The Struggle

http://bhorowitz.com/2012/06/15/the-struggle/

by ximeng • 14 years ago

58 16 14 years ago

hornbaker• 14 years ago

Discussion from June: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4113428

This was a good read, something that everyone -- every business person, entrepreneur, and ordinary Joe -- should hear or read in some form or another sometimes. So, what I'm about to say isn't directed at what he wrote, but at a somewhat larger attitude.

To over 90% of business owners, hearing someone describe "The Struggle" with problems like, "my venture capitalist said we'd have trouble raising funds this year" is ... I'm not honestly sure how to describe it. Some mixture of hilarity and deep, wretched, hopeless sadness.

A tremendous number of business owners don't have access to capital to grow their business, beyond what they can accumulate in credit and savings. Nor do many of them have a soft landing if their business falters; they rely on their business, every month, to make a living wage. They don't start worrying when Europe has a crisis, they start worrying when the local gas prices go up 20 cents overnight because they've seen first-hand what it does to their business.

They don't just have to deal with losing a loyal customer over the phone or email, they have to deal with an irate customer in person. How many startup founders do you think can handle that with grace and dignity?

One of my favorite business clients is a strong mother of 2 who runs a small boutique shop. Her industry has been hard hit by the economy. I was there working on her equipment one day when the last customer left and she spontaneously broke down in tears because it had been a tough day, a tough week, a tough and relentless Summer. She couldn't solve her business's problems by getting in front of a bunch of employees and giving them a pep talk; she had to solve it by getting up the next morning and sticking with it even when it looked hopeless.

Don't put it all on your shoulders? If you're a small business owner, what the hell else are you going to do? Nobody else is going to figure out where the next invoice is coming from. Nobody else is going to say, "That was my fault, not yours." You're responsible for all of it. Every single aspect.

Funding? I've never -- not once -- had anyone believe in me or my business enough to offer me money to make it bigger. Not even credit. Not even a loan. At some point you accept that this actually is your fault, that people have really good reasons for not wanting to support your business, despite the fact that you have built it from absolutely nothing, despite somehow managing to attract one or two really bright people, despite having hundreds of customers who love you to the extent that you no longer spend any money on marketing because your customers do a better job of telling other people about you than any marketing can.

But you keep going anyway.

Nothing in that piece was wrong, and I'm certainly not dismissing the challenges that CEOs of well-funded companies face. But, I sure wish that more people had more respect for small businesses, because if you really want to know how to handle The Struggle, go talk to a small business owner.

Regarding the checkers/chess game reference, there's an even better game to reference. It's the oldest continuously-played board game in the world, it was originally developed as a tool for teaching business, it takes minutes to learn and I think nobody has ever mastered it, it's a great way to develop intuition about when to be aggressive and when to be defensive, and it has a perfect balance of tactics and strategy: it's called Go. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_(game)

dools• 14 years ago

I felt the same way when I read the "startups are hard" post from jazzychad. I think he talks about taking a cruise in that?

The real lesson is just that things are only hard if you let them be hard. The good news there is that you can control how hard things are. You just need a bit of perspective on life.

I used to find things hard, then I started charging more, worked less, had 2 kids, moved to a beautiful seaside town and stopped caring about "success". Now I find things awesome, but I'm still broke :)

jodrellblank• 14 years ago

I'm certainly not dismissing the challenges that CEOs of well-funded companies face

Really? That sounds exactly what you're saying.

tl;dr "Your problems aren't bad because my list is worse and 'we' handle them with more 'grace and dignity' than you so there".

nodesocket• 14 years ago

I'm I the only one who loves the rap songs Ben always has on his posts? Lupe!

daniel-cussen2• 14 years ago

"Remember that this is what separates the women from the girls."

OK, I appreciate that he's trying not to be sexist, but this crosses the line into meaning nothing.

jessedhillon• 14 years ago

If you're saying that the entire meaning of this post is contained in the gender of a transitory person, conjured merely to be a demonstrative object of his essay, then what you are saying is dumb.

He's not trying to avoid being sexist. What's sexist is to assume that there is some ulterior reason why the object of his essay would be a woman. This despite your professed appreciation for counter-sexist efforts.

ianstormtaylor• 14 years ago

I don't think it means nothing. Actually, if you read that line as him trying not to be sexist, doesn't that automatically mean that you made the connection to "men from the boys"?

ghshephard• 14 years ago

Ben is pretty much 100% consistent in his essays when using the feminine as his default gender for a CEO. Like his love of hip hop, it's just one of the elements of his style.

roguecoder• 14 years ago

You think women and girls are the same thing?

daniel-cussen2• 14 years ago

Edit:

I had always heard the phrase "separate the men from the boys" in that form rather than the feminine form. And I think there's a reason there's a different meaning, that's pretty intricately tied to social notions of gender. While gender is largely socially constructed, rites of passage for respective genders are even more so.

