Building a startup is exciting and amazing but we all know too well, the feeling of complete chaos and loss of control. Some days I wake up and feel like my world is flipped upside down. I look at the calendar and can’t even believe that we are already halfway into the year. I think I notice the time more now that I no longer get a direct deposit from an employer. Sometimes I wonder, ‘how many more wake-ups until I have to give up?’ Unfortunately, that’s the cold, hard, truth when it comes to bootstrapping a startup.
The other reality I’ve faced recently is something every entrepreneur talks about: the extreme highs and lows of being a startup founder. I never quite understood it until these past couple months. When I receive an email about a new signup, it’s all confetti and balloons in my mind until the following day when a Google alert comes through about a competitor announcing a new feature and all I can do is sit on my bedroom floor researching the news and press releases on my iPhone. A week later, I get featured in a popular publication and have thousands of views on the website in one day, and minutes after that, an invoice from my attorney reminds me that I’ve spent more in legal fees than I’ve made all year.
It’s a risk… a challenge… and it takes a certain kind of appreciation to keep moving at full speed even when it’s foggy and you can’t tell from here whether the road has a sharp curve, a giant hill or a dead end.
Oddly enough, uncertainty has become rather comforting.
