I left my job at Cisco expecting that it might take six months to start a company. Two and a half years and more than a half-dozen serious start-up explorations later, I started BloomReach. There were plenty of reasons for the long run up. Markets that turned south. Teams that did not gel. Ideas that sucked. Prototypes that I hated. I tried to keep the bar high, believing that if I was going to pour my life into something, it had to work.
– Raj De Datta, CEO and Co-founder of Bloomreach (from ‘Entrepreneurs don’t interview, they commit.’)
If you are starting a company your first team, target market segment, or product idea may not stick.
You’ll need to pivot your product, target market segment, or team (OK, maybe all 3 at once).
So clearly financial runway (personal and company) is important.
What you may not realize is that runway, even if it’s just a tiny landing strip, generates a ton of option value.
it’s hard to overstate how valuable it is to keep your personal burn rate low. it probably 10x’s interesting opportunities available to you.
— Sam Altman (@sama) August 15, 2014
The best part? Doesn’t matter if you have 12 months or 12 weeks or 12 days of runway left to take advantage of it.
Today could be the day.
Another great reason to stick with the struggle…