Especially so for someone like me who grew up trying hard not to take money from my mother because of tight financial circumstances. In a startup world, planning for failure is a recipe for mediocrity. Fighting this old habit has proved to be one of the harder battles on par with negating my anti-human aura.
Examples of planning for failure
I was having random shower thoughts this weekend, and I toyed internally with the idea to consider a slower rate of growth if I do not manage to raise funds. Immediately, I realized what I was doing in the very same minute. I was:
- considering the plan of action to take should I fail
- giving myself the option to fail
The moment I allowed myself to fail, I will fail.
I remedied the situation by doubling down today with a trajectory estimate for which I shot for a higher moon that will require at least US1.5M to execute. I will be updating my raise for this amount instead.
By fault, we are built to handle failures
So let failures come to you instead of planning for it. It is the equivalent of stuffing our spaceship with protective safety equipment In a moonshot attempt. It makes the moonshot all that much harder because we are adding "weight." In my case, the weight of risk-aversion.
What I have come to realize is that my ass is very much cushioned by eternal optimism. I always bounce back. So this time I will go all out a little bit harder, a little further.