The power of no
Yang:
“
Learn how to say no. You have to
set boundaries. (For me), every minute I
spend with someone else is a minute away
from my wife and daughter.”
One founder vs co-founders
Tchebotarev:
“
It’s always great to have a
partnership,” he says of being a duo with
Gustol. But Payne prefers the flexibility to
make the key decisions quickly herself: “I
have a great team but no partner…There
isn’t this whole managing by committee
(
thing).” Yang professes he has “a strong
bias towards single founders” but adds
that an ideal startup structure can be
comprised of three people: a clear leader
with two very committed followers who
have complementary core competencies.
So the jury’s still out on this one.
Failure 101
Know that your odds suck; statistically,
most startups fail. If your startup is
successful, expect glitches to keep
cropping up along the way.
Gustol:
“
Even
when things go right, there’s things going
wrong.” Kind of like doing a $100-billion
IPO one day, getting married the next,
and then facing a class-action suit from
investors a few days later.
Be best, not just first
Gustol:
You don’t have to be the first
to market in order to succeed; you can
survive and thrive by being the best in your
niche. A big part of 500px’s success is that
its customer service has been winning raves
while Flickr has been racking up complaints
lately. “The (user) community appreciates
that,” Gustol says.
When to let your startup die
Yang:
“
When the founders just don’t feel
that passion anymore.” “Doing this sucks so
badly sometimes that it better be something
you really (bleep)-ing care about,” warns
Payne. When in serious self-doubt, get out.
In the immortal words of the pre-surgically
reconstructed Kenny Rogers, you gotta know
when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em.
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