> How many founders find themselves in the situation where they need to find that one impossible solution that’ll get them out of the mess. Is it always like this?
I did found a company, and I feel like the daily job description was "get me out of this impossible mess". Every day it's something different, and very likely something that you've never experienced before. Often, the reasonable answer is that overcoming the issue is impossible, and shutting down is the right course of action. Many startups fail this way, and it's not because they aren't clever enough, just that there really is an impossible obstacle.
However, the ones that succeed generally find ways of getting around one obstacle after the next. Maybe they're super clever, maybe it's dumb luck, most of the time, it's impossible to know. However, having the mentality of taking a setback as a challenge can definitely help.
Small personal anecdote about this: when I first started my company, I relied heavily on getting Google traffic. Using best practices SEO, it kept building. But one day, Google traffic tanked around 10X. In literally 24 hours, I thought that would spell the end of my company.
But then I thought, it's ridiculous that I'm relying on Google (a third-party company that I have no control over) to send me potential customers. I should be more proactive and find them myself any way I can. I built email marketing campaigns, spent days on the phone, went to conferences, advertised... literally anything I could think of.
The google traffic tank hurt badly, but I eventually got over it. And as a result, I now have a far more robust company. Google traffic is now a nice plus for leads, but by no means necessary to keep the company growing.
The trick is to mentally transform "wholly crap, this is the end" to "okay, how do we get over this".
I did found a company, and I feel like the daily job description was "get me out of this impossible mess". Every day it's something different, and very likely something that you've never experienced before. Often, the reasonable answer is that overcoming the issue is impossible, and shutting down is the right course of action. Many startups fail this way, and it's not because they aren't clever enough, just that there really is an impossible obstacle.
However, the ones that succeed generally find ways of getting around one obstacle after the next. Maybe they're super clever, maybe it's dumb luck, most of the time, it's impossible to know. However, having the mentality of taking a setback as a challenge can definitely help.
Small personal anecdote about this: when I first started my company, I relied heavily on getting Google traffic. Using best practices SEO, it kept building. But one day, Google traffic tanked around 10X. In literally 24 hours, I thought that would spell the end of my company.
But then I thought, it's ridiculous that I'm relying on Google (a third-party company that I have no control over) to send me potential customers. I should be more proactive and find them myself any way I can. I built email marketing campaigns, spent days on the phone, went to conferences, advertised... literally anything I could think of.
The google traffic tank hurt badly, but I eventually got over it. And as a result, I now have a far more robust company. Google traffic is now a nice plus for leads, but by no means necessary to keep the company growing.
The trick is to mentally transform "wholly crap, this is the end" to "okay, how do we get over this".