How to Know You Are Ready to Go All In on Your Startup

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Most of us founders have a day job. We need to stay afloat in the end somehow. Our startups start to gain traction, seeing some revenue.

This might be the one — finally.

Is it time to quit our job and full-send it on the startup when we see this first little bit of traction coming our way? Probably not.

When is the right time?

Today at a Glance:

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How to know you are ready to go all in on your startup

There's no perfect moment to quit. We always have to play the odds game. Writing down pros and cons list for staying at our jobs, while doing a startup on the side — or going all in.

However, there are signs that you're ready to take the leap:

Team: You've got a team full of Marvel superheroes. These are people who believe in your vision as much as you do. Remember, no one scales a company better than the folks who built it. Give them a ton of equity, in order to keep the morale high. There’s not a single successful founder out there regretting he gave his first hires way too much equity.

Tech: You've got a product that actually works. It doesn't need to be perfect (newsflash: it never will be), but it should solve a real problem for real people.

Traction: You've got customers who are willing to pay for your solution. And no, your mom doesn't count (sorry, mom).

Truth: You've validated your idea with the market. This means facing the brutal facts, even if they hurt your ego.

Target: You know exactly who your customer is and why they need your product. If you can't explain this to a 5-year-old, you're not ready. Additionally, a good rule of thumb is having a proven product-market fit, so your company keeps scaling rather than staying stagnant.

Time: You've got enough runway to give this a real shot. Ramen profitability is cool, but so is paying rent. This might but does not need to equal having a VC-money/Accelerator backup.

Trust: You've built relationships with mentors, advisors, and potential investors. These folks will be your lifeline when things get tough (and they will).

Remember, going all in doesn't mean burning all your bridges. It means committing fully to your vision while having a solid plan B.

A metaphor I like to use is treating a startup like a very very very cold ice plunge. Currently, you are in the ice plunge up to your knees. You can either go all in, or chicken out. However, if you go all in — there’s still a slight chance you might die from a hypothermia. Act wisely.

Hints you might be more ready than you think

That was a bit too broad.

That's why I decided to elaborate by creating this brief subsection about the qualities I look for in a founder that signal they're destined for great things:

You can’t stop thinking about your startup. Every waking hour you spend doing other tasks you spend thinking about how to solve the next bottleneck in your startup. Trust me — if this is you, you will make it. This is what already sets you apart from the other 99% founders.

If you believe you are meant for extraordinary things and do everything in your power to pursue this odds increase that you actually do them. I mean, it’s FAR from sure you will do those things, but you are also miles ahead of the person who doesn’t believe he’s destined for those things and is also trying to achieve them. Manifest the crap out of your dreams.

However, what I often find myself doing is just manifesting and knowing what I will achieve — but not doing actionable steps that get me there. For me personally, having a tangible goals and someone knowing about the goals constantly pinging me how are things helps.

This is why I started this newsletter and set myself to write it every Monday and Thursday, hopefully never stopping. This is why I shared my Strava in the last newsletter, so you can all track my progress, making me accountable for my words.

Another quality of the most successful founders is being very critical about all you do. Does your product suck? If the answer is no, you are lying to yourself. This transcends product, it goes for team management, personal life, and every other area you might think off.

Ask your 3 closest friends what they dislike about you. No hard feelings, just pure clarity. First step of reflection is realisation. Either you did not know people might get bored of some of your qualities — or you just didn’t give a crap.

Next step in improvement is understanding. Without knowing what needs to change, we are not changing anything. If we don’t understand what we dislike about ourselves, our product, our ways of execution — we can never improve in these areas.

Ultimately, the sacrifice comes in. It’s not easy to change anything in the world without feeling a ton of pain. Take a slight startup pivot for instance — it might require replacing your original team, taking on extra 30 hours every week, just to barely pull it off.

My friend said the quality he loathes the most about me is being stubborn as a bull. He said I never stop arguing, even if I know I am incorrect. But it’s the feeling of rage building up in him when we argue that sparks a light in my eyes. I know it’s not a good quality, but it makes me feel so good.

Now I stand in front of a junction. Do I do something about it, or just let it be and let people deal with it?

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