Happy Monday everyone!

Like this video illustrates, sometimes highlighting the negatives helps you understand the full picture more clearly. By exaggerating the downsides, you can better appreciate the positives.

This being said - founding a startup isn't for everyone; it's crucial to recognise this before diving headfirst into your first venture.

Marc Andreessen understands this well and he wrote a guide in 2007 why not to start one. It’s almost 20 years later and the advice is still relevant.

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🔗 Oliver’s Picks

My favourite finds of the week.

Startups

• Steven’s Behind the Diary on his investment to Perfect Ted (Link)

• AI Is a Services Revolution (Link)

• Why the democrats lost tech (Link)

• Business storytelling - using stories to inspire (Link)

• A branding exercise (Link)

• Create your own world-class newsletter (Link)

Mindset

• Grit: the power of passion and perseverance (Link)

• Tutorial on how to quickly ruin the rest of your life (Link)

• How burnout happens (Link)

• My deep work Spotify playlist (Link)

Now, it is true that there are a lot of great things about doing a startup:

• Being in control of your own destiny (you get to succeed or fail on your own merits)

• Opportunity to create something new

• Leaving a world in a better state than you found it in

• Creating a dream team along with the ideal company culture

• Freedom and agency (through money)

However, being founder is not for everyone. It’s not cut for everybody. Some people just don’t thrive in ambiguity or uncertain environments where you need to fight for your life every. single. day.

Here’s the main reasons why you might not want to do a startup:

Emotional rollercoaster unlike anything you have ever experienced

Your days fluctuate from thinking you are the next Elon Musk owning the world, to days being a complete mess not being able to achieve anything, struggling to pay rent and thinking you failed everyone.

This switch flips constantly. Over and over and over again.

This is the first real test for founders. Will you overcome these and become mentally resilient (arguably the most valued trait a founder can possess), or will it break you and you just find out 9-5 sounds better for your scenario.

Nothing happens unless you make it happen

The cart does not move until you don’t push it. No sales are being done until you call someone. The product won’t get build until you start building. You are the only force that moves your future. The only responsible person for what happens to you and your startup — is you.

If you happen to be the glass half-full guy, you understand how this works. This is not purely negative, it’s up to your interpretation. If you work your ass off, it’s more likely that you succeed here than anywhere else. However, if you don’t..

You hear “no” more often than any other mortal on the planet

Having a startup is the rejection therapy at its best. It’s “no” all around the board. Funding, hiring, partnerships, co-founding, sales — a big no.

You need to try to move swiftly through the rejection, learning from each one and re-evaluating your past approaches. If you learn from the mistakes — they are for the greater good. If you don’t learn from them — you are just an idiot.

Hiring sucks

There’s a separate term for people that you come across — window shoppers. Many potential employees think they want what you offer, yet at the last second they decide their work at big tech is the safer, better option for them (they are not wrong). The more someone would accelerate your startup’s growth, the harder it is to convince them to join your cause.

After hiring employees, you might realise they're not the best fit for your company — or that your company isn't the best fit for them. Achieving a 50% success rate in hiring is an ideal many strive for, but only the top hiring managers achieve.

What happens to the people that don’t work? Well, you either live with them or fire them. Surely helps the job not being an emotional rollercoaster. Fun, eh?

The hours

You might have quit your 9-5 for your next “big” business, because you heard Andrew Tate yapping about how free he really is. If you don’t want to do hard work — go back to your corporate job with a decent salary, low impact and 0 braincells necessary for the tasks delegated to you.

80+ hour weeks in the beginning of your startup are close to mandatory. 100+ hour weeks happen often. Your social life dies, work-life balance crumbles under your fingers, vitamin D levels slowly decrease to 0.

Soon enough, you find yourself watching Youtube videos on proper time management. But guess what, it won’t save you. Sorry Ali.

It’s really easy for the culture of your startup to go sideways

Usually, this is the major cause the aforementioned emotional rollercoaster wreaking havoc on not just you but your whole company. Startups get sidetracked all the time for all the unexpected reasons.

However, in the end, you are the only one responsible for your startup’s success or failure, even when everything is out of your reach.

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