Why (Not) Start?!

The question of whether or not to pursue a startup weighs on the minds of entrepreneurs universally. There are a lot of factors to consider, both positive and negative. As I mentioned in my previous article, “My Next Chapter Partnering With Exceptional Founders,” I will share my insights, experiences, and practical advice with you. In this blog, I'll discuss three critical questions that every entrepreneur should ask themselves before embarking on the startup journey.

1. Why Start? Entrepreneurship is a challenging journey that requires a strong impetus beyond material gains and immaterial fame to get you through a painful, often long-sustaining journey. Below I will share how I think about risks vs rewards in startups and inspirations that helped shape my journey. 

2. Why Not Start? Many factors prevent people from pursuing a startup. Despite how exciting it sounds, it is important to understand the real reasons people fail or are unable to start. Below I will mention my personal biggest blocker, how I overcame it,  and other challenges to be wary of that are often faced by aspiring entrepreneurs.

3. Why Not Start! Silicon Valley has many resources and support for startups and entrepreneurs. If you have addressed your "Why" and "Why Nots" - you are already in a fantastic spot to start! All you need is preparation and frameworks to leverage these resources, some of which I’ll illustrate.

Why Start?

Consider some ideas from Simon Sinek, an author, inspirational speaker, and consultant known for his 2009 TED Talk, "How Great Leaders Inspire Action”. Sinek articulates how great leaders are able to inspire others because they have a clear and compelling sense of purpose - they know their why. He argues that most people start with the "what" and "how" of their business, but they neglect the "why", which is the ultimate driver of success.

A founder must have a strong "why" to start a company, not just a desire to get rich or famous. Startups are incredibly difficult, and founders need to be motivated by a problem, motive, or mission to succeed.

Before I discuss how truly painful the startup journey can get, I will share how Steve Jobs described Apple at a time when the company was facing difficult challenges.

In this video, Steve Jobs made the audience burst into laughter when he said “'Apple is like a ship with a hole in the bottom, leaking water and my job is to get the ship pointed in the right direction”.

Gil Amelio, the former CEO of Apple, used the analogy to describe Apple when he took over for Steve Jobs. But he never addressed plugging the hole for which he was later widely ridiculed by everyone in Silicon Valley including Larry Ellison, Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs.

The sinking ship analogy is a reminder that even the most successful companies can face setbacks. Just like a ship that gets a major hole while riding a storm in the ocean, a major hole can be revealed for a company at any stage. Reaching the goal of becoming the biggest or most successful sounds perfect - it is still very hard when you get there. And the path to get there is even harder.

Startups are Extremely Hard

Startups are extremely hard and almost analogous to jumping into the ocean with the hope of building a large ship at some point in the future. 

The ocean is a complex and ever-changing environment, just like the market. Before you set sail, you must understand the full range of risks and opportunities. In a future blog, I will discuss how to conduct deep and wide market research, a topic a lot of founders miss doing properly.

Next, you start building your boat with whatever resources and leftover scraps you can find. At this point, if you're still afloat, you may have a small canoe or much like the hull of a boat. Now you start forming your "crew" who will help row your boat. It is extremely important to keep your crew aligned. One person rowing in the wrong direction can quickly sink your boat.

The right direction depends on the destination, which in this case, is always changing. Sometimes you feel like you are in the middle of the ocean without a plan. The resources will be scarce, the challenges will be daunting, and the setbacks will be crushing. You need to be flexible and adaptable, always looking for the next major foundational gap to fill, analyzing your business's gaps, and exploring new ways to grow.

The ship represents the end goal of a startup. It is a successful business, product, or service. The adventure represents the journey: learning, growing, overcoming challenges, and creating something new with a team of passionate people. The question is: are you in it for the ship, or are you in it for the exploration and the adventure?

The true reward of a startup is not the ship itself but the journey. It is the process of learning, growing, and overcoming challenges while the ship is merely a tool or a necessity.

Why Not Start?

There are a lot of reasons why people don’t build startups. Some people are afraid of risks & failure. Others don’t have the time or resources or think they don't have a good idea. It’s important to bring awareness to these factors and decide if they’re a potential dealbreaker for you.

