When starting a company, usually the beginning is fun.
Then, it’s hellish for a number of years.230
You have to be focused on the short term and money coming in when creating a company, because otherwise the company will die. People think, “Oh, creating a company will be fun.” It’s not. There are periods of fun, and there are periods where it’s just awful.
You have to feel quite compelled to start a company. You must have a high pain threshold. My friend Bill Lee says, “Starting a company is like eating glass and staring into the abyss.” There’s some truth to that.231
“Staring into the abyss’” means you’re going to be constantly facing the extermination of the company. Most startups fail. It’s like 90 percent—it could be 99 percent of startups fail. You’re constantly saying, “If I don’t get this right, the company will die.” This can be quite stressful.232
“Eating glass” means you’ve got to work on the problems the company needs you to work on, not the problems you want to work on. You end up working on problems you wish you weren’t working on. That’s “eating glass,” and it goes on for a long time.233
We were facing imminent death at SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity for a long time. We’re no longer staring directly into the abyss, which is great. It is there in the distance, but I’m not staring right at it. There’s always going to be some amount of glass that has to be chewed. But it’s less and less as time goes by.234
If you don’t eat the glass, you’re not going to be successful.235
Q: How do you keep your focus on the big picture when you’re constantly faced with being bankrupt in a month?
A very small percentage of mental energy is spent on the big picture. You know where you’re generally heading, and the actual path is going to be a zigzag in that direction. You’re trying not to deviate too far from the path you want to be on, but you have to, to some degree.236
Failure is not good. Failure is bad. But if something is important enough, then you do it, even though the risk of failure is high. My advice for somebody who wants to start a company: Bear in mind, the most likely outcome is failure. Reconcile yourself to that strong possibility, and only if you still feel compelled to, do it.237
That said, many people fear starting a company too much. What’s the worst that could happen? You’re not gonna starve to death; you’re not gonna die of exposure—really, what’s the worst that could happen?238