Choosing the path to start your own company means a lot of things but mostly it means deferral.
Let me explain. If you are a founder, you will understand this immediately.
The general perception about founders is that they are “lucky” to be doing what they are doing. Freedom from the tyranny of “the man”, the ability to chart your own path, the ability to cash out at will — you’ve heard them all, even if you aren’t a founder but work for a startup.
The truth is that for most of us this “reality” is so far from real — tainted by the top of the top companies that we’ve all heard of that have succeeded beyond imagination.
Startups work because everything is deferred.
Founders defer pay. Founders defer vacations. Founders defer family priorities. Founders defer their health. Founders defer their future. Founders defer their finances. Founders defer their friendships.
There is nothing glamorous about founding a company. It requires the highest level of sacrifice in the hopes that it eventually works out.
Faith and deferral is the startup equation.
Here’s what nobody tells you: the deferral rarely gets repaid.
If it doesn’t work out, you lost the company and everything you gave up for it. The years don’t come back. The vacations, the health, the friendships — gone.
And if it does work out? You’re no longer the founder. You’re an executive. A business person. You graduated into something else entirely. The thing you sacrificed everything for becomes a job.
You left to build something. Succeed or fail, you eventually become the thing you left.