How To Deal With Setbacks

1. 0:00 – 0:26

   Introduction

   1. MSMichael Seibel0:00

      Oh, it's like saying that you wanna be a boxer, but like after you get really good at boxing, you'll never have to take a punch again. It's like, no, the sport, peop- That's the sport. [laughs]

   2. DCDalton Caldwell0:09

      [laughs]

   3. MSMichael Seibel0:09

      That's the game we're playing. [upbeat music] All right. This is Michael Seibel with Dalton Caldwell, and today we're gonna talk about dealing with setbacks. Um, needless to say, in both of our startups we experienced a wide variety of setbacks, and I think

2. 0:26 – 1:04

   Punches that land

   1. MSMichael Seibel0:26

      working with so many startups over the last 10 years, what's probably become most obvious to us is how I don't think I've ever seen founders who don't, um, get hit with a lot of punches. Like dodging a punch is impossible. Like even, l- I'll phrase it another way. You might dodge some of the punches, but some of the punches are gonna land. So this is gonna be a bit of a talk about what types of punches land, and what you might have to deal with if you're in this game for a long time. What do you think, Dalton? Did, did y'all have a couple punches land over the years? [laughs]

   2. DCDalton Caldwell1:01

      Yeah. I mean, that was, that was my experience

3. 1:04 – 2:05

   The setback cycle

   1. DCDalton Caldwell1:04

      as a founder, was taking punches constantly. And I think in a, what comes up in office hours with me a lot, man, is I think people wanna talk to me about one specific thing and asking for advice about that thing, and I'm happy to do it, but a lot of what I wanna encourage them to think about is the meta thing. [laughs] Which is that the thing will keep happening over and over again. And so developing a set of skills of identifying a situation of like, oh, this is one of these, where like something bad happened, and approaching it as part of like the sun rises, the sun sets, bad things happen. [laughs]

   2. MSMichael Seibel1:42

      Yeah. [laughs]

   3. DCDalton Caldwell1:43

      You know? Like it's, this is, this is as much a part of, of being a startup founder as literally anything else. Versus thinking you, you're never gonna have 'em, or that each, each setback is different. They're not. They just come, just like every sunrise comes, right?

   4. MSMichael Seibel1:59

      So let's jump into the first area that produces setbacks,

4. 2:05 – 4:27

   Fundraising

   1. MSMichael Seibel2:05

      investors and fundraising. The classic, the classic.

   2. DCDalton Caldwell2:08

      [laughs]

   3. MSMichael Seibel2:09

      I went in to fundraise with this expectation, I came out with a bloody nose and a black eye. [laughs]

   4. DCDalton Caldwell2:15

      Yeah. I thought, I thought they liked me. I thought they were my friends. I thought I was special. I thought-

   5. MSMichael Seibel2:22

      Yeah. [laughs]

   6. DCDalton Caldwell2:22

      ... everyone else is raising. You know, everyone else is this. Oh, I, I got all the right intros.

   7. MSMichael Seibel2:30

      Yeah.

   8. DCDalton Caldwell2:30

      I know they're interested in my thing. I did the networking. Like it's, it's some version of, I believed with good reason X was going to happen, X did not happen, WTF. Like, [laughs] like how dare they? Or the univers- Like you end up like going kinda nuts on feeling wronged by a person or a s- or a system or, uh, whatever you wanna call it. Like someone did you wrong, right?

   9. MSMichael Seibel3:01

      What I think the scary thing about fundraising is that one fundraising process can produce so many of these experiences. [laughs]

   10. DCDalton Caldwell3:10

       Constant. Well, they-

   11. MSMichael Seibel3:10

       [laughs] So many of them. And you know, I remember personally the first full partnership meeting, like we were raising a, a round like from a real investor, and I had my first full partnership meeting, and I remember thinking like, "This is it." Like this is, you know, this is destiny. Like this is gonna happen. Like you know, it's, it's taken me so many meetings to get here. And I remember in front of everyone, one of the VCs in the meeting eviscerated me for 45 minutes, and everyone else was quiet. And the person who like invited me to the meeting was quiet, and I just watched that person very logically take apart my entire startup, almost in a way that I would have had our roles been reversed. [laughs] It was like, it's like-

   12. DCDalton Caldwell3:55

       Well, they were, they were probably right, right Michael?

