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Are We Growing or Just Getting Fat?
Let's Get Back to Our Why
Does Startup Success Validate Us Personally?
How We Secretly Lose Control of Our Startups
Should Kids Follow in Our Founder Footsteps?
The Evolution of Entry Level Workers
Assume Everyone Will Leave in Year One
Stop Listening to Investors
Was Mortgaging My Life Worth it?
What's My Startup Worth in an Acquisition?
When Our Ambition is Our Enemy
Are Startups in a "Silent Recession"?
The 5 Types of Startup Funding
What Is Startup Funding?
Do Founders Deserve Their Profit?
Michelle Glauser on Diversity and Inclusion
The Utter STUPIDITY of "Risking it All"
Committees Are Where Progress Goes to Die
More Money (Really Means) More Problems
Why Most Founders Don't Get Rich
Investors will be Obsolete
Why is a Founder so Hard to Replace?
We Can't Grow by Saying "No"
Do People Really Want Me to Succeed?
Is the Problem the Player or the Coach?
Will Investors Bail Me Out?
The Value of Actually Getting Paid
Why do Founders Suck at Asking for Help?
Wait a Minute before Giving Away Equity
You Only Think You Work Hard
SMALL is the New Big — Embracing Efficiency in the Age of AI
The 9 Best Growth Agencies for Startups
This is BOOTSTRAPPED — 3 Strategies to Build Your Startup Without Funding
Never Share Your Net Worth
A Steady Hand in the Middle of the Storm
Risk it All vs Steady Paycheck
How About a Startup that Just Makes Money?
How to Recruit a Rockstar Advisor
Why Having Zero Experience is a Huge Asset
My Competitor Got Funded — Am I Screwed?
The Hidden Treasure of Failed Startups
If It Makes Money, It Makes Sense
Why do VCs Keep Giving Failed Founders Money?
$10K Per Month isn't Just Revenue — It's Life Support
The Ridiculous Spectrum of Investor Feedback
Startup CEOs Aren't Really CEOs
Series A, B, C, D, and E Funding: How It Works
Best Pitch Decks Ever: The Most Successful Fundraising Pitches You Need to Know
When to Raise Funds
Why Aren't Investors Responding to Me?
Should I Regret Not Raising Capital?
Unemployment Cases — Why I LOOOOOVE To Win Them So Much.
How Much to Pay Yourself
Heat-Seeking Missile: WePay’s Journey to Product-Market Fit — Interview with Rich Aberman, Co-Founder of Wepay
The R&D technique for startups: Rip off & Duplicate
Why Some Startups Win.
Chapter #1: First Steps To Validate Your Business Idea
Product Users, Not Ideas, Will Determine Your Startup’s Fate
Drop Your Free Tier
Your Advisors Are Probably Wrong
Growth Isn't Always Good
How to Shut Down Gracefully
How Does My Startup Get Acquired?
Can Entrepreneurship Be Taught?
How to Pick the Wrong Co-Founder
Staying Small While Going Big
Investors are NOT on Our Side of the Table
Who am I Really Competing Against?
Why Can't Founders Replace Themselves?
Actually, We Have Plenty of Time
Quitting vs Letting Go
How Startups Actually Get Bought
What if I'm Building the Wrong Product?
Are Founders Driven by Fear or Greed?
Why I'm Either Working or Feeling Guilty
Startup Financial Assumptions
Why Every Kid Should be a Startup Founder
We Only Have to be Right Once
If a Startup Sinks, Founders Go Down With it
Founder Success: We Need a Strict Definition of Personal Success
Is Quiet Quitting a Problem at Startup Companies?
Founder Exits are Hard Work and Good Fortune, Not "Good Luck"
Finalizing Startup Projections
All Founders are Beloved In Good Times
Our Startup Culture of Entitlement
The Bullshit Case for Raising Capital
How do We Manage Our Founder Flaws?
What If my plan for retirement is "never retire"?
Startup Failure is just One Chapter in Founder Life
6 Similarities between Startup Founders and Pro Athletes
All Founders Make Bad Decisions — and That's OK
Startup Board Negotiations: How do I tell the board I need a new deal?
Founder Sacrifice — At What Point Have I Gone Too Far?
Youth Entrepreneurship: Can Middle Schoolers be Founders?
Living the Founder Legend Isn't so Fun
Why Do VC Funded Startups Love "Fake Growth?"
How Should I Share My Wealth with Family?
How Many Deaths Can a Startup Survive?
This is Probably Your Last Success
Why Do We Still Have Full-Time Employees?

