>When you most want to quit is usually when you are closest to success - that's a remarkably accurate statement.
Accurate in the sense that a broken clock is right twice a day. As you accumulate failures, your motivation flags and your desire to quit increases. Now, this might meant that you're about to make a breakthrough that will turn your business into the next Google. It also might mean that you're bashing your head into a brick wall and you need to pivot in order to become successful. Your desire to quit gives you no information as to what your strategy should be, and, therefore, is totally useless as a decision-making strategy.
tl;dr; Your desire to quit is also greatest right before you go totally bankrupt and wreck your life.
quanticle,
This is the thing that I think people don't realize. Even the most successful people failed a ton before they got big success.
Big Failures = some people who let failure become bigger than them and destroy them + some people who learn from it and succeed big down the line.
When you write:
tl;dr; Your desire to quit is also greatest right before you go totally bankrupt and wreck your life.
*
You're exaggerating the consequences.
There's the type of failure where you take on bank loans and have to go bankrupt and there's the type of failure where you run out of your own money and have to start from scratch - perhaps with a new venture, or perhaps take up a job and then come back to entrepreneurship after a while.
The former is what you're assuming. The latter is reality - provided you don't go overboard in where you get money.
Just out of curisoity - what would the Color guys qualify as. It looks like they might fail. Would that be 'wrecking their lives'?
Here's the interesting part:
1) If you always give up right when you feel things are bleakest -> You'll never go bankrupt or to be more precise never experience total failure.
2) At the same time - you'll never experience the best possible success you could have. Because if everything is easy and guaranteed that probably means you never did the maximum you could and never pushed yourself.
*
Again, the first point he says - Stay outside of your comfort zone.
Is it a bit of a cliche? Yes.
However, lots of people who you would probably quantify as 'not evil like Bob Parsons' succeeded precisely for this reason. They pushed out of their comfort zone.
I think entreprenuership pretty much means getting out of your comfort zone, getting other people out of their comfort zone and changing things - for the better, or, if you are not inclined that way, for money.
>Even the most successful people failed a ton before they got big success.
That's just survivorship bias[1]. Yes, the big successes failed a lot. But so did the big failures. When all you see are Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc., its easy to ignore all the little companies that failed and bankrupted all who were involved. For an example of the downside, see this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOOw2yWMSfk. Can you really, honestly say that Mark Griffin hasn't ruined his life?
You ask about the founders of Color. The cannot be failures. Why not? They've already succeeded at least once. The entire reason Color is as hyped as it is right now is because of its "supergroup" status. The only thing distinguishing it is the fact that it was designed and built by programmers and designers that were extremely successfull at other companies. Without that cachet, its simply just another photo-sharing app.
>If you always give up right when you feel things are bleakest -> You'll never go bankrupt or to be more precise never experience total failure.
>At the same time - you'll never experience the best possible success you could have. Because if everything is easy and guaranteed that probably means you never did the maximum you could and never pushed yourself.
That's true. But, before you go all-in, you should ask yourself, "Can I afford this?" Yes, its easy to say yes if you're a 25 year-old with no family, no mortgage, and no debt. But, if you're a 40 year-old with obligations? Do you really want to put your dependents through the stress and hardship of a default? Before you attempt to beat the odds, make sure you can survive the odds beating you [2].
Accurate in the sense that a broken clock is right twice a day. As you accumulate failures, your motivation flags and your desire to quit increases. Now, this might meant that you're about to make a breakthrough that will turn your business into the next Google. It also might mean that you're bashing your head into a brick wall and you need to pivot in order to become successful. Your desire to quit gives you no information as to what your strategy should be, and, therefore, is totally useless as a decision-making strategy.
tl;dr; Your desire to quit is also greatest right before you go totally bankrupt and wreck your life.