   13. MSMichael Seibel3:57

       They were right. No, no.

   14. DCDalton Caldwell3:58

       [laughs]

   15. MSMichael Seibel3:58

       It was, it wasn't, they weren't wrong, right? But like, you know, in some way they were right. In other ways I think we were right. I mean, our company did well in the end. But, but-

   16. DCDalton Caldwell4:05

       Precisely. Yeah, yeah.

   17. MSMichael Seibel4:06

       You c- you could take apart any startup logically at that stage, like where there's no defense, and I just remember leaving that meeting being like, "Oh, shit." Like I can't imagine how I felt an hour ago [laughs] compared to how I feel now. [laughs] Like literally those seem like two different years of my life.

   18. DCDalton Caldwell4:26

       We

5. 4:27 – 5:42

   YC - No for now

   1. DCDalton Caldwell4:27

      see this at YC, where like, you know, statistically most folks don't get into YC. This is the game, and you see the way folks react to it in very different ways.

   2. MSMichael Seibel4:40

      When we deal within the context of YC founders, the best people who don't get in realize this isn't a one-shot game. Yeah, they apply again, they make progress with their company. Like you know, we, we send the reject email to every company, and like the best people will be like, "You know, you're making good points. We're gonna, we're gonna improve on those things, and we'll, we'll apply again." And I think that like they realize that that's, that's a plus what. Like you, like you, you've earned some respect in that moment. Like put another way, there's an opportunity to get an advantage even when you feel like you just failed. Whereas almost the worst founders feel like, "Oh, now the game is off. If I like curse, it won't be counted 'cause like the, you know, it's-"

   3. DCDalton Caldwell5:28

      [laughs]

   4. MSMichael Seibel5:28

      "... the, the, the time is over, right?" Like the, you know, nothing's counted after the clock runs to zero, and it's like, uh, the game's not off. [laughs] Like what are you talking about?

   5. DCDalton Caldwell5:36

      Well, and we see this all the time with Series A's, where... Man, I talk about this so much. Um, no one

6. 5:42 – 6:28

   Survivorship bias

   1. DCDalton Caldwell5:42

      puts out a press release when they fail to raise an A.

   2. MSMichael Seibel5:45

      No. No.

   3. DCDalton Caldwell5:47

      So what's going on is most A's fail.

   4. MSMichael Seibel5:50

      Yep.

   5. DCDalton Caldwell5:50

      But no one ever tells anyone. But everyone tells everybody when it succeeds.

   6. MSMichael Seibel5:55

      Yeah.

   7. DCDalton Caldwell5:55

      And so it creates this warped reality that everyone thinks everyone is raising A's, and everyone-

   8. MSMichael Seibel6:01

      All the time

   9. DCDalton Caldwell6:01

      ... has an easy time. Everyone but me-

   10. MSMichael Seibel6:03

       [laughs]

   11. DCDalton Caldwell6:04

       ... is raising a Series A. Everyone but me is having an easy time. What's wrong with me? And it's like-

   12. MSMichael Seibel6:09

       Yes

   13. DCDalton Caldwell6:09

       ... no, no, no, no, no, no.

   14. MSMichael Seibel6:10

       Yeah.

   15. DCDalton Caldwell6:10

       Like I think it's just the virtue by which this information is shared. And so people have this warped re- view of reality- That causes everyone to think that they are personally, you know, everything bad has happened to them and to no one else. [laughs]

   16. MSMichael Seibel6:26

       Well, and this touches on the next subject,

7. 6:28 – 8:02

   Co-founders

   1. MSMichael Seibel6:28

      which is co-founders, because, uh, you know, this is something that I definitely experience. You know, my co-founders are reading TechCrunch, watching idiots raise tens of millions of dollars every day, and then looking at me as the fundraiser being like, "Hey, Mike. Like what's going on?" [laughs]

   2. DCDalton Caldwell6:45

      [laughs]

