I almost feel like this is one of those AA meetings. You walk in, look around at all these strangers and end up choosing a chair near the exit. No one talks to one another, but you know that misery loves company. The silence is broken by a man that looks well into his 40s but is actually only 32 (you ask yourself “I wonder what shit he’s been through?”). he welcomes everyone and congratulates them on taking the first step; admitting that you have a problem and seeking help.

We go around the room and everyone introduces themselves… “hi, I’m james and I’m an addict” and the room echoes “hi james”. Then it’s my turn… “hi, I’m Damian (name changed for obvious reasons) and I am an addict”. So, what is my addiction? This has nothing to do with drugs or alcohol. This boils down to this relentless feeling of being able to build something better than someone else.

“Hi, I’m Damian and I am an entrepreneur.”

Everyone has a drug of choice; may it be AI, fintech, ed-tech, data… the options are endless like a kid in a candy store. We all jump in blindly because entrepreneurship and the startup world are glorified and romanticized.

We all think we will become instant millionaires. Our own bosses.
And have an unchecked amount of clout.

What more would anyone want to ask for? For me, it was the truth. No one told me the truth before all of this started. So, to all the aspiring entrepreneurs out there, this is my truth to you. Don’t think of this as a deterrent but more so the fine print in the terms and conditions of becoming an innovator. A disruptor. An entrepreneur.

So, my story started over three years ago, and just like everyone else’s, I couldn’t stand the corporate world anymore and thought that I was capable of doing something on my own.

I jumped.

I left a high paying job in the Gulf to a nominal salary of zero. I don’t want to call it regret, because you shouldn’t regret anything in life. Before jumping, you need to be ready to accept the fact that you are stepping into a world of endless financial instability. The uncertainty of where your next paycheck will come from, if it will cover your basic needs and all the pitfalls associated with it.

I took my corporate paycheck for granted, just like a lot of you do too. That constant expectation that on the 25th of that month, you get a text from your bank saying that your salary has been deposited which then gets uncomfortably replaced with an unwanted conversation with your co-founder/employees that you can’t pay salaries this month (or even next).

Our first advisor used to ask our potential employees one question “do you have at least one-year salary saved up?” If they said no, that was the end of the conversation. Wise words, a little too late for me.

You start seeing your friends around you enjoying life, talking about a raise they got at work or that trip to Croatia they just came back from. You start becoming a hermit. A life of saying no to a lot of different things. Digging yourself deeper into a hole only to discover who your true friends are, and in some cases, your true love (corny I know but that “through thick or thin” statement really rings true).

To be a “true” entrepreneur, you also begin to read/subscribe to blogs on medium and articles on TechCrunch, Inc., Entrepreneur to name a few. Never do any of the articles actually talk about failure or even so what all this does to your emotional stability. I came into my startup with the same excitement and passion as the rest of you. We know we built a great thing, we even started to win awards and the media publicity was great (if you’re impressed by this, stop reading). But nothing prepares you for your first no and the subsequent no’s. There was this one post on Medium which talked about the state of depression this one entrepreneur went into. But just like everything else in life, you think you’re invincible. I sit here writing this to you with a prescription for anxiety and depression. This is real and what you are going to put yourself through is very real. The life of a hermit, the life of saying no, the life of hearing no’s all begins to take a toll on you and will affect your health. There are side effects to entrepreneurship; some may experience sleepless nights, loss of appetite, impatience, etc…

My biggest fault was that I internalized everything and defined success incorrectly. So, who defines success? You know on the first day of our startup we were asked what our exit strategy was. We hadn’t even started, and people wanted to know how we were going to finish. Was success defined publicly by raising millions in your Series A? exiting to a western company? We obviously know what the media likes to write about, but is that your success? You need to define your own success. A quote that resonated with me was “a billionaire is not a person who has a billion dollars but more so someone that has changed a billion lives.” We knew we had the product to do that but we didn’t set up milestones (quick wins) along the way.

Your first customer, the first time they used your product twice, the organic leads. Don’t ever take any of those for granted. Relish in those negative reviews; they write them because they believed in your product enough to write something cause they wanted it to be better. Once you begin to focus on you, on your wins, on the product and blur out the rest… everything will slowly fall into place. Just know one thing, your success is not tied into your company’s success. If the company fails, it does not mean that you failed or you’re a failure. You tried something millions of others couldn’t do. You may not see it now (to this day, sometimes I don’t) but you will.

So, this story could have gone in two directions; positive or negative. One implies that everything fell into place and the above was reminiscent of a time passed or the total opposite.

No money.

Chicken vs. the egg dilemma.
Doctor visits.
Disintegration of working relationship. Burn out.

Faded passion.

Let’s not define this as failure but more so your acceptance of the status quo and knowing when to move on and not regret anything. You should, or will become, mature enough to see the silver lining in the rollercoaster experience you put yourself through. The peaks of potentially generating millions in revenue to the troughs of the third failed acquisition offer. You will have the odds stacked against you in a copy-cat ecosystem that questions innovation and overly charges you for your existence.

“Fail mindfully. Be aware of the lessons learned. And be aware of the responsibility to share those learnings with the world.” – Leticia Gasca

So, do you accept these terms and conditions?