Two weeks ago, I attended the Y-Combinator Female Founders Conference in Mountain View, CA. Even though it only lasted half a day, getting together with over 450 other ambitious and accomplished women from all over the world was an experience I'll never forget. The conference was incredible and there are many things I could say about it, but there is one that I really want to start with: the importance of candor and honesty.
I was so grateful to the Y-Combinator event because people were actually honest about themselves and their companies. Rather than taking the rosy view and talking about how well everything is going (because whenever you ask an entrepreneur how the company is doing, the answer you get will almost always be a positive one, regardless of the true state of the company), I appreciated that people were actually honest about their struggles. Sure, the speakers were these incredible women. Sure most of them had come through Y-Combinator or had otherwise founded one or more companies and proven themselves in their fields. But the fact that even they could get up and say how the company went (as Kathryn Minshew, co-founder of Muse, put it) "from suck to suck less" meant a lot to me because it's the honest truth.
As an entrepreneur, we never feel like we are good enough. We always see the places our company can improve and the places where we're lacking, both personally and professionally. Maybe this is a female entrepreneur thing, but regardless, it was refreshing to actually talk about it. Because you have these feelings, you face these facts, but ultimately, you have to move on in some way. Eventually, you do need to just take the leap and found the company, push the product out, release the feature. You can't let fear overtake your company or your life. But you also have to be honest with yourself, your company, and the people around you. You have to honestly keep an eye on things like profit and loss, employee satisfaction, and customer satisfaction.
I was very inspired by the story of InDinero co-founder Jessica Mah. She spoke about her company's explosive growth after Y-Combinator, showed pictures of their incredible office with a hot tub, and talked about how many millions of dollars were being managed on their platform. She felt like they were on top of the world. But then one of Jessica's friends and advisors pointed out a crucial fact: their profit was very low. They actually weren't on the top of the world - they were failing. And so they closed the office, fired all their employees, got a loan from their parents and started over. Jessica talked about how she came to the realization that she was being arrogant and that she needed to face the realities of the business's situation. If we can't be honest with ourselves, within the community of entrepreneurs and of female entrepreneurs, who can we be honest with? And what do we gain from all the (false) bravado? I argue that we don't gain anything.
Be honest with yourself. Be honest and look for support within the community. And drop the false bravado. As a founder, you know what it's really like. Thanks to Kathryn and Jessica for admitting it, being honest about it, and allowing us to take the reality, discuss it, and figure out how to move forward anyway.
