0:00

EP252 === Ryan Rutan: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the episode of the Startup Therapy Podcast. This is Ryan Rutan joined as always by my friend, the founder and CEO of startups. com, Wil Schroter. Wil, how many people around a founder, like how big is this community? How vast is this community of all the people who want to see us succeed? No matter what. Might be zero. Oh shit. Wil Schroter: Yeah, no, I know. It's not weird to think though, for as hard as we're going to work and has as much good as we're going to do in the world. That there is an insanely small number of people that actually want to see us succeed. You'd think it'd be the opposite, right? You'd think everybody would be on your side, like fans in the stands. And I gotta say having gone through it in my career, I was very surprised that the reaction wasn't what I thought it was. Because I was like, hey, everybody's seen me work super hard, I came from nothing, I built something, right? Awesome, right? And here's the weird thing. It's like this at the same time people are saying, [00:01:00] hey, that's a great job. They're and I wish she hadn't done it. And so I'd love to unpack that because I don't think a lot of founders talk about this. Ryan Rutan: Yeah, and I think it's an important one because I think as a first time founder, I think that you can get a little confused, but we can get a lot confused by this but you can also misinterpret it because I do remember getting a lot of what felt like support but in hindsight, it was platitudes, right? It was the kind of stuff like it really didn't matter. And then when it did come to points that mattered it turned out there were actually very few people who were like the ride or die, right? Like the ones that were just like, it doesn't matter how this is going. I'm in your camp. I want to see you succeed. And I will tell you specifically that, right? So I think that the thing that happened to me early on was like, I would hear Oh, that's really interesting. That's great. You're working on that. And I would turn that into, they love what I'm doing. They'll be here for me no matter what. And they were like, eight seconds later, they forgot what I was even doing. All right, so I converted it into support because I needed to feel that, but it was a very thin Wil Schroter: veneer. I think especially in the era of social media where everybody [00:02:00] wants to brag nonstop about all their stuff all the time, and it almost feels compelled to because everyone else is doing it, right? This kind of vestuous feed the ego kind of moment. I think from a founder standpoint. We want to pre, present this outward veneer that we are doing great and things are going great. It's really true. What I don't think we realize is how much consternation and actually like anxiety toward us That it creates from the people around us in many cases from the people closest to us. Ryan Rutan: Close to us Yeah, that's the thing like there aren't really limitations. I think everybody's and look Logically assumes that the people closest to us are going to want to see us succeed And sadly this that's even that's not always true I think that you will find the Highest concentration of people who do want you to succeed will likely be those close to you. Depending, right? Depending on a lot of factors. Wil Schroter: Like I'll be a lot of conversations with founders and the success and or [00:03:00] failure of another founder will come up. It just happens all the time. This is like us talking sports, right? So these topics come up all the time. And here's what I've noticed over the past, call it three decades. When a founder is doing well, someone will say that, Hey the, maybe they raised some money or they had an accident or they, did something amazing. And about 50 percent of the time, maybe more, I'm probably being optimistic here. They'll caveat it, they're showing amazing growth, but they have no revenue, right? Like it'll always be like the dissonant, right? Ryan Rutan: And compliment, man. Yeah. Wil Schroter: The offhanded compliment. Over the years, I've really started to pay attention to those a lot more closely to start to understand and really unpack where all that's coming from. Because it was wildly consistent. Ryan Rutan: Oh, I see. What you're getting there, what you're getting there is a real nice read on that person's ego. That's what you're getting, right? You're like, Oh, I see your compass is set to ruthless tyrant asshole. Cool, nice. Wil Schroter: And the other side of it, it was when people talked about things going [00:04:00] poorly, right? Like a great example of this across the world was and look, it's extraordinary at the scale and scope that it was. But the answer was really screw Adam, right? Like it wasn't rework that people had a problem with it was specifically Adam Neumann It was the vision Ryan Rutan: of Adam Neumann meditating on his surfboard while all that was happening, right? But it to your point earlier about you know Going out on social media throwing this stuff out there because we feel like we have to show like hey Not only am I successful I'm well balanced all this stuff But man, can that backfire, right? And everybody who is high fiving you for that stuff is also the first people who will turn around and throw that back against you when things don't go right. Wil Schroter: 100%. Let's talk about a little bit of why people act this