for W3c validation
Based on my own startup history, being the CEO of a hi-tech startup can feel a lot like what a baseball fan imagines it is like being the manager of a major league baseball team. You always have to worry about what the owners (investors) have to say and how they react based on your teams recent performance. So the pressure is always there. And like any good manager, we have to learn to cut our losses early, and how to balance our desire to embrace younger players and help them gain the experience that they will remember for the rest of their careers with doing what we need to win. And when needed, we make the moves we need to in order to secure our chances for a victory. The bottom line is that in both baseball and in our startups, we have a better chance to be successful when everyone on the team supports and respects each other and when everyone believes in the collective vision.
This isn’t to say that every season will be OUR season or that every startup will make it. The truth is, many teams have losing seasons and many startups fail. Sometimes a startup’s failure can also be heart breaking. For example I had a lot of confidence in Tello back in the day. All I have to show for it now are the lessons I learned.
But when things don’t work out the way we had hoped, I have also learned there is always a tomorrow. There is never any shortage of great new ideas. And by allowing ourselves to believe, we leave ourselves the opportunity to believe that our next season will be the one that takes us to a championship, and that our next startup’s exit will be the one with a multi-billion dollar valuation at the IPO.
Believing you can do something is more than half the battle, if you ask me. So much of business (& life) success is mental — if you don’t have confidence that you can do something, you probably can’t.
