No, that would be an incorrect reference: it wasn’t about money issues at all. Not directly.
You see, when you are bootstrapping your revenue is contingent on making deliverables, getting customers (or in my case, donors), and otherwise doing time consuming work. Once you have depleted your savings and maxed out your credit cards, then you really start to feel the life-or-death, make-it-or-die pressure. At every given moment there is permeating risk that if you don’t push this update, if you don’t win that customer/donor, if you don’t make such a looming deadline, you will fail. And failure means the bank taking your house, losing all credit for 7 years, being unable to put food on the table, living on the street, and—let’s face it—owning up to defeat.
If that weren’t complicated enough, my wife started her second pregnancy at exactly the same time. Every moment that I was asking my wife how her day was, what the doctor had told her, playing with our other toddler, cooking dinner, or generally just being present was progress not being made towards that deadline, that customer, or a completed product.
There’s a pressure and a mentality here not too dissimilar from the gambler that keeps betting double-or-nothing with exponentially increasing risk, chasing the Martingale of success. Before long your entire life is on the table, and you’re rolling the dice. I made it to that point… and then rolled a natural 20. I got lucky. Sure, I “made my own luck” in the sense that a positive outcome was only possible because of all that work I’d put in. But possible does not mean probable, and the upward-trending outcome I am currently enjoying was very, very low probability. I got lucky, and I recognize that.
But a year ago? I was deep in a hole and doubling down, while totally ignoring other responsibilities and being unavailable to my wife, daughter, and newborn child. I was trading time now for an imagined future, at terrible odds. I think it was her who had more reason to wonder what kind of person she was married to, and I am eternally grateful that she stayed long enough to make it through.
We’re now well funded, making waves, and gathering customers. I’m pulling a steady paycheck and have wiped out the worst of my bad debt. I have a good comp plan with not insignificant equity. But with the information available to me at the outset, I don’t think I would make the same decisions again. I certainly wouldn't recommend someone else to do something so foolhardy. Some things are just not worth risking, no matter the reward.
You see, when you are bootstrapping your revenue is contingent on making deliverables, getting customers (or in my case, donors), and otherwise doing time consuming work. Once you have depleted your savings and maxed out your credit cards, then you really start to feel the life-or-death, make-it-or-die pressure. At every given moment there is permeating risk that if you don’t push this update, if you don’t win that customer/donor, if you don’t make such a looming deadline, you will fail. And failure means the bank taking your house, losing all credit for 7 years, being unable to put food on the table, living on the street, and—let’s face it—owning up to defeat.
If that weren’t complicated enough, my wife started her second pregnancy at exactly the same time. Every moment that I was asking my wife how her day was, what the doctor had told her, playing with our other toddler, cooking dinner, or generally just being present was progress not being made towards that deadline, that customer, or a completed product.
There’s a pressure and a mentality here not too dissimilar from the gambler that keeps betting double-or-nothing with exponentially increasing risk, chasing the Martingale of success. Before long your entire life is on the table, and you’re rolling the dice. I made it to that point… and then rolled a natural 20. I got lucky. Sure, I “made my own luck” in the sense that a positive outcome was only possible because of all that work I’d put in. But possible does not mean probable, and the upward-trending outcome I am currently enjoying was very, very low probability. I got lucky, and I recognize that.
But a year ago? I was deep in a hole and doubling down, while totally ignoring other responsibilities and being unavailable to my wife, daughter, and newborn child. I was trading time now for an imagined future, at terrible odds. I think it was her who had more reason to wonder what kind of person she was married to, and I am eternally grateful that she stayed long enough to make it through.
We’re now well funded, making waves, and gathering customers. I’m pulling a steady paycheck and have wiped out the worst of my bad debt. I have a good comp plan with not insignificant equity. But with the information available to me at the outset, I don’t think I would make the same decisions again. I certainly wouldn't recommend someone else to do something so foolhardy. Some things are just not worth risking, no matter the reward.