The Startup Journey

Paul Graham has yet another great article for entrepreneurs; this time, titled "The Hardest Lessons for Startups to Learn". In point no. 5, he argues I the most important quality in a startup founder is determination. Not intelligence -- determination. You can lose quite a lot in the brains department and it won't kill you. But lose even a little bit in the commitment department, and that will kill you very rapidly. Running a startup is like walking on your hands: it's possible, but it requires extraordinary effort. If an ordinary employee were asked to do the things a startup founder has to, he'd be very indignant. Imagine if you were hired at some big company, and in addition to writing software ten times faster than you'd ever had to before, they expected you to answer support calls, administer the servers, design the web site, cold-call customers, find the company office space, and go out and get everyone lunch. ...If an acquirer thinks you're going t