Don't Risk It For The Biscuit
“You can’t expect great reward without great risk.”
“He risked everything and it paid off.”
“You gotta risk it for the biscuit!”
These common sayings— are horrible advice and untrue.
Successful Founders are not the risk-seeking trailblazers you think they are.
Successful Founders hate risk.
“What? What do you mean???”
Let’s start by asking a simple question:
What is risk?
Risk is the number of decisions that are out of your control between your direct input and your desired output.
When you start looking at the world from this perspective— Founding makes sense.
Founding is the best way to limit the number of decisions out of your control.
Need a better product? Design and write code.
Need more sales? Prospect and outreach.
What seems more risky to you?
Working for a company that can fire you are a whim due to circumstances out of your control?
Or, founding a startup where your success is determined by your own abilities?
Founding is the lowest risk you can take— it’s betting on yourself.
If you fail, you fail because you weren’t good enough.
Not because it was someone else’s fault.
It’s all on you— and that’s a good thing.