What if Our Dreams Are an Illusion?

Wil Schroter

What if Our Dreams Are an Illusion?

What if all the sacrifice we're making for this startup isn't worth it?

There's a bit of a compact we make with ourselves that it's OK to sacrifice our time, money, and life experiences for a big payoff later. The most important part of that assumption is that we're absolutely certain that the things we'll get with that payoff are worth the sacrifice.

But how do we know for sure? What if we go through all of this sacrifice, get everything we ever thought we wanted, and wind up no more satisfied than we are today? What if our dreams are an illusion?

The Cost of Being Wrong

The cost of us being wrong is significant because, as Founders, we sacrifice a lot for our goals. By comparison, if we work a regular day job, we get paid for our time. We may not get paid as much in the end, but we get paid. Most startup Founders defer compensation for a future payout, which implies that we need that money for our alternative future.

That deferred compensation and, let's face it, the countless additional hours that come with it imply that it'll be worth it when we get to that outcome. But if we find out that our "future selves" aren't really that much better off than our "present selves," we're going to feel cheated.

This is a massive bet we're making, and we're typically making it on some heavily unproven assumptions. For all of the things we're trying to get right, you'd think being right about our future outcome would be pretty important. And yet we often just hope we're right and trudge along anyway.

I Tested This Notion

Personally, I'm terrified of making this bad bet, so I'm constantly testing my future versions of myself to make sure I've made the right choice. Fun fact — I've been wrong almost across the board on what I thought my "future self" would enjoy.

When I was a poor kid growing up, I dreamed of living in Beverly Hills, flying private jets, and driving a Lamborghini. It sounded like the absolute pinnacle of success, and if I'm being honest, I was 100% sure I'd never get there, but it was fun to dream.

As I got older and started having some success in the startup game, I began testing all of those notions. I moved to Beverly Hills, flew private, and bought a Lamborghini. Check, check, check.

Were all of my hopes and dreams fulfilled? Nope. I was just as satisfied as I was before, only with way more cost to feel the same way. After that, I never thought about any of those things ever again — which has incredible value to me because I'm never optimizing for expensive outcomes I really don't want.

Sample First, Order Later

What was important about that journey is that it allowed me to taste test my alternate future before I committed to making massive decisions and sacrifices to enable me to do that forever. Hell, in today's economy, I could have rented every one of those things for a week and gotten the same outcome!

The fallacy is believing that there is this much better outcome that our sacrifice will certainly reward us for. What if there isn't? We should never incur more risk, more sacrifice, or more "life deferral" for an outcome that we don't really want.

Instead, we should do everything in our power to sample those outcomes before we commit to them. I always say that the value of anything is the fact that we don't have it. The moment we give ourselves a chance to have it, hold it, and live it, the value of that thing quickly diminishes.

Let's not spend one moment of risk on anything that won't have lasting value.

In Case You Missed It

Why Money Can't Buy Happiness (podcast) Being successful and having a lot of money doesn’t equate to genuine happiness. More often than not, it’s a fleeting distraction from other issues that require attention.

How I Harness My Insane Startup Anxiety There are two types of Founders: those that admit they are wracked with anxiety, and those that are lying about it. We’re all going to deal with it for the rest of our lives — so why not use it as a superpower, instead of reacting like it’s kryptonite?

Fat, Sick, and Nearly Startup (podcast). Join Wil and Ryan as they break down the ways Founders can learn to deal with personal hardships that are often a result of our own Startups — while we're still running them.

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