The Startup Ecstasy For Virgins

Working on a startup gives people a kind of high. A high that you would experience, only if you are a startup virgin.

It starts with an idea. An idea you came up with that will allow you to change the world. No one else seems to have done it yet. The world is for your taking. Your spine tingles with excitement. You feel that you are sitting on something that is potentially huge. You start to get aroused.

You share your idea with your friends, and seek their opinions. Inevitably, they will tell you that your idea is probably the greatest invention since sliced cheese. You probably won’t hear the word ‘probably’. You will simply be too aroused to notice, because, by now, you can already feel that rush coming. You feel like you are getting ready to do something big.

You will think you can easily take on the likes of Facebook, since every amazing startup always has a humble beginning story to tell. This feeling further boosts your ego and excitement. You share your amazing idea with yet more friends and all of them ask you to go for it.

You feel like a protagonist in a superhero movie. You start to read books like ‘David and Goliath’ by Malcolm Gladwell, or ‘The Lean Startup’ by Eric Ries. These books give your confidence a further boost to simply go for it.

Finally, you went for it. You start sketching up how you want your app to look like and you feel even more excited. “It is finally taking shape!” your brain screams. It always makes someone feel useful, meaningful, and important when creating. It brings you over the moon. You get an adrenaline rush every time you look at your paper prototypes.

You found some bloke who could build your app for USD 500. As the early builds come in, you excitedly share them with your friends, who inevitably will come back with nothing but raving reviews for an app that isn’t in any way close to completion.

Someone might point out some issues on the assumptions you had, but you don’t care. You tell yourself, “I’m finally doing it! It is happening! The app is taking shape!” You feed yourself such a high with this thought that would make all illegal drug peddlers go out of business.

You start looking for connections to the press to talk about your world changing app. You probably give (or beg for) interviews to talk about your uncompleted app. No, it’s not quite like a person who have just been selected for his college’s basketball team babbling about his potential to be the next NBA player, but close.

Some media sites picked up on your story. You went CRAZY. “This is ME! People are talking about ME! And my App! And my Startup! I’m officially an Entrepreneur now! All hail me!” your brain shrieks. It starts to feel like Mark Zuckerberg is only a rung or two away.

The app goes onto the App Store and 3 blokes downloaded it. You go WILD with excitement. “OMG!” you thought, “ Strangers are looking at my app! OMG! OMG! OMG!” Your heart thumps so fast that your doctor would have rushed you to Emergency Services.

You grow addicted to the App Store reports and constantly refresh it to see the latest download figures. Every time a new user downloads your app, your heart skips a beat.

More people download your app. You are on a roll. You start thinking about the future. About how investors would be lining up to invest in you. You think you’ll have a million dollars in investment within the next 6 months and would IPO in 5 years. You are so high on thought of being a multi-millionaire that you aren’t really interested in anything else.

Then, the crash. No new users. No point for your App. No money. No startup. No job.

Congratulations, you are now no longer a startup virgin.


This article was written through my personal experience in founding my first failed startup years ago.

I’ve since taken an entirely different approach and found a different kind of high.

Currently, I run a boutique digital marketing & mobile app development company, Originally US.


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