Honestly, I never understood why some founders feel that they have won it all.
It’s a tough job – really!
- Customers don’t care whether you are a founder of the company or graduated from IIT or whatsoever. If they find better alternative, they switch to your competitor. Simple.
- If you are a founder of funded startup with multiple investors, the controlling power already lies with investors and you have to make decisions to please them irrespective of what your wish is!
- You are answerable to not only your team members but their family members as well because their livelihood depends on it
Woah! This is indeed a big role with huge responsibility.
It doesn’t end here. Being a founder not only brings huge responsibility but it also comes with several drawbacks
- There’s no course or framework or template or any guidance to help in your journey. At max, you can try to get solutions from here and there but nothing comes easy
- Nobody understands you as a founder because your problems are too unique and it’s only you who needs to deal with them
- Employees leave or switch when they don’t see positive things but you cannot leave your company when things go wrong
- Your savings, trust, resources, career and literally everything is on stake as a founder
- You typically work long hours, including nights and weekends, which significantly impact your personal life and relationships
A person who is fighting all such challenges is definitely humble by nature because they know what they have on their plate.
It’s a never ending battle and they didn’t achieve anything yet.
But founders who take pride and arrogance just because they are founders, either they are new to the role or they are bad with the estimation of social responsibilities they have.
I never sensed arrogance in founders who have been thriving for decades – consider Tatas, Ambanis or even some startup founders like that of Zerodha and Zoho to name a few.
I work with Brainstorm Force and not even for once, I felt that our founders have any pride or arrogance. They are just humble and running a successful bootstrapped business since 2009.
Meanwhile, it’s funny to see self-employed digital marketers calling themselves founders of a one-man company and bragging about it on LinkedIn.