I didn’t know that the single most important factor affecting startup success is a founder seeing his or her true self in the mirror.
I wish someone had warned me about the single most important factor affecting startup success. The founder needs to see his or her true self in the mirror. If not, well then, don’t bother. This is because it’s impossible for a founder who doesn’t have an accurate understanding of his or her strengths and weaknesses, emotional makeup and psychological makeup to build a successful enterprise; at least not with any reliability or regularity.
The vast majority of founders — even those who are extremely intelligent — don’t have this self-awareness because it takes courage to look yourself in the eye and assess what makes you tick accurately with brutal honesty. And that’s why so many startups fail: Because their founders are too afraid of their imperfections (i.e., themselves) to even try building something great by putting themselves out there first…