   3. MSMichael Seibel6:47

      Like, like there's a, a couple of idiots with no products just raised 10 million from, you know, da, da, da famous fund. Why, why is our series A taking this long? And man, co-founder fights suck. You know, co-founder disputes, they are the ... In some ways, I think it rocks you to your core more than investor issues, because, like, that's your home. Like when your home-

   4. DCDalton Caldwell7:11

      Yeah

   5. MSMichael Seibel7:11

      ... feels broken, ugh, it feels bad. At YC, we encourage people to do startups with their friends, and I think that a lot of people think about that and they say, "Well, that seems so risky. Like if my startup doesn't work, won't, won't my friendship break?" And you know, we always talk about the other side of that, which is like, if you don't have a strong relationship with this person, when things go bad, it's guaranteed to break. You know? [laughs] At least if you have a friendship, there's a fighting chance. [laughs]

   6. DCDalton Caldwell7:38

      Every co-founder relationship is always tested, right? And so you wanna have enough connective tissue-

   7. MSMichael Seibel7:43

      Yes

   8. DCDalton Caldwell7:43

      ... that, like, you can survive the inevitable friction.

   9. MSMichael Seibel7:48

      Yeah.

   10. DCDalton Caldwell7:48

       And to think that there will never be friction, that's not, again, not realistic.

   11. MSMichael Seibel7:51

       No.

   12. DCDalton Caldwell7:51

       And so you actually wanna have enough of a relationship so when the inevitable friction happens, there's still a relationship, and it's not just like, boom.

   13. MSMichael Seibel7:59

       So the other thing that comes up a lot is this concept

8. 8:02 – 9:15

   The magical deal

   1. MSMichael Seibel8:02

      of the magical deal, and, and I always love the magical deal because, like, the magical deal can punch you in the face when it doesn't happen, and the magical deal can punch you in the face when it does happen, 'cause it turns out it's not as magical as you thought. It's our first six-figure advertising contract with Microsoft, which we were like, "Oh man, this is it. Like, this is, this breaks open our entry into the monetization game," which required us to redesign our entire site, go to LA and produce a live television show [laughs]

   2. DCDalton Caldwell8:38

      Sure

   3. MSMichael Seibel8:38

      ... lose way more than $100,000 of money. [laughs] The show wasn't very good, and complete waste of time and effort. Like literally like three months of our lives, like down the drain. And if we think about the burn we had during that period of time, like let alone we didn't make money on the advertising, like the burn in the wasted opportunity. Um, and to me it's like, wow, but at the moment we were like, "These are the deals that will save the company. Like, this is the most important thing happening." You see it a lot, right? The, the founder is like, "This is the magical, here's the, the potion. This is what's gonna fix it."

   4. DCDalton Caldwell9:12

      Yeah. I think it's that you reduce

9. 9:15 – 11:21

   After the deal, credits don't roll

   1. DCDalton Caldwell9:15

      your entire startup to you just need one thing to happen, and then you're on easy street. I always picture, you know, at the end of the movie when they roll credits, you know?

   2. MSMichael Seibel9:22

      Yeah.

   3. DCDalton Caldwell9:22

      Like something happens, and then, like, the music plays, and they, you know, roll credits like, "We won."

   4. MSMichael Seibel9:28

      [laughs]

   5. DCDalton Caldwell9:28

      Like, I think people think that's how life actually is.

   6. MSMichael Seibel9:31

      Yeah. [laughs]

   7. DCDalton Caldwell9:31

      And they're like, "Yeah. Well, once I get this deal, you know, roll credits." [laughs]

   8. MSMichael Seibel9:36

      Boom.

   9. DCDalton Caldwell9:36

      And what's funny working with a lot of startups and when I was a founder is sometimes you get the deal, and the credits don't roll. You're like, "Oh, now what?" [laughs]

   10. MSMichael Seibel9:49

       [laughs] Where's the music?

   11. DCDalton Caldwell9:50

       You're like, "Wait, I'm still here."

   12. MSMichael Seibel9:50

       Where's the happy music? [laughs]

   13. DCDalton Caldwell9:52

       Like, I thought the movie was over.

