Champagne and Razorblades

The rollercoaster life of a founder August 28, 2025

This has to me my favourite way of describing the roller coaster ride of being a founder. Founding a startup and building it is like a rollercoaster- the slow and hard grind up followed by the wild euphoria as you come off the top and exhilarating ride down with the wind rushing through your hair. There’s a good reason lots of entrepreneurs are also extremes sport enthusiasts- the rush is the same and equally addictive. While everyone looks admiringly at the highs and the thrill of the ride it is the lows that you need to pay attention to. I’ve written previously on the dangers of the increasing founder tourism we see and failure to anticipate and prepare for the lows is one reason why it is so dangerous.

 In our podcast chat https://www.linkedin.com/posts/bootstrapconfidential_a-journey-of-champagne-and-razorblades-one-activity-7366353988671148032-VXPD?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAF1UkEBCY-a17j1ZdCo5zlZPvZI1z0Bcbk Jane Bianchini talks about the champagne highs followed by the unimaginable lows where you feel like you’re in the gutter fighting with razorblades to get out. At these low  times it is important that you frame everything correctly in order not to become overwhelmed and to remain resilient determined and focused. She talks about the importance of blind optimism in riding out the lows and of never seeing failure as failure but simply as a lesson learned, as a step on the journey to success. However badly something goes it is important to take the positive learning from it and move on. If you have no plan B the everything you do is simply helping you execute on plan A irrespective of how may road bumps and hurdles there are. This is key.

Persistence, resilience and grit are key to surviving as a founder. They don’t guarantee success but they do guarantee survival and that alone will go along ay towards finally achieving success. Rupert Lee-Browne , CEO and founder of Caxton,when asked about the key to success says that you must survive. You must keep going. If you stop then it’s all over. But if you can somehow keep your startup going in some small shape or format even when you’re almost down and out, if you can just survive,  then you have a chance to turn it around, to build and to work towards a successful outcome.

The problem nowadays is social media and especially  LinkedIn, where ironically I’m posting this!

LinkedIn is full of daily expressions and posts from people all over the world saying the same thing – I’m crushing it. This may be true- in lots of cases I doubt it or the world economy would be going gangbusters as there are so many successful businesses smashing it. Where it’s dangerous is it leads to false expectations. It makes people think that being a founder is easy, that success is almost guaranteed. This is not true. 95% of businesses fail in the first five years. In the next 5 years 80% fail. This means that you have a 1% chance of building a sustainable  business that lasts ten years. Those are not good odds.

Not only is it statistically incorrect it is misleading. It makes founders think that they must be successful from day one. My first business blew up and second time founders who failed first time are very common. The pressure of social media means that every set back feels even worse as it seems like everyone else is effortlessly crushing it.

Building a business is hard enough- tyring to do it in public just adds unnecessarily to  the stress. It’s better to build well and quietly. Being an “overnight success” when you come into the spotlight  after ten years hard work outside the spotlight is a blessing in itself.

Taryn Williams GAICD wrote yesterday a piece on how founders these days are supposed to intertwine their personal brand with their start up brand and  are also expected to be a never ending content engine. I agree with Taryn that this is not sustainable and while it works in a few cases, where it is a deliberate strategy, in most cases it leads to even further stress and burn out. Even if AI and social media have lowered the barriers to entry the likelihood of success hasn’t increased.

Not only does this false expectation create even greater stress and mental exhaustion, this building in public ( and posting endlessly about it) distracts you from what you should be doing – spending every waking minute building your business. On top of that it creates an exit problem.

Investors do not value brands where the founder is intertwined in the business. They will always apply a discount because of the increased risk if the founder walks off or something happens. For this reason alone you should not tie yourself personally to the brand with endless posting unless its part of a clear strategy.

If you do want to build a business then that’s fantastic and I absolutely encourage it but remember- it’s very hard work. It requires persistence determination and grit. You must get used to rejection. The chances of success are slim. Despite all that it is a huge amount of fun and completely addictive. Most founders, successful or not,  can’t help but go again.  Blind optimism goes along way😊 There will be unimaginable lows but the champagne moments taste so much sweeter when you’ve just been down in the ditch fighting with razorblades.