𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲

Caitlin* grew up in a family of artists. While her family portrayed the beauty in nature, she was drawn to the patterns of coding and its potential to impact others as powerfully as art.

After majoring in computer science and art history, Caitlin launched a tech company developing innovative educational software to make practicing art accessible and enjoyable.

Caitlin faced a significant challenge when her company's product—an AI-powered art learning program—encountered unexpected technical issues before launch. Bugs frustrated the development team, and investors grew impatient. Caitlin felt overwhelmed by the dual pressure of delivering a flawless product and maintaining team morale.

To address the situation, Caitlin stepped back to analyze the root causes. She realized her team was spread too thin trying to meet an aggressive timeline. She implemented a more focused approach: prioritizing core features, postponing non-essential ones, and setting clear goals and metrics to ensure team alignment.

Caitlin also recognized the importance of self-care and revived her mindfulness routine. She arrived at work early for 20 minutes of meditation, inviting interested team members to join. She also cultivated open communication, making sure team members felt comfortable sharing concerns and ideas. She held optional 15-minute daily meetings, assuring the team that any unaddressed questions would be handled soon.

The revised approach led to a successful product launch, despite a slight delay. The platform earned positive user feedback, and team morale soared. Caitlin's decision to focus on core features saved the launch and positioned the company for long-term success.

Caitlin discovered that entrepreneurial resilience isn't just about overcoming obstacles—it's about knowing when to pause and reassess. By focusing on what truly mattered and caring for herself and her team, she successfully navigated this critical period.

You Should Buckle Up

90% of startups fail.

Some factors are within our control, while others aren't.

Even as a successful founder, you'll face intense challenges throughout your journey that often last far longer than expected.

While the startup journey can be an exciting race, you need to buckle up—it only gets faster and more dangerous. By buckling up, I mean building habits of resilience.

You are the one constant throughout this race. Prepare for the curves and climbs ahead by strengthening your capacity to handle whatever comes your way.

“Life doesn’t get easier or more forgiving,

we get stronger and more resilient.”

― Steve Maraboli

Building Resilience

First, be clear on why you got started. Some people start a business to pursue their passion—imagine a violinist who opens a school to teach violin.

Others start a company to solve a burning problem. They see a way to improve things. Some founders become obsessed with this solution, thinking about it all the time.

Finally, some people start a business to create their ideal lifestyle. They want to work on their terms while earning a good living.

I care less about which category you fall into and more about helping you find the right path. Startups often fail because there's a mismatch between their stated purpose and how they actually operate.

People may believe that being an entrepreneur is a quick path to money and fame. However, these are usually secondary effects but not good primary motivators. While money can be exciting for a while, the effect is typically transitory, and we adapt quickly to a new lifestyle. In contrast, pursuing your passion, solving meaningful problems, and building a suitable lifestyle provide lasting motivation.

Understanding your "why" becomes crucial when facing unexpected challenges or success. This clarity helps you stay grounded, prioritize effectively, and avoid distractions. Make time to revisit your vision and values regularly—I recommend quarterly reviews, as you'll make many decisions in that timeframe.

Bumps in the Road

As you journey forward, you may encounter some significant obstacles.

Failure of the Should: Growing up, well-meaning adults encouraged us to pursue paths they deemed "best" for us. Yet these recommendations often reflected their interests rather than our desires or strengths. This disconnect can create a lifelong challenge of separating external expectations from internal aspirations.

As founders, we may still face similar pressures from family, friends, investors, and society—all wanting what's "best" for us but sometimes projecting their own desires onto our journey.

These "should" pressures from both past and present range from obvious to subtle. A relative might urge you toward a more "stable" career despite your startup's three-year track record. Investors might push for faster growth or market expansion "before the competition does"—demands that risk burnout or strategic errors if not carefully weighed. Friends might champion exciting opportunities that don't truly align with your vision or energy.

You must learn to separate these external pressures from your authentic desires. While there may not always be clear answers, ground your decisions in your vision and values.

Lack of Focus: You will face many distractions along the way. Others will present these as opportunities, but you have to discern their value in terms of your goals.

You may be asked to speak at events, conduct interviews, write thought pieces, and more. These activities boost the ego and offer chances to reach new audiences and promote your business. However, I've seen founders struggle when they believe promotion alone will grow their company.