   14. MSMichael Seibel9:53

       [laughs]

   15. DCDalton Caldwell9:54

       And then you're like, "Shit." [laughs]

   16. MSMichael Seibel9:57

       [laughs]

   17. DCDalton Caldwell9:58

       I guess, I guess we actually have to, like, run a startup still. [laughs]

   18. MSMichael Seibel10:01

       [laughs]

   19. DCDalton Caldwell10:05

       Okay. We got into YC, Michael. Like, where ... Are we rich? Like- [laughs]

   20. MSMichael Seibel10:10

       [laughs]

   21. DCDalton Caldwell10:11

       Are we ... We won, right? We're successful?

   22. MSMichael Seibel10:14

       Oh, God.

   23. DCDalton Caldwell10:14

       We have to t- we have to break this news to people all the time that get into YC that, like, you s- it's still hard.

   24. MSMichael Seibel10:19

       I love that too, because I think founders have this mom- have this thought in their head that that moment is gonna be in the first two and a half years. Like, the play the credits off, it's, it's all inevitable from here, will be in the first two and a half years. And we talk to so many alums who are like eight to 10 years to their ridiculously successful companies. No music. Like no, [laughs] no credits. [laughs] Like no... Public companies, no credits. Like, like-

   25. DCDalton Caldwell10:46

       Nope, they're still-

   26. MSMichael Seibel10:47

       The whole-

   27. DCDalton Caldwell10:47

       They're still doing it, and it's still the same process.

   28. MSMichael Seibel10:49

       [laughs] Yes.

   29. DCDalton Caldwell10:49

       Like, they have setbacks. I think-

   30. MSMichael Seibel10:51

       Yes
10. 11:21 – 13:28

    A bad launch

    1. MSMichael Seibel11:21

       launch goes bad.

    2. DCDalton Caldwell11:22

       Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of folks think that launches will be like the movie. Again, I think, I think we're-

    3. MSMichael Seibel11:29

       Mm

    4. DCDalton Caldwell11:29

       ... we can't help but be influenced by television and movie and books, where, you know-

    5. MSMichael Seibel11:33

       Yes

    6. DCDalton Caldwell11:34

       ... actual, an actual realistic movie that showed a startup would just be like people sitting at their keyboard typing all day, not talking probably would be what the ... Like, lots of that-

    7. MSMichael Seibel11:44

       Lots of that

    8. DCDalton Caldwell11:44

       ... punctuated by pretty boring conversations.

    9. MSMichael Seibel11:47

       Yes.

    10. DCDalton Caldwell11:47

        But that's not, that's not good in a movie. And so, so anyway, I think this translates to how people think s- a, a launch will go, where they think they're gonna launch and everyone's gonna care, and, like, things will happen to them, and like, you know, like they, they have a movie in their head of all these, like, amazing things happening, all these users signing up. And the reason it's really good to launch fast is to get that shit out of your head as fast as you can.

    11. MSMichael Seibel12:09

        [laughs] That's very true.

    12. DCDalton Caldwell12:11

        And realize you put it out and no one cares.

    13. MSMichael Seibel12:14

        Yeah.

    14. DCDalton Caldwell12:15

        Whatever you thought, like you, this movie that you had is not realistic, and what actually happens is, like, no one cares. And sometimes they care a little, and sometimes they care But in a bad way, and they, they're like-

    15. MSMichael Seibel12:28

        Yes

    16. DCDalton Caldwell12:28

        ... "You're bad, and this idea is bad," and [laughs] like-

    17. MSMichael Seibel12:30

        You suck

    18. DCDalton Caldwell12:31

        ... like [laughs]

    19. MSMichael Seibel12:33

        [laughs]

    20. DCDalton Caldwell12:33

        And you're like, you're like, "But I launched." And everyone's like, "This is bad, and you should feel bad."

    21. MSMichael Seibel12:37

        [laughs] Yeah.

    22. DCDalton Caldwell12:39

        And you're like, "That wasn't what I w- This isn't the movie. I was, I was promised a movie here."

