I can not find the original source of this quote, but the quote feels very real to every entrepreneur. I honestly think that few are the entrepreneurs that have not experienced this roller-coaster feeling. The entrepreneurial roller coaster is characterized by times when the entrepreneurs feel on the top of the world and times feeling depressed.
Entrepreneurship is a roller-coaster with the highest highs and the lowest lows.
The stages entrepreneurial roller coaster.
The entrepreneurial life is a roller coaster full of hopes and doubts, hence the highest highs and the lowest lows. During the highs you feel successful, happy and sure of yourself. During the lows, it is doubts in your self , depression, and sometimes the feeling of being a total failure.
The stages are different for every entrepreneur and every company. Capital obviously plays a role, as long as there is enough money pumped in, the hopes can stay high.
There are many different stages to this roller coaster, and each entrepreneur have his/her own. To simplify it, i listed the most probable stages in the graph below. These stages do not necessarily happen in this order or this magnitude, but listing them as such for example sake.
- Excitement: When you start the company or startup.
- Difficulty: When facing your first difficulties and realizing it is actually hard to be an entrepreneur.
- Progress: When progress in your project start happening, boosting the morale.
- Stumbling: When something goes wrong and send you back down.
- Hope: When you sign a big client or achieve an important milestone.
- Depression: When things start crumbling, or when you run out of money.
- Confidence: When you get back up after a tough time.
- Hesitation: When your business-model is put into question, and you start questioning yourself.
- Overconfidence: When everything is going as it should, and you feel that you can not fail.
The Startup roller coaster.
Based on the concept of Trough of Sorrow, startups have some specifics when compared to other companies, here’s the stages that i would like to focus on:
- The Euphoria of initiation. Entrepreneurs get exited when they launch their projects. Feeling important for society and or trying to solve a problem gives a huge amount of self satisfaction and euphoria.
- The wearing of of novelty. As time passes and the entrepreneur gets stuck in the mundane everyday struggle to manage a business, the euphoria wears off.
- False hope. As adoption increases, funds are pumped into the business or objectives are met, a sense of hope starts growing.
- Reality catching up. When entrepreneurs realize they spent more than they can afford and that the growth is not happening and money have dried out.
