Startup Founder Survival Guide - by David Politis

Over my 20-year career as a founder, executive, operator, advisor, and investor in enterprise SaaS companies, I’ve been through a lot of ups and downs.

I’ve been an executive at two companies at inception (founding employee then CEO at one, and founder/CEO at BetterCloud). I was also an executive at one of the first cloud consulting companies just as they were getting started. At these companies we generated $100s of millions in ARR and hired thousands of people, including dozens of executives. We raised rounds from the best VCs in the world. But on the flipside, I’ve also been through a number of macro downturns, company pivots, existential moments of impending company failure, cash crunches, and terrible hires.

Recently, I’ve taken a step back from a day-to-day operating role. I’ve been spending more of my time advising early stage founders, many of whom are facing those very same challenges and situations for the first time.

To help shorten that learning curve, I’ve put together this “operating manual” with 50+ of my biggest lessons learned over the past two decades. It’s filled with personal anecdotes, actionable tips, and advice to help other founders avoid the same mistakes I made. I plan to apply all these learnings at my next company. Feel free to pick and choose whichever ones are most relevant for yours. (Note: These lessons are aimed toward early and growth stage companies.)

Not everyone will agree with my learnings or suggestions. As a member of several founder/CEO groups, I know people have strong opinions on how to run a company. That said, I’m still hoping this will resonate with readers. If each person just takes away one insight that will help them grow their business, then this was a success.

If there’s one general piece of advice that underpins everything, it’s:

Building is hard. Stay in the game to give yourself a chance to win.

The average time to an exit, if there ever is one, is over a decade. Be prepared for the grind. Yes, it’s going to suck at times, but it will get better.

Three critical things will help get you through the long haul: resilience, perseverance, and conviction. Ride it out. Continually learn, evolve, and move forward.

Keep going, keep growing.