    23. MSMichael Seibel12:44

        I love that 'cause it's, like, two levels worse than you can imagine.

    24. DCDalton Caldwell12:46

        [laughs]

    25. MSMichael Seibel12:47

        Bad is no one cares. Worse is everyone hates you, [laughs] right?

    26. DCDalton Caldwell12:51

        Yeah. P- people on Hacker News are like, "You should be ashamed of yourself."

    27. MSMichael Seibel12:55

        [laughs]

    28. DCDalton Caldwell12:56

        "And you're bad, and all of your ideas are bad, and..." [laughs]

    29. MSMichael Seibel13:00

        "I could've built this in three days," like [laughs]

    30. DCDalton Caldwell13:04

        And startups are dumb, and you're wasting your ti- you know.
11. 13:28 – 15:27

    Movie mess us up

    1. MSMichael Seibel13:28

       it ... The movie analogy is so perfect because when you think about the launches that most people experience, I think one of the f- most famous types of launch that you would see in the world is a movie launch, right? Is a movie premiere. That gives you the exact opposite of impression of how a startup is, right? It's, like, whole bunch of press, whole bunch of hoola- hoo- hoopla, a whole bunch of people watching that movie quickly, and then it fading to nothing over the course of, like, a month or two. Whereas a startup is the exact opposite of that. It's, like, a whole bunch of nobody gives a shit for a really long time, and then some point 10 years from now, everyone really cares. But I don't know that people experience those.

    2. DCDalton Caldwell14:07

       Can you imagine actual time lapse of-

    3. MSMichael Seibel14:09

       Yeah

    4. DCDalton Caldwell14:09

       ... the Facebook story? Like, if some- if there was a camera mounted on, uh, Mark Zuckerberg's head-

    5. MSMichael Seibel14:15

       Yeah

    6. DCDalton Caldwell14:15

       ... for, like, the first 10 years, what that would actually be versus what people think it was from watching the freaking movie. Like, again, like, it, it was a lot of someone sitting at a keyboard writing code and, like, staring at graphs a lot, and it wasn't that interesting. It ... Like, it, it was not entertaining. [laughs]

    7. MSMichael Seibel14:32

       Not entertaining. Well, and especially in the early days, where it was exciting to move to another school. Like, getting another population of 5,000 users was, like, exci- was a big moment inside of the company. [laughs]

    8. DCDalton Caldwell14:46

       Yeah. Well, and again, if the actual movie would be them sitting at their desk in the house being like typing some stuff into a terminal being like, "Okay, we just launched a new school."

    9. MSMichael Seibel14:55

       [laughs]

    10. DCDalton Caldwell14:56

        And they're like, "Yay."

    11. MSMichael Seibel14:58

        Yay.

    12. DCDalton Caldwell14:58

        You know what I'm saying? Like, there's no music. There's no backing track.

    13. MSMichael Seibel15:01

        No. [laughs]

    14. DCDalton Caldwell15:02

        They're just kinda sitting there staring at a screen being like, "Okay."

    15. MSMichael Seibel15:04

        Yeah.

    16. DCDalton Caldwell15:04

        "We just launched a whole-"

    17. MSMichael Seibel15:04

        Oh, wait, something just broke. Fuck. [laughs]

    18. DCDalton Caldwell15:07

        Oh, hold on. Site's down. Okay.

    19. MSMichael Seibel15:08

        [laughs] Yeah.

    20. DCDalton Caldwell15:09

        Site's down. All right.

    21. MSMichael Seibel15:10

        Yeah. [laughs]

    22. DCDalton Caldwell15:10

        All right. Well, it looks good.

    23. MSMichael Seibel15:11

        [laughs]

    24. DCDalton Caldwell15:12

        All right. Site's back up. All right. Cool. I'll be back. You know? [laughs]

    25. MSMichael Seibel15:16

        [laughs]

    26. DCDalton Caldwell15:16

        And so I think movies hurt us here. I guess they're good 'cause they inspire us, but I think movies mess people up a lot of w- of what they think normal is.

