It’s funny how our mind tricks us into believing that the times we slept under our desks are the best times we ever had. And how popular culture glorifies this miserable part of the entrepreneurial lifestyle as the quintessential startup experience.
In my first startup I slept numerous nights on the blank floor with nothing more than a thin blanket. I didn’t do this because it was hip, or “the right thing to do” or because I ecstatically worked the night away and had to crush after 48 hours of happy, endorphin-fueled hacking. No. I did this because we were on the brink of bankruptcy, because I was about to be forced to fire the people who I hired with the promise of untold riches at the end of the rainbow and because we needed to get this deal done. It was miserable.
And yet — when I think back to those days, somehow I feel good about it. As those were the days in my startup where I felt most alive — surely not happy, but alive. All my senses tuned into what was necessary to get the company and my people through this drought.
That is all to say: When you find yourself in startup misery — know that few things in life last forever; most things in a startup are short-lived and that we all root for you!