Every startup dies a few deaths before it lives forever.

But that's not what they tell us in the startup Founder brochure. Instead, we make up this fairy tale that our startup must be a great idea that instantly takes off, leaving customers and investors standing in line to hand us their cash. We keep making great decisions while we struggle to stay on top of our meteoric rise. Our days are jam-packed between photo shoots for magazine covers, headlining major conferences, and giving powerful speeches at company retreats.

Sound familiar?

No, of course it doesn't. Because that's not how any of this shit goes. The real version of a startup involves failing incessantly, sometimes to the brink of shutting down, until we rise back up and finally ...