it’s okay to f*ck up as a young professional
in a world with eyes on you 24/7, doing something extraordinary comes with innumerable expectations… and distractions.
reflecting on the past and one of my old companies, the team journeyed out to los angeles to meet with various mentors and investors, as well as attend tech-week and innovate la. when we arrived in la, we started to make plans for the down time we’d have exploring the city — we were a travel startup, after all.
the four of us decided that we would split the cost of a car rental for the five days that we would be there. we used an app called turo that allows car owners to rent out their cars to travelers like us. we booked a convertible mustang to enjoy the sunny california weather. we decided that it would be worth our time to drive out to silicon valley to visit the apple campus in cupertino, and facebook headquarters, among other popular tech companies. the next day we woke up at 4:30 a.m. to drive five hours out there and get a little taste of the hype we hoped to build our company around.
when we got to san jose and pulled up to 1 hacker way, home to facebook, we quickly learned that parking at the famous hq is a logistical nightmare. we were circling the many campus buildings in an attempt to find a visitor parking spot. just how cramped was the lot? facebook, in all its prestige, has a valet company that actually parks cars for many of its employees, which made sense given all the cars that we saw parked immediately behind others, blocking them into regular spaces.
after circling this parking lot for close to 30 minutes, we had almost given up until we found a small spot in the curve of a circle drive that would require us to parallel park between two cars near the back of the lot. as we attempted to parallel park, we brushed the front bumper of our rental up against a car in front of us that was valet parked in a standard space.
after getting out to assess the damage, we were quick to learn that the car we scraped was a maserati. it was a very high stress situation, and the security cameras in the lot were actually met with drones that came out flying overhead to monitor the situation… that didn’t help soothe any anxiety on our part. the next day was spent filing all kinds of claims with insurance companies and working through the details that any minor accident such as this one would involve. Ultimately, we were able to get the situation resolved.
the nature of working to build a startup from nothing is incredibly high stress, low reward (at first). over the past several months, the progress we made toward getting to market and launching the company was met with many long hours countless challenges with countless disappointments, but the moments of solving problems big or small always seem to justify the means. there’s no blueprint for building something a startup… it doesn’t matter what industry you’re in. stressful situations will occur in both the life of the startup and the individual lives of the team members.
trying to build something from nothing in a society that tells you to go to school and leverage that education for a nine-to-five paycheck, is hard… and it’s incredibly stressful when money isn’t flowing in one way and out the other. we can get distracted thinking about everything we need to get right, or conversations that we should be having, or opportunities that we should be taking advantage of. but there are too many other people in the world without those distracting thoughts, and so, it’s okay to f*ck up. if you’re bold and daring enough to build something from nothing in this world, you’re going to hit eight maserati’s before you own one yourself someday.
in the startup world, it’s all about the “chase your dream”’s and the “life’s too short”’s, and while that’s true, it’s also about allowing yourself to make mistakes no matter how big, small, or ridiculous they may be. it’s about the “hey, remember that time in facebook’s parking when we were still living as starving artists?”
among the stress and long hours there is hope and beauty laying under the surface, check in with yourself every once in a while you deserve it. take the press off, even the most profound entrepreneurs struggle…
““starting a company is like eating glass and staring into the abyss.” - Elon Musk
