| > Dunno if it helps, but just know most of us are at least a bit of a mess. Years ago, I tried to quit my job because I was feeling terrible about how I was doing. My boss gave me one of the best pieces of advice anyone's ever given me: "You know, Rachel, the suicide rate among founders is..." This probably sounds like one of the most unhelpful things someone could say in that situation, but it was EXACTLY what I needed to hear. I didn't need someone to say "oh, it's ok to feel bad". I needed someone to say "feeling bad doesn't mean you're not strong enough to be great". I needed to hear that ambitious people who are trying with all their might to be better are still constantly struggling with the idea that they aren't good enough. YC's own founder school doesn't quite put it in those terms, but there's a LOT in there about the importance of human factors. Arguably more than there is business advice, actually. They explicitly say, for example, "don't pick a co-founder who has complementary skills, pick one that won't drive you insane, because breakups and not lack of skill are a more common failure mode". And there's like half a dozen videos on how to keep it together when you're stressed beyond breaking. It's pretty reassuring. To really make the point: my company became profitable for the first time yesterday afternoon, and I spent a good chunk of the 24 hours since then ruminating on how now we might fail because I'm not sure where the next bit of revenue comes from. Never mind that the things I was worried about one, two, three, or four months ago have all gone better than I feared - anxiety doesn't care about that. It'll just glom on to whatever excuse it can get - see e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40191179 |