Common Founder Issue
Persistence (otherwise known as “just sticking around”) is a mandatory characteristic of startup founders. Part of “sticking around” is the motivation behind it. I’ve found that the most successful startup founders have just a few common reasons for sticking it out. One common reason is the strong belief that their idea needs to exist in the world and effect many people. Another is that some people just need to control their own destiny. This burning desire is so strong that they have no choice but to start something themselves. A third reason (which is related to the first one) is founders who just want to serve customers. Regardless of the reason - and the point of this blog post - is that embracing the process of a startup is key to success.

In the early days startups don’t look like a business…they look more like simple ideas or projects. At this point in the journey all you really have is faith in your abilities and hope that it will work out. This is extremely difficult for some people and the ones that persist often embrace the difficulties of the startup journey. As the YC partner in this podcast says, “you have to love startups for the process of doing a startup…you have to enjoy the free fall…and loving the process actually increases your success rate."

(BTW motivations like fame and money are terrible reasons to do a startup. There are much more direct paths to those goals than a 18-24 month startup slog with a low probability of success.)

Context
At this point in the podcast, Aaron and Qasar are discussing how to separate out a “business” from a startup idea at the very beginning. The very beginning isn’t a business and the process is very difficult…which is why the success rate is so low.

Get Right To The Point
To get right to the point go to minute 22:24 of this podcast.

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Thanks to these folks for helping us all learn faster
Y Combinator (@ycombinator)
Paul Graham (@paulg) of YC (@ycombinator)
Qasar Younis (@Qasar), partner and COO of (@ycombinator)
Aaron Harris (@harris) of YC (@ycombinator)
WhartonBusinessRadio (@BizRadio111)

Please let me and others know what you think about this topic
Email me privately at dave@switchyards.com or let's discuss publicly at @davempayne.