Overemphasizing public relations and marketing can eclipse what truly matters: product development/service quality and customer satisfaction. While promotional efforts may create short-term wins, they often lead to a lack of substance and poor long-term sustainability.

The flood of opportunities can be overwhelming. Though each new idea or invitation may spark excitement, without a clear way to evaluate priorities, you risk diluting your efforts and drifting from your core goals.

To stay on track, consider these strategies:

Set Clear Priorities. Use frameworks like OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) to define and share your company's priorities. Before investing time and resources, ensure new initiatives align with these goals.

Evaluate Opportunities Carefully. Before saying yes to an invitation or new opportunity, consider whether it truly serves your long-term vision and will meaningfully contribute to your business's growth.

Focus on Core Competencies. Prioritize building a strong product or service that resonates with your target audience. This foundation is crucial for sustainable success and will naturally attract positive attention over time.

Failure to Plan: My younger daughter won an award in first grade—the "Begin with the End in Mind" award (an homage to Stephen Covey and his book, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”). As an aspiring entrepreneur herself, this could be a good sign.

The key lesson: be clear about your destination, then create a plan to reach it.

"In preparing for battle, plans are useless,

but planning is indispensable.”

– Dwight D. Eisenhower

Adi Dehejia, a fractional CFO, wrote about an interesting paradox: while financial projections are inevitably flawed, they remain essential for startups.

How do we make sense of this?

1) Creating projections forces us to examine our business processes deeply. Every projection number reflects a business reality. As you improve at making these connections, you'll become better at running your business.

2) Set realistic goals, align functions, and understand key drivers. Each projection formula ties to a company goal. These goals connect to specific functions (e.g., sales and marketing will generate $__ in new revenue this quarter). Understanding what drives business growth allows you to experiment with different factors (e.g., hiring a business development person might lead to 2x revenue growth by the second quarter). These insights become your business's driving force.

3) Use scenario planning to manage uncertainty. Start with a baseline projection—what you expect to happen—then build two more: one for better-than-expected results and another for worse-than-expected outcomes. These scenarios help you plan for both growth and risk mitigation. For example, if growth suggests hiring a CRO later, you might start with a fractional CRO now—gaining expertise at a lower cost. If your company trends toward either scenario, you'll have ready-made action steps instead of pausing to strategize during expansion or contraction.

Ultimately, better planning creates more options. Waiting too long may leave you with limited choices. While projections aren't perfect, the planning process itself increases your chances of achieving growth and sustainability.

Lack of Accountability: Whether you're a founder with a team of 1, 10, or 100, you need to set goals and hold yourself accountable. Accountability isn't just about personal discipline—it's about creating a culture where everyone feels responsible for outcomes. Constructing accountability is especially important for introverted founders, who may prefer working independently but must ensure their efforts align with broader company objectives.

“If you can't measure it,

you can't improve it.”

– Peter Drucker

While building a product or defining a service, you need a clear plan and metrics for your company's overall growth. Consider a pre-revenue company focused on product development. Even if you spend 90% of your time on development, you should still focus on these key areas:

Finance. How will you generate revenue? Your answer may require building payment functionality into your product, either directly or through third-party integration.

Sales. Can you speak with potential customers now to better understand their needs and how you'll address them? Their feedback could shape your product roadmap.

Marketing. How will you attract customers? Consider building sharing features into your product to help users spread the word about their experience.

Operations. Who will be your first hire? Identifying this role before you need to actually hire helps you scout potential candidates during networking. Remember, in an early-stage company, each hire is vital.

For every objective that moves your company forward, establish clear metrics and tracking systems. While some founders manage this independently, others join accountability groups, hire coaches, or form partnerships to stay on track.

Maximize Your Options

These strategies will help build your resilience against life's inevitable pressures. Stress appears in all situations—when things are going poorly, when they're going well, and even when nothing seems to be happening at all.

“Change is the only constant.”

– Heraclitus, Greek philosopher

While many factors lie beyond your control, this section focuses on what you can influence—helping you maximize your options at every crucial decision point.

Move at Your Pace: Having a clear destination enables you to progress at your speed. Society may pressure you to move quickly, but you're free to choose your pace.

You might encounter investment opportunities that demand exponential growth within a few years. If you're content with steady 20% annual growth rather than 200%, consider declining such offers, particularly if maintaining equity ownership and management control matters to you.

Remember: your journey may span many years. The pace at which you travel should align with your ultimate destination.