    27. MSMichael Seibel15:25

        Well, the other thing that I think movies

12. 15:27 – 16:51

    Getting sued

    1. MSMichael Seibel15:27

       screw up is, is legal. So I remember getting our first angry letter, and, like, during my startup career, I went from angry letter from law firm, getting sued by the company owned by the prime minister of Italy, getting sued by the UFC, getting very aggressively invited to testify in front of Congress about sports piracy issue. [laughs] Like, it was like, that first letter I thought was a disaster, and if only it described all the other shit that was gonna happen, [laughs] like, I might've just quit. [laughs] Like, I might've just been like, "Shut this down." And, like, I remember having this conversation with YC founders now 'cause it'll always be like, "Oh, God. We got sued," and I'm just like, "And?" Like, [laughs] like, "Welcome to running a business. Like, you got sued. Like, check that box off."

    2. DCDalton Caldwell16:28

       It just comes with the territory. Like, there's no way to avoid it. Like, there's not, there's not a universe where you could do big things and not have these setbacks where folks will tell you you're over, folks will tell you, you know, you're bad and you should feel bad. [laughs]

    3. MSMichael Seibel16:44

       Well, those are the two ... Maybe those are the two kind of silver linings, right? I think the, the

13. 16:51 – 18:44

    Silver linings

    1. MSMichael Seibel16:51

       two silver linings, like, one, everyone you respect out there who's doing great things is dealing with all this stuff. And so that should make you feel good. Like, every single person you respect who's done something hard has dealt with all this crap and 10X more. So you're not getting some hand, some bad hand. Like, everyone gets this hand. [laughs]

    2. DCDalton Caldwell17:10

       But it's not about you.

    3. MSMichael Seibel17:12

       Yeah, exactly.

    4. DCDalton Caldwell17:12

       This is just the thing.

    5. MSMichael Seibel17:14

       This is just the game. [laughs]

    6. DCDalton Caldwell17:16

       This is, this is the thing is that-

    7. MSMichael Seibel17:18

       Yeah

    8. DCDalton Caldwell17:18

       ... you're gonna every day have to deal with things that feel like setbacks.

    9. MSMichael Seibel17:23

       Well, and you can get ... I think that's the second silver lining here is you can get good at this, right? Like, you can get good at dealing with these setbacks. You can actually get better over time. You can learn how to take a punch.

    10. DCDalton Caldwell17:38

        You can't control whether or not you're gonna have setbacks. You can't. You have to, like, let it wash over you, but you can completely control your reaction.

    11. MSMichael Seibel17:51

        Yeah.

    12. DCDalton Caldwell17:51

        That's 100%. Like, what happens in your brain after a setback happens is within your control. And so you wanna have acceptance. Yeah, some bad stuff's gonna happen, and I can't fix it, but man, you have a lot of choices in how you deal with setbacks. And it can be anger, it could be fear, it could be bartering, it could be denial. Like, we've seen it all. But this is something that you can practice and get good at, and the folks that are great at whatever their thing is, again, like, whether it's athletes or whether it's people putting out music or making movies, like, how do they ... [laughs] Like, you can get better at dealing with, like, criticism or people not caring. And, like, you can just do that. That's your choice. Like, no, there's no structural reason you can't Have a better or more productive reaction to the setback, right?

    13. MSMichael Seibel18:39

        Well, and this is the only thing that I would add to that, is that

14. 18:44 – 20:00

    You are the example

    1. MSMichael Seibel18:44

       you're the example. Like, in, i- so many things in startups, the punch in the face is the moment where you can still win points. How you react influences how your co-founders react, how your employees react, influences how they will react when bad things happen to them. And so, like, the, the, the, the, uh, victory you can rescue out of the jaws of defeat for any of these setbacks is reacting in the way that you'd want everyone else around you to act, react. And, like, in some fun ways, it's like if people see you taking punches well, they'll learn how to take punches well, and one day you're gonna have a large organization and you're not gonna be there to cover everyone, and they will have learned from you. They'll learn the good from you or the bad from you. [laughs] But they will learn from you. [laughs] And I think that's what's fun, you know, sometimes this kind of stuff happens at YC and it's... I, I actually, like, I love it. Like, I love when people are freaking out, and I'm like, "Oh, it's gonna be fine." 'Cause it's like, it turns out freaking out doesn't help anyone, and it turns out if someone in the room's like, "Ah, it's gonna be fine," everyone like pauses for a moment and is like, "May- well, fuck. Maybe it will be fine." [laughs]

    2. DCDalton Caldwell19:59

       Uh, to be really tactical, what

15. 20:00 – 20:50

    Taking stock

    1. DCDalton Caldwell20:00

       I, what I tell people to do is you do an inventory.

