Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Your Startup Is A Slot Machine

Many times I feel like building a startup is like playing a slot machine. Each day can be filled with, "Yeah, I got three cherries in a row", then hours of sliding in quarters, and never getting any match at all. Your life being sucked out of you, until you hit the cherries again. 

Oh But Those Cherries Are The Startup Builders Addiction.
It's the only thing we have to hold onto in the onslaught of rejection and demoralization, being told "you have no company, you only have an idea" That's what an investor told me yesterday. After the person said that to me. I looked around my office at all the stacks of legal paperwork one must file to have a registered company. So my company is not making money. Lots of startups don't make money for a very long time. I've spent every waking hour for two years building, thinking, doing what needs to be done to build a company. I hired my first employee. Got a trademark, built a website and 13 social networks, and countless other details. 

He Said Until You Sell Something It's Not A Company!
Well, damn Mr. Investor I just wanted to build a company that makes no money. Yep, the company that exist only to create, pay employees, gather stacks of legal file folders, and keep me busy all just to entertain my desire to play a slot machine. Be beaten down to a pulp, by the ever looming hope that I can turn nothing into something. He forgot to read the part where I said I have sold something. So I guess I'm a company then. 

Yes, My Company Could Sink
I met a young entrepreneur named Alex on WhisperApp. He did not know much about DigiThin, but he said "You have to know when to get off the sinking ship". Well, DigiThin has not even left the dock. It has to go out to sea before it sinks I would think. I'm in the push phase. Try pushing 80 million tons of steal out to sea with only two people, and zero cash flow. 

To Early To Seek Funding
I know I need traction before I seek funding, but I'm in a critical spot right now. So I started seeking. The other thing is when you build a startup often times it morphs into something else, and that has also happened. EavesdropApp is now being designed and I need funds to build it. I think it's a way better idea then DigiThin, but if I hadn't chased the idea of DigiThin, I would never have come up with EavesdropApp. 

He Said He Would Be Interested If I Get Further
Okay Mr. Investor, I will keep you in mind. At least I got a little hope from him. For now I'll keep pulling the slot machine arm, and hoping for three cherries! : - )

~~ jana







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