Startup Expert's Insight on the Road to Success

An article we liked from Thought Leader Wil Schroter of Startups.com:

Many Startups Shut Down a Few Times Before Succeeding

"My startup is about to shut down - is this really the end or do startups actually go through this process more than once? How should I be thinking about a shutdown, especially when I really, really, really don't want to shut this thing down?"

Every startup dies a few deaths before it lives forever.

But that's not what they tell us in the startup Founder brochure.

Instead, we make up this fairy tale that our startup must be a great idea that instantly takes off, leaving customers and investors standing in line to hand us their cash.

We keep making great decisions while we struggle to stay on top of our meteoric rise. Our days are jam-packed between photo shoots for magazine covers, headlining major conferences, and giving powerful speeches at company retreats.

Sound familiar?

No, of course it doesn't. Because that's not how any of this shit goes. The real version of a startup involves failing incessantly, sometimes to the brink of shutting down, until we rise back up and finally make this thing work. People don't tell us that we will likely go in and out of business many times on the road to success, but in fact, that's often the case.

Go broke. Rinse. Repeat.

In my first startup, I went completely bankrupt - twice - before turning the corner. What does that look like? It looks like me calling my landlord to say I can't pay the office lease, laying off all my staff, pretending to clients that we were still viable, and avoiding my...