Startup life is tough but it is also rewarding

if you are into cycling than I’m sure you will love this amazing video. And if you are not, I hope you are slightly inspired by the video to pick up cycling. When I was watching this video, I could correlate cycling with a tech entrepreneur’s startup life.

Cycling is tough, towards the end of the video you see many crushes. So is starting up a company. 

Startups are hard. No, startups are damn hard. - Y-Combinator grad Chad Etzel

I like to share certain parts of the video that I feel correlated to startup life.

The sharp cold wind even it’s UP wind forces you to go on - 0:17s

When you build a business, there will always be opposing forces. Sometimes they might even be your friends and family. When I first left my job for Intraix, my mom was totally against it (she 101% supportive now). My friends thought I was crazy (totally love me now). But I continued.

Cyclists hated head-wind because head-wind slow us down, it makes us pedal with more effort but to reach the finishing point, we cannot stop.   

In respect of the opponents comes the major reason not to give up - 0:31s

In my personal opinion, I think most entrepreneurs are stubborn and egoistic. Because they like prove people wrong. If you say their ideas are crazy, they will prove it to you they are not. And it is because of this attitude that we are now flying.

Think Wilbur and Orville Wright, they owned a bicycle shop. They said they want to fly in the air with parts for bicycle. People called them crazy.

where men take off to the finish line and make them immortal…They joined the heroes and become GOD and only the strongest will wear the pink - 0:51s

And usually for those who make it, we see them as GOD. I think Mark Zuckerberg is GOD. He totally changed the game for social media. He build a company that many people are using and businesses have build upon it. (some people like him, some people hate him but he still build an amazing company)

Now it is the same for cycling, towards the end of a sprint, the cyclist that dash out and crosses the finishing line is the Winner. You can called him anything you want during the race but the end result is he is the winner.

The question lies “What about the losers?”, I think losers do not suffer because they have gotten an experience that none of their friends can embrace. For example, hiring an the first employee, firing your co-founder or even explaining to your employees that you have no salaries for them and many many others.

This amazing experience is something money cannot buy. It belongs to you and me who have taken our first step into entrepreneurship. And now I know why I love cycling because it gives me the same rewarding experience as starting up. My startup journey is like a roller coaster, what about yours? love to hear them in comments.

*btw, I love watching Giro d’Italia more than Tour de France. Definitely much more exciting in my opinion.  

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• With A $300 Million Return On A $17 Million Startup Investment, Andreessen Horowitz Finally Earns Its Hype (businessinsider.com)