The “What did I Say” pessimists

Avoid lazy negative pessimists in startups.

Im having a blast these days. Its too good to be true – life simply has played the best of all tricks on me. Now that Tradeshift is showing traction – and now that it looks like I will be part of something really disrupting again. A lot of the people who have been: “What did I say – you fucked up” – are starting next wave: “Bravo – Tradeshift is impressive – Will but will it ever make money??? Or is it just a black hole for investors”. My answer: Yes I believe that Tradeshift will be an extremely lucrative business – but it will take a long time and cost a hell of a lot of money. And as always I have to underline once again (dear highly valued readers) – I DONT HAVE A CLUE. This business is THE DEFINITION OF HIGH RISK. The same goes with EVERBREAD – where we have also raised a lot of cash – from people who choose not to buy 60 Ferrari’s - but chose to believe in Assen and Everbreads vision.

But remember that not even if you look at Venture Capital from a lottery perspective is it good business:

7 of 10 fails

in first shot.

Energi

From founders and early employees you need inifinate amounts of ENERGY. When salleries are not paid on time – and when programming seems harder then worst case imagination… ENERGY is what it takes – since every startup company also require 2-4 fundamental strategy changes. Changes so deep that its like starting a company from scratch. (Count on that).

Bankruptcy

is the #1 timekiller  – its a whole startup in it self to get out of Bankruptcy. I have had 4 people fulltime during the whole process – I have been lending money for the process (big money – to pay all creditors). Think about it – who is crazy enough to lend money to a mann who is bankrupt or work for free for me believing in future value . All these people who believed in me and my skills and crazy visions – only supported financially by my ability to do s*#% ass expensive consulting and speaking gigs. I will do a whole blogpost of these people when Im 100% free. Because I have off course  - already been gambling with my salaries and consulting fees – to convert to shares in the startups Im working for. But it also means that Im not fully fully out of the risk of fall back to bankruptcy – only 98% there.

My point here is that it takes many lifetimes to hit a lucky strike – and making one successful startup – here is some back of the envelope math:

x7 StartUps to make a winner
x2 Total REstrategy
leaves x6 potential bankruptcies

Sum: 84 “StartUps” x 4years for each = 346years is what it takes to make one successful Company :)

If you want to find the energy for this 346y gamble – then dont get too involved with people who say: “Look – It failed – What Did I Say”… Act – dont talk – find people with unlimited ENEGERY – and find a lot of them.