The only startup founders I've known (and we didn't call them that in the late 80's early 90's) fall into two categories: those who want to get rich and don't care about the product, and those who really believe in their product (and hope that it makes them rich, but that's not the primary objective). I'm not sure if there is a third type, if there is I have not met them.
The most successful people I know fell into category two, and all struggled for more than a decade each and had multiple mentors, but ultimately took out loans (from banks, friends, etc) that weren't based on owning shares; none relied on VC. None of them are billionaires, but they are solid decimillionaires (if that's even a word) whose businesses practically run on autopilot.
I think the author makes excellent points that I thought were common sense but I guess they are not, however I don't know a lot of techie entrepreneurs anymore, they are all much younger than me (mid-50s). All I know about younger startup folks is based on scanning HN for the past decade, but it seems they are all chasing the brass ring the same way the author describes. And the truth is in the numbers.
[Founders] need to ask themselves, and be honest about, is: do you want to be rich, or do you want to be king? Because very very very rarely can you be both.
Some founders legitimately care less about money than about ensuring that their business stays in alignment with their long-term vision/mission. They certainly want to be successful, but a removal from the leadership position in their company would, in their mind, mean personal failure, no matter how much gold they can expect to line their pockets with.
There area bunch of other amazing articles on the same website about the truth behind VC forces.
The most successful might be from category two, but what is the denominator? How many with that attitude failed? I suspect category one has significantly higher survival, probably close to 100%.
I think it depends on what you count as "survival".
Group 1's long-term success/survival is contingent on timely exits and timely access to future funding, which historically (i.e. during all times + places, except 2008-2021 in SV) is a pretty volatile commodity. Group 2 develops fairly portable skills that they can "sell" to the market whenever they want to give up on building by themselves. They can compound in a way that's uncorrelated from LPs' appetites for risky allocations.
It's like comparing a firecracker and a candle. Although they both depend on combustion, the goals of the two groups are almost disjoint.
The most successful people I know fell into category two, and all struggled for more than a decade each and had multiple mentors, but ultimately took out loans (from banks, friends, etc) that weren't based on owning shares; none relied on VC. None of them are billionaires, but they are solid decimillionaires (if that's even a word) whose businesses practically run on autopilot.
I think the author makes excellent points that I thought were common sense but I guess they are not, however I don't know a lot of techie entrepreneurs anymore, they are all much younger than me (mid-50s). All I know about younger startup folks is based on scanning HN for the past decade, but it seems they are all chasing the brass ring the same way the author describes. And the truth is in the numbers.