Startups For the Rest of Us

Episode 781 | A Founder's Regret List: 12 Mistakes I’ll Never Make Again

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Are you repeating any of these mistakes in your business? 

In this episode, Rob Walling walks through his ‘founder regret list’, detailing 12 key mistakes from his 20-year entrepreneurial journey. In this very personal episode, he tells some stories he’s never shared publicly before.

Topics we cover: 
  • (4:17) – Thinking venture capital was the only path
  • (6:12) – Launching without validating the idea
  • (9:26) – Choosing ideas that couldn’t be bootstrapped
  • (12:48) – Relying too much on books
  • (16:36) – Trying to do everything solo
  • (21:10) – The arrival fallacy
  • (23:19) – Delaying email list growth
  • (25:51) – Taking random advice too seriously
  • (28:43) – Overestimating skills after early wins
  • (30:29) – Letting anxiety steal the joy from success
  • (32:34) – Not letting wins build confidence
  • (33:50) – Holding onto a scarcity mindset
    • Links from the Show: 
    • TinySeed Institute
    • Sponsor the Podcast or MicroConf
    • Start Small, Stay Small
    • The SaaS Playbook
    • Zero to Sold by Arvid Kahl

      • If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your question for an upcoming episode. We’d love to hear from you!

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      Startups For the Rest of UsBy Rob Walling
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