In many cultures, young men go through a rite of passage to prove they're men. They prove their masculinity--not show it, prove it, usually overcoming some obstacle. They kill a lion, for instance. Women go through rites of passage too, but they do not involve proof, rather show. This does not mean the challenges involved are easier. It simply means their role in the final evaluation is passive rather than active. The reason men are active in their judgment and women passive reflects back on the opposite gender, because men judge women and women judge men. Men are looking for traits that are visible, women for traits of character.

You could argue this is all because men are shallow and women are not, and you'd be right for reasons due, in turn, with the gametic, game-theoretical origin of asymmetries between men and women.

So there are fundamental reasons why it's not the same thing to say "separate the men from the boys" and "separate the women from the girls."

lucian1900• 14 years ago

Flash elements for slightly bigger text? Wtf?

manishsp• 14 years ago

"If you don’t want to be great, then you never should have started a company"

My goal behind starting company is not to be great, but to do something i like most.

Am i missing something ?

bennyg• 14 years ago

Just abstract the phrase to what you mean. Are you half-assed doing what you like the most, or trying to do it better than everyone else?

mbesto• 14 years ago

Basically, the emotional side-effects of determination.[1] In the book Art of Funding a Startup[2] pg says "There are two things we care about: how determined people are and how smart they are"

[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/startuplessons.html

[2] http://www.amazon.com/Paul-Graham-Funding-Interview-ebook/dp...

orangethirty• 14 years ago

The older you get and the more of your business fail, the more used to the struggle you get. It becomes a part of you rather than something external. Every decision will now have the struggle as one of the deciding factors. There is no way to remove it, but experience does provide ways to soothe the effects on you. I'm overly negative with every business. Can't help it. I refuse to even think about anything succeeding too much. Dreaming is allowed, but it must now hold hands with actionable plans. There is no sense in just dreaming, things must also appear to be possible.

One of the things that people here should understand is that a startup/business is hard. Its not a landing page, or a cute/catchy angle at some niche. No. Those are product features. The business is you. Whatever resides between your ears. When they get going and stuff doesnt being to happen as they planned you can notice what really resides in their minds. A lot of these so called smart people are just full of doubts and have a lot of self-esteem issues. They start feeling less and less because they can't reason why their business is failing. Its horrible to watch and experience. I went through that numerous times until I understood that a business is not logical. It doesn't add up. Never does. You can't approach it as it were some mathematical formua. Not happening. Its a living thing, and it is driven by emotion, feelings, and things that we are not usually comfortable dealing with. The struggle hits that right in the center, and that is why so much starry-eyed dreamers get hit so hard. They were not emotionally ready to deal with startup. Nothing prepares you for a startup like a startup itself. In order to build up some resistance to the struggle you just have to try and build more businesses. Struggle a bit more.

As an amateur marathonist, father, and husband I can tell you that the stuggle is just part of life. Every day that I go to the track the struggle is right there with me. It tries to convince me to stop because I'm tired and out of breath. But I won't stop. Not today. The struggle will try and hold me back fron running faster. Not happening. It will focus on reminding me of the pain I'm feeling. I say bring it. The struggle is also hard when your kid is in a hospital getting some treatment. When she is sick and you can't do anything about it. Prayer doesn't work, and the only thing in your mind is will she come out of this all right? When the kid goes to school you dont know if she will have a good day or scrape her knees. The struggle makes you think about if she will make friends or will she be a loner like her dad. There is also the marriage struggle. Did I marry the right person? Will this fail? Why wont my partner do X or Y? Am I being good to them? Am I doing the right things? Will this end up in divorce? Those are all part of the struggle in marriage. Everyone goes through that. The way I deal with it is that I made a choice to get married, and not a choice to get married and get divorced if something happens. You stick to your guns no matter what. Its what is missing from this world.

Dear young startup person reading this. If you want to deal with the struggle just pick up the phone, and try to sell something through it. Struggle to make that sale. Get your hands dirty. DOnt sit back and tweak your website to look right, go out and sell something. Get used to the word no. As it will be the word you will most hear while in business. Go and read the lean startup book and put a learning system into place. Try and systemize as much as you can in your business. Make it so that most business decisions come from knowledge and not fron gut instinct. But realize that your mind will take a daily pounding. Its all right. Rocky got his shit beat out of him, but he still got up and kept fighting. Like Rocky says: "Its not how hard you get hit, but how hard you get hit and still move forward." Life is about stumbling down to your knees. Picking yourself up. Dusting yourself. Putting your head up high, and taking another step forward. Remember that winning is a habit. Its a habit that you make by giving the best of yourself at every moment and not doing half assed stuff. Keep that in mind. Above all, stop and smell the flowers. Most of my ideas and solutions have appeared while having fun. Don't ever stop having fun. Ever.

Sorry for the long post.

The Struggle

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