Jason M. Lemkin delivers blunt, motivational advice to founders: many startup leaders endure long difficult periods, and sometimes need a direct, honest push to stop making excuses and resume building, selling, and growing. He emphasizes that prior product–market fit and a strong team make recovery possible, that mediocre teams rarely sustain growth, and that satisfied customers can be replicated (e.g., 100 happy customers → find another 100). He cites experience with cohorts (32 founders, 30 faced a year of hardship) and references revenue examples (e.g., $6M growing 70%, $22M).
Chapters
But maybe, maybe it's what you need is a frigging kick in the ass. I've needed a kick in the ass from time to time. And of those 32 founders, 30 have gone through a year of hell. And usually I'm the one that has to give the kick in the ass. I'm the one that has to say, look, it's been a quarter, it's been two. Time to. It's like, stop feeling sorry for yourself and go build some fucking software and go get on a plane and go sell something. And the best founders do it. The best founders listen. Sometimes they get mad at me because no one else is honest. Everyone else is sucking up to them, everyone else is scared of them. A couple founders hate me for it. They wanted to hear it's okay to quit. They wanted to hear it's okay to settle for mediocre growth. They wanted to hear that it's someone else's fault. But the best founders go and fix it. They go and fix it. And I, I'm not exactly sure how I got completely on this tangent at 6:05pm, but in terms of should and would, if you ever had product market fit and you have a great team, you can get it again. If you ever had a time of good growth and you have a good team, you can get it again. If you ever, you can get it back. If you, if you have a mediocre team, once in a while, mediocre teams get lightning in a bottle and they grow really quickly and then, then they fail. It does happen. It's more common in B2C than B2B, but it does happen. But usually if you want it badly enough and you have 100 happy customers, you can find another hundred. And if you have 500 happy customers, you can find 500 more. Do you want it do. And in tougher times, do you want it badly enough? And once in a while, I'm the guy that has to kick him in the ass and tell them, you, you gotta want it. And I, and what I usually tell them is what my investors didn't tell me. I tell them, hey, you're at 22 million in revenue or 6 million, you're at 6 million revenue, growing 70%.
