Josh Pigford has an excellent post up titled Getting Out of the Startup Rat Race where he talks about the pressure and grind of trying to build a hyper growth SaaS startup. After spending three years comparing himself, and his startup, to the high flyers we read about, he realized that it’s not all about being the next billion dollar thing. Rather, there are many other ways to define success.
The highlights from the post:
- Our revenue was definitely growing month over month, but my eternal optimism believed that it’d magically start really growing in “just a few months”.
- We were treating our company like we were in some race for time. But there is no race. There isn’t another runner we could lose to and we can’t “come in first”.
- Do not obsessively think about your startup “every single moment of the day”.
- Because doing things your own way, on your own terms, is where you’ll find fulfillment. And really, that’s what we’re all after.
There is a real rat race element to the startup world and entrepreneurs would do well to step back and objectively think through what’s important to them.
What else? What are some more thoughts on the startup rat race?
David Cummings on Startups 
And if you win the rat race, you are still a rat…