A Personal Anecdote

My parents, being doctors, built a hospital from scratch without any loans or debts. They invested everything they earned back into the business, and the cycle continued. If they saw a need, they built it. They built as they earned, and they earned as they built.

Growing up in that environment and witnessing their journey from rags to riches gave me a strong foundation in entrepreneurship. I saw firsthand that it is possible to build something from nothing, and that you don't need to wait for resources or investments to start.

My dad was always extremely curious and enjoyed situations with high uncertainty. Outcomes never drove him. My mom, on the other hand, I can proudly call an icon of dedication, hard work, and focused execution. I am lucky to have inherited the best of both worlds.

I was never concerned about uncertainty, likely because I was confident in my ability to dedicate myself to hard-work and execution. Yet there was something holding me back from starting my own company - immigration in the US. 

I vividly remember an incident from summer of 2018. I came back from work pretty upset and my dad, who was visiting me at the time, sensed it and asked about the cause of worry. When I explained that my EB1 Green Card application via my current employer was rejected, he asked why that was so important. I told him that my hope for leaving my job to start my own company hinged on obtaining the green card.

Being my dad and upon seeing my face, he quickly understood the gravity of the situation. He didn't ask me a single question on the viability of the startup, team, business model, or any possible risk factors. He asked just one thing: "How much time will you have in the US if you quit your job tomorrow?" I let him know that it would be less than one year. Then he said the words that completely changed my perception, "Arpit, I'm confident you'll figure everything out in 1 year. You'll reapply for your Green Card via the new startup and get it. If you don't get it, the worst case is you come to India, and we'll build your company together." The next day I went to my manager and resigned.

I founded Gamma. I went through a challenging journey to obtain a green card through Gamma and exited the company within two and a half years of founding. The investors received a 5x return on their investment and I earned an executive role at Palo Alto Networks - a global leader in cybersecurity.

Today, exactly five years later, I am working toward scaling my efforts horizontally to help you overcome roadblocks, build your company, raise money, and achieve success.

In Paul Graham’s Words

This leads me to my second question “Why Not?”. Why don’t more people start startups? After all, the vast majority of people who do, end up creating wealth for a significant percentage of those involved. The number of people who do is much lower than the number of people with necessary skills.

In his article, Why to Not Not Start a Startup, Paul Graham explores the factors, roadblocks, that prevent people from starting their own businesses. Some factors are about you; they are soft factors that are stopping you. If you don’t change them, they will persist. Some factors are material in nature and are surmountable with appropriate guidance.

Let’s look at some common material blockers first.

Immigration can be a challenging process and it was for me 

Jyoti Bansal, a multi-unicorn founder, serial technology entrepreneur, and a mentor and investor in the tech space, is a great example. He waited 7 years for his green card, then founded AppDynamics in 2008, which Cisco acquired in 2017 for $3.7B. He is currently the founder and CEO of two high-growth technology companies: Harness, a platform to automate software delivery processes valued at $3.7 billion as of 2022, and Traceable AI — a cybersecurity platform for securing software applications. 

If you are facing immigration challenges, there are resources available to help you navigate the process. I will dedicate a longer blog at a later date that covers my fairly painful journey and how I overcame it.

Paying bills and leaving a default job deter many

It’s one of the biggest hesitations that entrepreneurs face. I did it myself and made many sacrifices to make ends meet. 

I quit my job just a month before my wedding, which was a pretty extreme move, especially coming from India. I had a great support system in my wife, who was willing to scale down our lifestyle significantly until I was able to fundraise. Luckily, we didn’t suffer for long and we were able to get our lives back to normal.

Parents and family members can be a blocking factor

Some parents are generally risk averse and worry more than necessary about their child's well-being. They may discourage the entrepreneur from risking financial security or negative impacts on family life. Others need alignment. Perhaps, they want to be involved in the decision-making process, or they may need to be convinced that the business is a valid idea. I remember many of my friends who faced this situation multiple times when they were considering starting up.

Now let’s explore some of many possible soft factors that only you can change about yourself.

