Is your company bleeding, getting ready to die?
Are you waiting there for something to click?
I know some of you are hurting.
Well actually many of you are hurting.
We’ve estimated that potentially 40%- 50% of the startups we fund will eventually fail.
That’s painful news for us as investors but not as painful for what these entrepreneurs will go through.
On average 80%-90% of startups fail.
With all the incubators, accelerators, freelance communities and all the media surrounding startups lately you’d think that startups are increasing.
Startups are actually decreasing.
Many of you are bleeding right now dying a slow entrepreneurial death.
It’s painful. I know. I’ve been there.
All this talk of failure coming out of Silicon Valley I hear lately drives me a little crazy.
Yes, it’s ok to fail.
Yes, we learn from failure.
This is all true but failure hurts like hell.
Maine Creates was my first entrepreneurial death.
I died slowly and painfully.
After Nicole and I sold our ski travel company I started Maine Creates.
I was supposed to take some time off and just think.
That didn’t last long.
I am an entrepreneur so I started to build.
The state of Maine gave me $12,000 to develop Maine Creates, a little seed-investment.
The front-runner for the Governor of Maine mentioned us in his stump speeches as new technology for the creative economy in Maine.
Still, Nicole, my wife told me it would be a disaster.
She kept saying how does this make money?
I wouldn’t listen.
This Spring we were in Maine visiting our oceanfront vacation home.
Maine is a love-hate-relationship for me.
I get my best ideas when I spend time there.
I write some crazy blog posts.
Rule #1 for travel startup entrepreneurs.
You have to sell what people want or need.
Rule #2
It can’t be about what you want.
Yes, you have to have passion for what you are building but people have to want or need what you offer.
Frequently startups apply to Travel Startups Incubator looking to build startups based on what the founders want.
My mission with Maine Creates was about doing good. Similar to a social enterprise.
It was about me trying to help others. What I wanted.
The big problem was that no one really needed what we were selling.
We pushed to 200 monthly subscribers (SaaS) then that was it.
No traction
No momentum
Minimal revenue
No distribution deals
Absolutely nothing
I wasn’t running the business to make money.
And that was a big problem.
We had money after the sale of our ski travel company.
I really didn’t need to do anything.
Money always follows the greatest ideas whether it’s your customers buying what you are selling or investors plowing in to invest in what you built.
If it’s good, the money will come in, one way or another.
People who say that they’re not in it for the money are speaking rubbish.
These are delusional people like I was.
If you’re bleeding you’ll eventually die.
Go get some stitches.
Take a part-time or a full time job.
Find a way to get the money coming in again.
Go work for a startup that is making money and has actual paying customers.
Go consult and do freelance projects.
Regenerate and start thinking.
Go read the entrepreneurs bible, “Think and Grow Rich,” and the “E-Myth.”
Build your confidence back up.
Learn to create again.
Take time to look around.
The best things in the world are always unique and different.
Look for that one-of-a-kind.
Go where the world is moving.
It’s ok to fail.
It’s ok to give up and throw in the towel.
It takes courage to stop, to fail.
I should have thrown in the towel much earlier with Maine Creates.
I did some minor mental damage but luckily it wasn’t bad enough that I couldn’t over come it.
I was just too stubborn to quit.
If you are an entrepreneur and you have this feeling to do good try volunteering.
After we sold our ski travel company I volunteered for 3 years and made donations to worthy causes.
I think volunteering helped save me during my Maine Creates disaster.
Volunteering was one of the best things I’ve ever done in my life.
After I came out of my entrepreneurial death in 2010 I started helping travel CEO’s build new travel brands.
I knew how to go from $0-$1M.
It was like riding a bike.
I was in demand.
I became more productive.
Slowly I built back my confidence.
I started to write.
I started billing $10K a month to major travel companies for my advisory and consulting services.
I started working with travel startups through a recurring monthly advisory service.
In 2013 Nicole and I launched the TravelStartups.co blog.
Our very first Travel Startups Founders Series interview for the blog was with Steve Kaufer the CEO of TripAdvisor.
In the early startup days TripAdvisor was bleeding.
Steve was wounded.
I was somewhat shocked when he told tell me his story.
Here go listen to the TripAdvisor story, now the largest travel company in the world.
TripAdvisor almost died.
Steve said there was literally about 2-weeks left before they were going to die then something clicked.
Did you hear that?
Can you feel that?
Can you smell it?
Something clicked.
If TripAdvisor doesn’t get something to click in 2-weeks there is no TripAdvisor.
Can you imagine?
Maybe Steve got lucky. I don’t know.
It doesn’t matter.
What mattered for Steve and TripAdvisor is that something did click.
TripAdvisor turned the corner.
If you’re sitting there bleeding and you know your company is getting ready to die please allow 2-more weeks of blood letting.
If nothing clicks be bold enough to stop and get out.
It takes courage to walk away.
Pack up your bags.
Recharge your brain and seek to conquer another day.
It’s ok.
You will be all right.
You’re an entrepreneur.
You will get another chance.
Ideas are everywhere.
That’s the beautiful thing.
You’re not alone.
Let go.
We are all going to die.
Let’s hope we don’t die today.