Be Compassionate to Yourself: When a close friend makes a mistake, we easily forgive them because we see them as more than just that single act. Yet when we make mistakes ourselves, we're often quick to self-punish.

While we may strive for perfection, we're all inherently flawed. Learn to forgive yourself when you make mistakes.

Of course, your mistakes can affect others. When this happens, take responsibility by acknowledging what happened, apologizing to those affected, and fixing what you can. Share how you'll improve your process to prevent similar mistakes. When presenting this plan to those affected, welcome their feedback—this helps rebuild trust. By showing what you've learned and how you'll address the root cause, you demonstrate that you understand the impact of your mistake.

Personally, I see mistakes as opportunities for growth. Each week, I review my accomplishments, ideas, progress, and areas for development.

I include these specific categories:

• Unconditional Self-Talk: Support myself the same way I would a friend or fellow founder.

• Healthy Feedback: Find one piece of constructive criticism based on the week's lessons.

• Admiration: Note someone you respect and a recent action of theirs you appreciate.

• New Skill or Lesson: Describe a specific skill you learned this week.

• Dream or Objective: Record one goal you'd love to achieve next week.

• Open Items: List ongoing matters to revisit later.

This approach keeps feedback "healthy"—fighting against rumination and staying constructive—while placing it within a broader context of growth rather than self-criticism.

Foster a Growth Mindset: A growth mindset transforms mistakes into learning opportunities. While this represents a significant shift for some founders, viewing failures as chances to gain insights and learn and crises as opportunities to pivot and grow opens up new possibilities for perseverance and success.

People with a growth mindset believe in continuous improvement. This perspective demands dedication to refining one's attitudes, behaviors, and outcomes over time.

“The passion for stretching yourself, even (or especially)

when it’s not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset.

This mindset allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times in their lives.”

– Carol Dweck

Those embracing a growth mindset seek to constantly discover better processes, products, and solutions, recognizing that the potential benefits far outweigh the risks in most experiments. This approach emphasizes personal growth rather than keeping score.

Experiment Early and Often: A growth mindset encourages experimentation because there's often a reward for trying—such as learning something new—with minimal risks.

Both emerging startups and decades-old companies share a crucial imperative: they must innovate continuously to maintain customer relevance. Small experiments allow you to test ideas efficiently, using minimal time and resources to determine their potential.

Design experiments that isolate single variables to clearly measure their impact. For example, you might test three different subject lines in your business development emails to see which generates the best response. You could offer clients a trial period for new product features in exchange for feedback. Or you might engage someone as a contractor to tackle a specific challenge before hiring them for full-time employment.

Help Others. Find ways to assist people around you. When you feel overwhelmed or defeated, helping others might seem counterintuitive. You might wonder how you'll find the time or energy to help when you're already struggling.

But here's a contrarian thought—helping others is actually selfish. It redirects your focus to positive action, shifts attention away from your problems, reinforces your self-worth, and creates opportunities to learn and feel good.

When you support others, you also become more comfortable asking for help yourself because you genuinely realize its value. Remember: to grow successfully, you'll need support from many people.

Pursue a hobby: Learning new skills and interacting with others is an excellent way to develop yourself without the pressures of running your startup. At these activities or events, you're not in charge—allowing you to relax and exercise different muscles, both physical and mental.

You'll likely make new friends who share your interests. Additionally, you might gain fresh perspectives on solving problems at your company. It's worth noting that Nobel Prize-winning scientists are almost three times more likely than average scientists to maintain an artistic or crafty hobby.

For many founders, travel serves as an ideal hobby. Whether you're exploring a new neighborhood or venturing to another continent, it broadens your horizons. Different places have their own languages, expressions, and social values, offering novel approaches to everyday life. Travel also grounds you in the present moment as you navigate unfamiliar territory. As an introvert, you may choose to travel alone or with one or two close friends.

How Can I Keep Learning? Write down exactly why you got started with this company. Do your best to screen out others expectations and desires, and focus on what really matters to you. With that catalyst in mind, what does success look like to you? How can you measure the impact and metrics of your business?

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* Caitlin’s story is a fictional account inspired by various people and situations I've encountered over the years. It was created to provide another perspective on this topic.

90% of startups fail. Build Scale Grow solves problems for fast-growing startups, specializing in Social Impact, EdTech, and Health Tech and focusing on Introverted Founders.

I wrote this post with AI editing. This photo is by Matthew Henry who can be found here:

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