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Brandon Boynton is a current student at IUPUI and serial entrepreneur. This is the final post in a series about the lessons he’s learned as a startup founder.

By Brandon Boynton, CEO, Vemity

8. Catastrophic failure is not that big of a deal.

After putting a lot of time — and a lot of money — into my startup, I started to fear failure more and more. I started to think of the company’s success as life or death: “If the company fails, my dreams will be dead, and I’ll be back at square one.” I was so afraid of failure that it haunted me in my nightmares.

Again, this was a motivator to never stop working, but it also caused far more stress and anxiety than I needed. It ultimately led to me feeling burned out and not enjoying the life of a startup founder as much as I should have.

The truth is, if the company went under as a whole, I would be OK. I’d be out some cash, but the few years of work taught me incredibly valuable lessons. Worst-case scenario, I’d take a job somewhere else to stabilize financially while I considered my options.

Putting that much pressure on myself was a mistake. I should have spent far less time dwelling on the potential for failure.

Conclusions

There are countless other lessons that I have learned from my failures in just the past few years of my life, but these are some of the most notable.

More important than anything else stated here: Always reflect on your decisions and actions. In the case of failure, ask yourself what you learned from this experience and how you could have done better.

I am by no means an expert, nor do I draw upon decades of experience. But it is my sincerest hope that by sharing what I have learned through success, failure and subsequent reflection, I might be able to offer insight and clarity to others pursuing similar goals.

Lesson 7: Don’t get caught up in your daydreaming.

Brandon Boynton is a current student at IUPUI and serial entrepreneur. This post is one in a series about the lessons he’s learned as a startup founder.

By Brandon Boynton, CEO, Vemity

7. Don’t get caught up in your daydreaming.

If you are anything like me, the thought of a successful startup exit through a lucrative acquisition or IPO is incredibly appealing. I think most people would agree.

Again, if you are anything like me, you just might spend far too much time daydreaming about this best-case scenario. You might even get really into it…

“We have 2,000,000 shares right now. I own 1,500,000 shares. Let’s say we raise $1 million for 200,000 shares. Then we raise etc., and we’re acquired for $200 million! I would end up with $30 million after dilution, taxes and expenses. What could I buy with $30 million?”

…. Then you proceed to spend the next hour looking at listings of McLarens and Cirrus airplanes and mansions.

Not only is this unrealistic, but it is absolutely a waste of time. I won’t lie — this kind of thinking kept me motivated and drove me to work as long and as hard as I did. But when you spend a whole hour every day staring at supercars on the internet, you are at least one hour further away from seeing that supercar in real life.

Additionally, this kind of thinking twists your vision of success. It tends to become materialistic and greatly affects your passion. You are no longer passionate about your product, but instead about getting into that supercar.

Next: Failure & conclusions

Lesson 6: There is no substitute for hard work.

Brandon Boynton is a current student at IUPUI and serial entrepreneur. This post is one in a series about the lessons he’s learned as a startup founder.

By Brandon Boynton, CEO, Vemity

6. There is no substitute for hard work.

This is something we hear a lot: Harder work equates greater success. Many scoff at this idea and chalk up other people’s successes to luck and factors out of their control. I believe that the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Certainly there are factors beyond our control, but there are far more factors within it.

I truly and absolutely believe that the effort we put into something directly affects what we get out of it. Consider this: If you work 60 hours a week and your peers only work 40, what others will accomplish in three years, you will accomplish in just two.

But working 60-plus hours a week takes sacrifice. You will find that successful people spend many Friday nights working until 3 or 4 a.m. while their friends are out enjoying themselves. They sacrifice the now for the future. The hope is that this sacrifice will unlock an even more enjoyable future in early retirement, material luxuries, a notable legacy or whatever their dreams might be.

We can’t control our intelligence, where we are born or how we were raised. But we can control our dedication, our work ethic and our willingness to work harder to pull ourselves ahead. There is no substitute for that.

Next: Daydreams.

Lesson 5: Don’t build the product before the customer.

Brandon Boynton is a current student at IUPUI and serial entrepreneur. This post is one in a series about the lessons he’s learned as a startup founder.

By Brandon Boynton, CEO, Vemity

5. Don’t build the product before the customer.

One of the biggest mistakes that I made with my most recent startup was building the product without enough customer input. My background is in computer science, specifically machine learning. When I started building our minimal viable product, or MVP, I was so confident that people would pay to use it. After all, we were building groundbreaking machine learning technology and putting it into an “as a service” system, which had never before been done. People would love it.

