- Graduate from college and get this great job in Silicon Valley or New York working at a hot new startup.
- Be promised millions of dollars will be yours thanks to those stock options you were offered upon joining. You now own part of this company and you’re hard work will ensure we all get rich.
- Give up several years of your early twenties to long hours, unrealistic deadlines, and the promise that one day you’ll all be rich.
- Start to experience burnout, but be reassured by a manager or some other higher up that it’s all worth it. This idea is so great we are going to tell our grandchildren about what we are built.
- Go back to work. More long hours. Vacations are for the lazy. You can relax when you’re on the yacht you’re going to buy in your late twenties after the IPO. For now, you’re so productive! You’re changing the world!
- Last job wasn’t working out. Bummer. Turn in your resignation. Burn your stock options in the fire at Burning Man.
- Become attracted to the next hot prospect in the city. It’s “like [insert popular service], but…” is the pitch you’ll probably tell your friends to get them excited about it. This one is definitely going to go far!
- Repeat steps 2 - 5 again. Nothing has changed. Just your title (maybe) and where the desk you sleep under at night is located.
- As you hit your mid-to-late twenties, start to wonder where the best years of your life went and what you have to show for it.
- Realize that you’re not really busy and that there’s more to life than sitting in front of the keyboard trying to change the world one trendy mobile app at a time.
The Stages Of Startup Life
∞ Posted on August 12, 2012