop working on our dreams. That advice was more for those people who "think" they want to start a startup, but probably don't understand the reality to make it happen.<p>-Aditya (Adeologue.com)

Why does it have to be painful? Maybe he's just doing it wrong.

W. Edwards Deming observed "Nothing happens without personal transformation."<p>I think it's this personal transformation that's one of the hardest things about a startup. You start out wanting to change the world and end up at 3AM wondering what's gone wrong and realizing that it's you has to change first.<p>Barry Moltz wrote a great book "You Have To Be A Little Crazy" that addresses the emotional roller coaster that every entrepreneur faces, observing "Entrepreneurs start businesses because..they have no choice. Passion and energy drive them on good days and sustain them on bad days." Some references follow:<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/You-Need-Be-Little-Crazy/dp/079318018X/" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/You-Need-Be-Little-Crazy/dp/079318018X...</a><p><a href="http://www.barrymoltz.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.barrymoltz.com/</a><p><a href="http://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2006/12/27/you-need-to-be-a-little-crazy/" rel="nofollow">http://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2006/12/27/you-need-to-be-a-lit...</a>

No one could've said it better than this. Read the following ...<p>"I’ve often told people that this thing [startup] is worse than heroin. I’ve also told people that I think I’ve proved that entrepreneurism is deep in my soul. I’ve been away, but inexorably I come back. It started when I was younger than ten – I can recall the emotions such ideas generated then, and I know I still work the same way."<p><a href="http://foundread.com/2008/04/18/why-you-must-embrace-rejection-to-succeed/#comment-7582" rel="nofollow">http://foundread.com/2008/04/18/why-you-must-embrace-rejecti...</a>

What if you are doing it the second time around, and are already rich from the first time? Is it still painful, and will people still spend as much time on it? Somehow I can not imagine they would. Seems to me the first time is painful because of the pressure: financial worries, the worry to be a failure in life, stuff like that. Would not be so much the case if you already made it?<p>Also, isn't it amusing how such links are inevitable called "what they don't tell you about..." rather than simply "It is painful to do a startup"?

Yes, more advice from people that failed at least a few times instead of know-it-alls who think their anecdote is the huge secret to success.

The other thing they don't tell you is that you can fail. And that it hurts when you do.

Entrepreneurship is about not caring what anyone else is or is not "telling you".

Top startup tip: Never take advice from someone who doesn't know the difference between "advice" and "advise."