Building a Startup Is Hard
There is no easy way to build a startup—unless it is the work you cannot help but do.
There is no easy way to build a startup. Kind of.
When you build a venture-backed company, you are aiming for a huge outcome, not a small one. I cannot stress this enough: getting acquired for $50 million or even $100 million can still represent a failure relative to the original ambition.
Your focus should be to make it big. You choose to raise money because you believe the company can create billions of dollars in value. For the next generation of startups, I think the scale may reach trillions.
It is not about the money
This took me a while to understand. A company's job is to take an input and produce a larger output. Revenue is evidence that the company is producing something valuable for society and the economy.
A startup should not aim to generate a small output. It should aim for revolutionary impact—to build something worth remembering in a good light. If the ambition is anything less than that, the cost may not be worth it.
Sacrificing relationships, family, well-being, health, and your life is not worth money. It never will be. The only time the sacrifice can make sense is when the work feels like your calling: something you would dedicate yourself to regardless of the outcome.
Your life should be lived with ikigai, the Japanese idea of having a reason for being.
How do you know if this is your ikigai?
Ikigai is not something entirely within your control. It is not something AI can identify for you, and it is not something you journal about once and forget.
It is the thing that pulls you. It is what keeps you going no matter what the rational world says.
This is why “building a startup is hard” is the wrong framing. Doing something you deeply do not care about is what is truly hard. When the work is your ikigai, it remains painful, but the pain is attached to meaning. It is something you are passionate about and can imagine doing for the rest of your life. Only then can the cost be worth it.
The myth of a small outcome
When I say an acquisition for $50 million or $100 million is a kind of failure, I do not mean it as an insult to the founders who achieved it. It is a failure relative to the original intent of a venture-backed startup.
Venture capital is an unusual game. You sign up to build a company that can change an industry, a city, or perhaps the world. You are saying: “I believe this should exist for tens or hundreds of millions of people, and I am willing to put everything behind making it work.”
If you want to make money, live calmly, and build an independent business that supports you and your family, that is not thinking too small. It is simply a different game—one many people would rather play.
Do not confuse the two. Both are hard and both deserve respect, but they are fundamentally different games.
If you are considering building a startup, ask yourself:
- Are you willing to burn your health?
- Are you willing to put every relationship you care about under stress?
If the answer is yes—which is questionable—ask yourself three more:
- Is what I am building worth the cost?
- Is the impact big enough?
- Can I stomach the uncertainty, embarrassment, and failure of chasing it?
If the answer is yes, aim for the trillions. You probably will not succeed, but you may have fun and enjoy the pursuit because this is your calling.
If the answer is no, have the courage to walk away and design a life that fits the scale of impact you actually want. Startup life is romanticized far too often. Most of the time, it is not worth it.