[kayodelycaon]

There is nothing wrong in being prepared for things to go wrong.

I’m always prepared for my car breaking down on every trip I make, no matter how short. It’s not that I don’t have faith in my car and driving, it’s that I don’t trust every other variable in the equation.

[codegeek]

Respectfully, this is not being prepared. This is being too paranoid which is exactly what you cannot do if you want to start your own thing and take a risk. There never is a perfect time to do your own thing.

[kayodelycaon]

Knowing your options and determining potential risk to your backup plan isn’t paranoia.

My car already has the few things I need in the trunk. All I need to do is check the weather and choose what clothes to wear. Having a road atlas for the entire United States means I can navigate without a phone. (Which has happened.) Having an extra hoodie and a pair of old boots means I can walk several miles in snow.

All of these items have been used or badly needed the past.

If I was starting a company, I’d do similar things and I wouldn’t worry about failure and would take risks, even serious ones, with confidence.

[kreetx]

"Only the paranoid survive" :)

Mentally preparing for failure is a perfectly reasonable thing to do, but it's not about "feeling sad" and "giving up", but about thinking through all the things that may ruin your business. You'll also be less shocked when you do fail.

[tgittos]

The risk profiles of building a company and taking a trip in your car are definitely different.

Building and running a company is more akin to driving your car through the Amazon rainforest.

I'd argue that if the OP is worried about getting a job after failing, they're not ready to start.

[pcthrowaway]

To be a bit of a downer, but also not sugar-coat it, I'd assume there's a higher chance of death from taking a big risk and losing than there is from driving your car on regular roads also.

I don't know of any examples of founders specifically, but it's very common with gamblers/traders.

[jklein11]

I'm not sure I'm following this line of thinking. Are you saying that the best way to handle risks is to put your head in the sand and pretend they don't exist?

If I was thinking about driving through the Amazon I would ask others what the experience was like to better understand the risks, not just hop in the car and hope for the best.

[tgittos]

> If I was thinking about driving through the Amazon I would ask others what the experience was like to better understand the risks, not just hop in the car and hope for the best.

Not what you are doing.

If you were probing to discover risks, you wouldn't be here asking what happens if your business fails. You would be asking how to prevent the business from failing.

> Are you saying that the best way to handle risks is to put your head in the sand and pretend they don't exist?

When it comes to entrepreneurship, yes.

You don't know what will come along and kill your business. Maybe Meta eats your lunch. Maybe the government in your jurisdiction passes a law that is incompatible with your primary monetization strategy. Maybe your house burns down and you need to sell.

Are any of these actually worth worrying over and planning mitigation against? Or are they your own personal black swan events that you just need to handle in the moment?

You know when the best time to worry about getting a job after your startup fails? When your startup fails.

To put it bluntly, this is all about mindset. You can't de-risk starting a company. You can only believe in your ability to overcome the obstacles that will come up as they come up. Planning what happens if you fail shows enough lack of belief in yourself that you almost de-facto will fail, because that exit door is always there if things get hard.