operation bootstrap

Fear is the Mind Killer of the Silicon Valley Entrepreneur (we must be Muad'Dib, not Clark Kent)

I am currently a big fan of Dave McClure. His recent post is about the courage it takes to be an entrepreneur. If you do not think that you'll be able to fire someone, ruin his/her [insert holiday here] then don't plan for a business that requires employees. Can you look Geordi in the eye, umm, visor, and tell him to repair the reactor, to sacrifice himself for the rest of the crew?

While the Sequoia VC rant is perhaps too doom and gloom, I agree with their basic message: get real or go home. Make some money; don't wait for a handout. Don't give your employees "retreats" at Tahoe or Vegas until you're profitable.

My husband has a little bit of the old mindset -- thinking about at which stages of a project we could approach VCs for money, when we could try to sell. I want to grow it all ourselves with enough money saved from a first stage to finance a second, etc. Operation Bootstrap.

P.S. McClure's post struck a chord with me also because I've been grokking a lot on Dune lately. My motto has been "keep your hand in the box." Pain does not always mean destruction and death. Pain means pay attention, either endure the pain until it passes and/or do something different so that the pain goes away. Painful learning, painful birthing can bring forth great things.