Grateful for the Struggle

Regardless of the state of your business, I hope you're grateful for your current spot.

Even if sales are down, hiring is hard, or internal politics has seeped into your culture, know that entrepreneurs have made it through worse.

Ben Horowitz had to demote friends and shut down existing business lines to save his company. After founding Loudcloud in 1999, Ben raced to >$10 million in booked revenue and received $21 million in investments.

Then, the DotCom crash happened.

Loudcloud severely missed revenue targets as the companies that booked contracts went under or reduced their spend. Ben had to institute layoffs.

Economic prospects got worse in the shadow of September 11th and Loudcloud’s largest customer, which paid them $1 million per month and represented 20% of their revenue, went bankrupt. More layoffs.

Ben had to make a low probability saving throw. He shuttered Loudcloud’s capital-intesive server business that had been responsible for all previous successes, but was in a death spiral. He pivoted the firm to a software solution to attempt a path to profitability.

The market finally responded favorably and they were able to grow, profitably.

Ben went on to sell the company for $1.6 billion and later co-founded one of the biggest venture capital firms on the planet. But the path was littered with pain and stress. He summed it up in his book The Hard Thing About Hard Things: “If you are going to eat shit, don’t nibble.”

Some day, you’ll be grateful for the experience and the lessons you learned along the way. Carry that feeling with you in the present.

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