20 years ago, I stepped into my first 'Startup Trench'; almost zero weapons in my armoury and fresh out of a market leading corporate media giant. Yes, my MD thought I was a few shillings short, and actually, I couldn't articulate my reasons for taking on such a challenge - maybe blind ambition was the thing or the bureaucratic restraints on my wings.
Essentially I'd arrived in the dot com boom, with a significant seed investment and a founding duo that consisted of a tech wizard, a matrix fanatic...oh and their embryonic disruptive idea. Other than me (a fledgeling at best) there was a massive lack of business creds in the room.
I would have killed (too strong...maybe maimed) to have access to someone with experience enough to add some width to what was just a tight rope distance between failure and success. Yet, and here's the rub; many new entrepreneurs think they're bulletproof, and march blindly ignoring the fact that over half of startups fail in the first two years. This one went 10 years to exit, fuelled by corporate indoctrination and the ability to deep dive anything.
There are no silver bullets in this game (these war and gun references are very un-PC...sorry), but as it fits with the 'Trenches' theme, I'm going with it. There are common threads in the downfall of startups and many books written about it, none I'd recommend as I prefer to take a positive approach that focuses on getting you prepared, up-front.
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