When your friend finally starts their business, one of three things will happen:
- It’ll fail (not as high probability as the “stats” will have you believe)
- It’ll take off.
- It’ll flatline at the point where they are almost comfortable, but still have scope to hope for things to pick up.
Number three is far more likely.
In reality though, if the founder has created something intentional, with a specific audience, that also serves a specific purpose or creates a change, then what usually stands between the last two is choice.
As Paul Graham from Y Combinator teaches us, it is a misconception that if you build something with a good website, store-front or social media that it’ll somehow take off. These things aren’t mousetraps that we can set and forget.
“Startups take off because founders make them take off.”
This is shown by companies like Stripe, Air BnB and many more. There is a level of “static friction” that must be overcome manually by the founder, in order for the business to grow.
It turns out, hope is a poor hedge.
If you want it to grow, it’s likely you can make it grow. It might be sales (often the case), recruiting beta testers, surprise and delighting your audience, culture, or another area.
The first step is identifying where this early friction lies, and then choosing to spend the time and effort here that’s needed.
