How a startup feels - by Benn Stancil - benn.substack
One way to think about a startup is as a machine that prints money. Or a machine that could print money, if you configure it well. If you run the machine just so, it will make you rich. If you run it exceptionally well, it can print enough money to make you one of the richest people in the world. If you run it badly, it will send you to jail. 1 It is important to configure it well.
The machine, however, is hard to use. You can’t just buy one by sending a couple hundred dollars to Delaware and turn it on. No, you have to carefully run the machine, and the machine is complicated. It is controlled by thousands of knobs and levers, and every switch will cause the machine to print different amounts of money, or burn different amounts of money, or commit different amounts of crime. Again, it is important to configure it well.
Unfortunately, in addition to the machine having lots of knobs and levers, nothing on the machine is well labeled. You don’t really know what any of the knobs and levers do. There is a wire coming out of the back of each one, but they are all tangled together. Some of the wires might be severed, and might not be connected to the machine at all. Some of the wires conduct electrical signals very well, and the machine responds immediately when you turn the knobs connected to them. Some of the wires are full of tar, and conduct electrical currents exceptionally slowly. 2 If you flip a switch connected to one of those wires, the signal may not reach the machine for weeks or months. You don’t know which wires are which. All you can do is experiment.