    2. MSMichael Seibel20:03

       Yes.

    3. DCDalton Caldwell20:03

       And you're like, "Okay, are we running out of money?"

    4. MSMichael Seibel20:06

       Yep.

    5. DCDalton Caldwell20:06

       Okay. Um, do we still have a product? Like, are we, are we in legal trouble? [laughs]

    6. MSMichael Seibel20:12

       Yes. [laughs]

    7. DCDalton Caldwell20:12

       Like, are they... Are we arrested? Um-

    8. MSMichael Seibel20:14

       [laughs]

    9. DCDalton Caldwell20:15

       Okay. Uh, like, are we-

    10. MSMichael Seibel20:17

        Where am I? Am I in jail? [laughs]

    11. DCDalton Caldwell20:18

        [laughs] Am I... You know? Okay. Well, could, could things have been worse? Like, is this recoverable? Like, like, you kinda just do an inventory where you check in, you go b- you know, reboot the whole machine-

    12. MSMichael Seibel20:31

        Yeah

    13. DCDalton Caldwell20:31

        ... and you're like, "Well, how bad is this?" 'Cause sometimes it is really bad. I'm not ly- I'm not gonna lie to you. Sometimes-

    14. MSMichael Seibel20:36

        Sure

    15. DCDalton Caldwell20:36

        ... it's real bad.

    16. MSMichael Seibel20:37

        Yep.

    17. DCDalton Caldwell20:38

        But a lot of the times you do this inventory and you like, you're like, "Okay. Well, we have, we have three years of runway and, you know, we can do the... Okay. Oh, this isn't bad."

    18. MSMichael Seibel20:48

        And that, that inventory, I like

16. 20:50 – 22:00

    Worst case analysis

    1. MSMichael Seibel20:50

       to call that the worst case analysis. Like, I actually like to, like, "Okay, this bad thing happens. What are the five things we're most afraid of now? And, like, when we say them out loud, do they just sound less scary?" [laughs] Like, 'cause they're, they're... They didn't happen. It's like, "Oh, all of our customers are gonna leave." Have they, have they left? Has anyone even emailed you [laughs] like, saying they wanna leave? Like, [laughs] no. Learn how to get better at this, 'cause this is the game. Learn how to take a punch. Learn how to get good at doing hard things. That's, that's the message, yeah. And it's weird because it's a superpower, right? Like, i- in some weird way, the coolest thing about a startup is that, like, if you, even if the company fails, you can get this superpower.

    2. DCDalton Caldwell21:33

       I mean, it's great. Like, you... This is a great person to have in your family. This is a great person to have in your friend group. Like, someone that's a rock.

    3. MSMichael Seibel21:40

       Yeah.

    4. DCDalton Caldwell21:40

       Someone that will listen. Like, "Oh, something's bad? Let me... Listen. Like, let me assess the situation. Tell me what's going on. Okay. So this... Okay, that... All right. Like, I could see why this is a setback, but, you know, seems like everything else is going okay, so..." Like, that's a valuable person to have around.

    5. MSMichael Seibel21:58

       Oh, man. All right. Well, to

17. 22:00 – 22:27

    Wrap up

    1. MSMichael Seibel22:00

       wrap this up, bad things are gonna happen. Your reaction's completely under your control. Use it as an opportunity to get better at taking punches, and be the example for the people around you. By upleveling yourself, you can uplevel your team, too. All right, man. Great chat.

    2. DCDalton Caldwell22:16

       Sounds good. Thanks, man. [upbeat music]

Episode duration: 22:27