The Startup Cycle What If

Meet John, he is a pretty smart guy, fresh out of college and is growing tired of working at his current job. He decides to start his own company with an idea he’s had for a few years now. He signs up for Codeacademy - teaches himself how to code and begins to make a website for his idea. He is a fast learner and finishes the website within a month. He decides to leave his job and rely on savings he has to focus on his idea. He sends his site to some of his friends, they love it, and very quickly, he has more people using his site than he could ever imagined. 

He takes some time to make some updates and make sure his server is able to handle all the traffic he has been receiving to his site. He then receives an email from a Techcrunch writer asking if they can interview him about his company. He excitedly agrees, and prepares for an “official launch.” He has a great interview with Techcrunch and a few days later the article hits coinciding with his official launch. 

He gets a rush of sign ups to his site, gets a couple more write ups from PandoDaily, TNW, even the normally critical Hacker News is singing praises. It seemed like everyone is writing about and talking about his company. He is more than excited. A week goes by and the sign ups keep rolling in. He then receives an email from Fred Wilson asking for a meeting. He prepares some information about his company, specifically highlighting the growth.

The meeting goes great and Fred wants to invest $2 million into his company. He is super excited. He goes out an hires a few more engineers and a week later he is really rolling. Next thing he knows Google emails him asking for a meeting. He learns from the meeting that they want to buy his company and he decides to sell for $8 million.

John did it, launched his own company and sold it. Poof! Just like that.

That’s how the startup cycle works right?

If it did, I don’t know if it would be any fun. The ups and downs and challenges are the fun part. My experience in starting a company has been nothing like John’s fake ass experience. If it were that easy, everyone would be doing it, although it seems a lot of people are trying. The taste of victory after a long battle is much sweeter than it would be after John’s cakewalk. When it’s all said and done and I tell our journey I know 100% it will be more interesting than John’s and that’s something I look forward to. Call me naive, but I love a good challenge and starting your own company is one of the toughest challenges I can think of.