Linkedln Founder Reid Hoffman Hits Harder On Startups With This Striking Speech
Before I go on to share with you some of the striking hits from Reid Hoffman, the Linkedln founder and an American venture capitalist with lots of investments in Startups, take this from me: Entrepreneurship is not for a faint hearted person but so fresh and sweeter than honey if only you can patiently learn these lessons from a veteran himself and emerge super successful.
As I do tell my team so I’m telling you right now, “It’s either you’re winning or you’re losing. You can’t be in between”. So, the choice is yours. However, you’ve got to bear these facts in mind always as you go about your business to win and nothing more:
Heroism Comes With Tough Prices To Pay
Every Startup wants to be celebrated as a hero, true or false? Well, the truth is that not all will be celebrated as heroes, because along the way many will keep dropping their dreams with lots of flimsy excuses that look strong.
In the exact words of the Linkedln Founder,
“If startups were easy, everyone would do it. They’re hard. But that hardness is the thing that gives you the chance to change the world. All startups go through a valley of the shadow. All of them–PayPal, LinkedIn, things that I’ve done personally, things that I’ve invested in, Facebook, Airbnb–have valleys of the shadow, where you’re like, ‘Why did we think this was a good idea? We didn’t realize there was going to be this landmine, that it was going to be this hard.’ But that’s where you have the possibility of being heroic, of accomplishing something that no one else has done. Of making a change in the world that gets reflected in society and changes millions of people’s lives. And that’s the reason why you face down these dark days, you band together, and you work very hard to solve them. And that’s your chance to be heroes.”
He has just given you the smallest hit for now, right? (Smiling)… Relax and put yourself together and wait for the hardest hits.
No Hard Feelings and Nothing Personal
I really understand how you feel sometimes if not right now trying to build your business from scratch to the admirable standard. Often you doubt if you’re indeed on the right track especially when everything you tried in the past failed, huh?
Yeah, I can really relate to these feelings. They’re always there for every Startup including the already established entrepreneurs. Did you know that Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook passed through these tough MOMENTS?
Reid Hoffman on one of his recent Podcasts Master of Scale shared what’s to me is the hardest truth any Startup needs to know. Take your time to read and digest this Top Notch.
See you soon!