Uncertainty

As I described above, starting up a business is like jumping into the ocean with the hope of building a big ship. The level of uncertainty and ambiguity you have to navigate can be overwhelming if you don't know how to surf the waves with a calm and clear mind.

There are two key drivers of this extreme uncertainty:

• At every step, you have a multitude of choices to make. Think about being in the middle of the ocean and having to decide which direction to take every moment.
• Once you've made a few choices, you need a great deal of patience and wisdom to both await the outcomes and not worry about them at the same time.

Stay tuned for my future blog, where I will discuss these items in greater detail and provide frameworks on how to manage better under such extreme uncertainty.  

Lack of Structure

Starting up is an extremely unstructured process. There will be weeks when you'll feel like nothing gets done. There will be weeks when you'll feel like everything happened. There will be times when you'll experience Murphy's Law—everything bad will seem to happen at the same time. And there will be weeks when you'll experience the Anti-Murphy Law—everything good will seem to happen at the same time.

As a founder, it's critical for you to bring structure to chaos and uncertainty. This will help you stay focused, avoid burnout, and make better decisions. I will be writing a future blog about many frameworks I've used and developed that have been extremely useful for driving efficient structures in a startup environment.

Fear of Failure

Failure is a real possibility, but the fear of it is unfounded. The only reason we fear failure is because we see it as the end.

Think about it this way: if you consider jumping into a pit, you're afraid because you know there's a bottom you will hit. But would you be afraid if there was no bottom and you could keep falling forever? Instead, you might find it exhilarating, like a free fall skydive. 

In the same way, failure can be empowering if we change our perspective. Instead of seeing it as the end, we can see it as the beginning of something new, an opportunity to learn, grow, and try something different. With this continuum, we have no reason to fear it.

Most highly successful people speak openly about their failures as major learning experiences in their lives. Averagely successful people are able to spin their failures into success stories. The least  successful either hide their failures from others or pretend they never happened. Personally, I think there is no need for categories beyond this.

Why Not Start!

The Bay Area is a great place to start a startup. There's a lot of support available, from mentors to investors to incubators to co-founders. So if you're thinking about starting a startup, don't let the fear of failure stop you. The worst that can happen is that you fail. But the best that can happen is that you change the world.

I admire Jyoti Bansal for his perseverance and determination. He waited 7 years to resolve his immigration issues before he could start Appdynamics, but he never gave up on his dream. 8 years after founding Appdynamics, they were acquired by Cisco for $3.7B.

I can only imagine what Jyoti went through during those 7 years. He probably always had his "why" and knew the most critical "why not." He probably thought about his future company, team, product, and customers every day. He probably built it all in his mind before he even started. As Sun Tzu said, "The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting." In other words, the most important battle is won in the mind. The remaining 1% is actual.

If you know your "why" but are unable to start your business because of certain "why nots," it's important to take the time to resolve them, while continuing to learn and prepare. There are immense resources available to help you. You can take classes, work for a startup, or even reach out to ex-founders like me. We always love to help aspiring founders. Like Jim Rohn says - “Just ask, California is like an ocean, but don’t go there with a teaspoon”. When he was 12, Steve Jobs called Bill Hewlett multiple times asking for spare parts. Hewlett was so impressed that he offered Jobs a summer internship at Hewlett-Packard.

If immigration into the US sounds like a major “why not”, let’s look at some real statistics that will demonstrate otherwise:

• 43.8 percent of 2022 Fortune 500 companies were co-founded by first or second generation immigrants. These companies employ over 14.8 million people worldwide.
• The over $7 trillion in revenue generated by Fortune 500 companies founded by immigrants or children of immigrants is greater than the GDP of every country in the world outside the United States, except China.

So, if you have a "why," don't let any "why nots" stand in your way. Keep learning, keep preparing, and keep connecting. I'm excited to see what you accomplish in the future!

I've been through the startup journey myself. I know from firsthand experience and write about the challenges and rewards of building a company from scratch. My goal is to help you reach your full potential as a startup entrepreneur. Let's connect. I would love to learn how I can help you in any way possible.