What Does It Feel Like To Be The CEO Of A Startup?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2012/06/06/what-does-it-feel-like-to-be-the-ceo-of-a-startup/

by paulitex • 14 years ago

13 4 14 years ago

forbes.com

mrkmcknz• 14 years ago

IMHO the response here is a much more accurate description:

http://siberianfruit.com/post/24290966995/startup-ceos-stop-...

yoseph• 14 years ago

Disagree. Love what I do but it's not all puppies and lollipops. Things can (and do) go wrong on a regular basis and you have to learn how to deal with that reality.

asanwal• 14 years ago

This is really well-written, but I guess I don't understand why there is so much discussion of this topic.

Like most things in life, startups have good moments & bad ones. I co-founded a tech company and there are sleepless night as alluded to in this post (when the hardware fails or we have a big customer pitch) and then there are awesome moments like when we find someone amazing to join the team or we kick Dow Jones' ass (one of our competitors). And ultimately, I guess I'll keep doing this as long as the good moments outweigh the bad ones.

But there seems to be a constant barrage of articles from startup founders romanticizing the process of starting up or which just seem to be full of angst and which try to highlight how hard founder lives are and how we struggle against all odds to make it against powers that be (whatever they are).

Perhaps its cathartic to write all this stuff, but based on the articles and comments I read about how hard it is to get financing, how investors might screw you, how hard it is to hire, how hard it is to gain customers and then ultimately how terrible it is to be acquired (that was a new one from yday), it just seems we founders (or some of us) waste a lot of time navel-gazing vs. just building our business and getting out of startup phase (which is what I imagine we all want to do).

So I guess I am genuinely curious what is the benefit of these posts?

</rant>

mattquinn• 14 years ago

As if this speaks for all start-ups. Look, if you don't value time away from business or if you ascribe significant meaning to the results of an A/B test, you should sit down and think very hard about the world around you.

With regard to this specific article: this guy needs to realize that there's many, many fascinating aspects of life outside of the data entry business.

What Does It Feel Like To Be The CEO Of A Startup?

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