Building a Successful Startup is like Building a Pyramid

I could not have said it better than Paul Buchheit, co-founder of Friendfeed, in his post "Overnight success takes a long time". The most difficult for an entrepreneur is to keep building on his vision and disregard the army of people who say he will fail. I feel that too with Seesmic, very often. You have to keep building while so many people criticize what you do but listen at the same time to the criticism that makes sense. Difficult exercise, what criticism make sense or not... When should you not listen and go ahead or listen and stop or change direction. I also see every negative post or comment about Seesmic as a sign of attention, that people care about it. I try to see it as an opportunity to learn. But truth is sometimes you just have to keep building and not listen to those who tell you that it will fail.

Building new and different things take time, here is how Seth Godin in his book "Tribes" that I am reading now, nails it:

"What you do is courageous. It requires bravery. Managing doesn't. It might be hard work, but it feels safe. Changing things-pushing the envelope and creating a future that doesn't exist yet (at the same time you're criticized by everyone else)-requires bravery."

Thanks Paul for sharing these thoughts with us, especially also about having enough runway ahead of you to make the startup a success. Right, it takes 3 to 5 years to make a success. Or a failure. It would be a pity, but at least our days are so exciting we wake up at night to build something else around our products or for an idea that just suddenly seems obvious. My days are never boring. Scary and stressful, yes, but never boring.