The Startup Ecosystem Is Beyond Broken
We need a dose of common sense and an army of uncommon startups
“What exactly is wrong with the startup ecosystem these days?”
That’s an exact quote from a colleague of mine. Like me, he has spent about 25 years as a working entrepreneur, although he is smarter and more successful than me. Better looking, too. He now spends the bulk of his time helping promising startups get their flywheel going.
The quote is from a recent email to me in which he was essentially throwing his hands up in frustration, after several years of watching fundamentals becoming more and more meaningless, and good companies being undone for the wrong reasons.
My response: “How much time do you have?”
Turns out he had quite a bit. So here’s the gist of my answer: If you’re wondering why your startup can’t get any traction, it might not be you. In fact, it probably isn’t you. Hell, let’s just go ahead and say the quiet part out loud:
It’s not you. It’s them.
If you feel the slightest twinge of agreement, read on and let’s get fired up, because I recently spent a lot of time thinking about this.