As it turns out, our original product was nothing any business would want to use. We built a product that was incredibly capable, yet far too technical for most executives to understand. We had plans to build a more user-friendly and simplified version of our system down the road; we nicknamed it “super easy mode.” As it turned out, that was what businesses were interested in.

I knew in that moment that the past six to nine months of development had been essentially wasted. A lot of the behind-the-scenes code could be reused, but there was certainly a lot of lost time. Before we even started building a product through mockups or an MVP, we should have been actively working alongside potential customers in our target market to hear their thoughts and learn from them.

You might think that you know exactly what your customers want, but you don’t. Until you receive feedback from a handful of potential customers, you have to be prepared to scrap everything and begin anew.

Next: Work hard.

Lesson 4: Roll with the punches.

Brandon Boynton is a current student at IUPUI and serial entrepreneur. This post is one in a series about the lessons he’s learned as a startup founder.

By Brandon Boynton, CEO, Vemity

4. Roll with the punches.

Don’t be afraid to pivot your startup. It’s far, far easier to pivot early on than it is after putting time and money into your original business model or taking on investment money. This ties so closely with the last lesson, but is also influenced by the unnecessary stigma attached to pivoting.

After I first met with one of my soon-to-be mentors, I was quickly told how poor our initial business model was. And you know what? He was absolutely right. But I was too afraid to pivot, and I made the mistake of continuing with our original business model for far too long.

It would have benefited me greatly to have taken his advice, maybe verified it with another mentor, and considered the changes we ultimately made later anyway.

I was too afraid that pivoting would make me seem inadequate. If we changed our business model, clearly I wasn’t good enough to come up with the right business model originally. But what I hadn’t yet learned was that coming up with ideas isn’t what makes a successful entrepreneur; identifying flaws and overcoming them is.

Next: Customer input.

Lesson 3: Don’t be blinded by your passion.

Brandon Boynton is a current student at IUPUI and serial entrepreneur. This post is one in a series about the lessons he’s learned as a startup founder.

By Brandon Boynton, CEO, Vemity

3. Don’t be blinded by your passion.

When you spend eight to 12 hours a day, six to seven days a week, entirely focused on your company, it’s very easy to see it as your holy grail and a groundbreaking product. If you’re anything like me, you start to ignore the potential hurdles in your business plan and instead focus on the best-case scenario.

For example, I spent a lot of time refactoring code to ensure we could handle an explosion of customers instead of considering how we would handle managing customers that didn’t have preexisting data. Essentially, I was so confident in my initial idea that I failed to see the many flaws that existed. It wasn’t until I had a mentor familiar with my industry, who was able to rip holes in my business model, that I could be convinced to reevaluate my plans.

As an entrepreneur, when you come up with an executable idea with a lot of potential, you want it to work out so badly that you begin to look past the red flags. It is very important to avoid this blindness and identify any shortcomings or potential hurdles within your business model.

There will be hurdles that you will encounter, no doubt about it. What is important is that you identify these obstacles early on and plan for them. Worst-case scenario: If you identify a flaw that can’t be overcome, it’s better to pivot early on than later in the life of the startup.

Next: Pivot.

Lesson 2: Always make others feel important.

Brandon Boynton is a current student at IUPUI and serial entrepreneur. This post is one in a series about the lessons he’s learned as a startup founder.

By Brandon Boynton, CEO, Vemity

2. Always make others feel important.

When dealing with other people, whether employees, partners, friends, acquaintances or what have you, treat them with respect and listen. When you are passionate about your product and your business, it’s very easy to commandeer a conversation. You work tirelessly on your business, and you want to share it with the world — but unfortunately for you, most people aren’t nearly as interested as you want them to be.

Listen to others. Offer your elevator pitch, tell them what you do and then shut up. If they are genuinely interested, they might ask questions, and that’s fantastic. But make sure you ask questions about them, too. Find out what they are passionate about. Ask them about their work. Ask them questions and make them feel important.

Trying to impress others is a poor way to network. By making others feel important and respected, they will subsequently be much more willing to work with you, buy your product or mentor you.

Next: Passion.

Lesson 1: Your age doesn’t matter as much as you think it does.