way, right? Where does this actually come from? And without going into any kind of deep psychology here, it's because we all have egos. In other people's success. If you want to go deep psychology, Ryan Rutan: I have a couch over there. I can go take a nap while you do that. I Wil Schroter: could use that. I know [00:05:00] it's not complicated, right? Everybody has an ego. And we all feel like when somebody else is doing better, it is an attack on our ego. What's funny about that is we rarely as self aware people understand how our successes affect other people's egos, which is the base of what we're talking about here. I know to this day, I'm 30 years into it. And even though I'm aware of it, of how, things that I do, whatever impact other people, I don't think I'm particularly good about handling it, which almost makes it worse. Like actually knowing you're not good at it versus being ignorant actually makes it worse. Ryan Rutan: No, but it's a great point. I think it is something that we have to factor in. Sadly, we have to factor it in, right? How does our success impact people around us? It's every time, I get so tired of this, right? This vitriol that comes back at me. Every time I post pictures of my six pack abs, instead of being happy for pe for me, people just have to come back. And shit all over it and be like, Ryan, at least do a good copy paste job next time. [00:06:00] And I'm like, yeah, maybe. Maybe. Wil Schroter: Alright? Okay, but take it back to social media. This is a great example, right? Bunch of guys we both know, right? Brag posts non stop. Like it's their jobs, I think it is. Non stop on social media, right? It's all we see, always crushing it. Always crushing it. Everything's the best. Always crushing it. Working out in my private gym, in my private office, in my private jet. Yeah, exactly, right? And I look at that and I think two things. I'm like it's great that you've done whatever you've done, but holy shit does everybody hate you now. You gotta understand, you gotta understand. Ryan Rutan: If you're not inviting people to the party, if you're just telling them, look at how cool this party is from the outside, what do you think the reaction's gonna be? Like, hey, take a look through my window, and tell me if this looks like it would be fun for you. You can't come in, but have a peek, right? What are you doing? Wil Schroter: I guess, you've gotta look at it, and you've gotta say, what reaction will I get? Now there's a couple expectations of this. One is people are going to respect me and appreciate what I've done, Ryan Rutan: right? They're going to replicate [00:07:00] me. They're going to want to duplicate my efforts. They're going to want to follow me as the sign, Wil Schroter: right? Ideally and probably not, right? That would be the best case scenario. The other is what it's really coming from, I want to make myself feel better. I'm posting this because it makes me feel good, right? But this is my point, at the expense of other Ryan Rutan: people. At the expense of other people. It's, it's funny, even that is a comparison, right? We started this whole discussion with the reason that this happens is because people are comparing you to, to them, right? In this case, the reason you're posting this stuff is that you're comparing you to previous you. All right. So you want to feel good about this. And so it's just drawing a comparison, a contrast from, where I started to where I am now. Like you said it you started with nothing you scrapped your way through it. You figured it out. You made something of yourself. You had something to show for it. Everybody should be happy for me. No, because they're not comparing the old you to the new you. They're comparing new you to whatever it is that they're unhappy about in their own lives. And this is where like anger and frustration really come. Wil Schroter: Let's also dig into Who wants us to fail? I [00:08:00] mean, what is this archetype? Who are these evil people? Because they're not evil people. And by the way, they're likely people that actually otherwise care about you. But again, going back to that psychology of why people, want us to fail. People want us to fail because it makes them feel shitty when we succeed. It's that simple, right? And we have to keep that mentality together. When we come out and we say Oh, hey, I just did this thing, right? I just bought this new car. It's a fancy new car, right? No one looks at that accomplishment through a singular lens of why that's good for you. They compare it to what they have. Oh, they mentally walk to their own garage, right? Yeah, that's exactly it, right? The moment you say it, the first thing they do, is they look at that and compare. Now yeah I've gotta say that men and women in my experience do this differently. Men tend to get their sense of ego and pride from their jobs. Women tend to get it from their relationships. Not that it's exclusive either way, but you tend to see a little bit more of that. When a woman has a new boyfriend, spouse, whatever, they never shut up about it. It's in, all of a sudden it's [00:09:00] in every Facebook photo, it's in every Instagram, it's everywhere all the time. They want everyone to know. But their friends that don't have a spouse, that don't have somebody, right? Their first reaction should be, that's great for you. Their first reaction is not that their first reaction is something very different. We've got to keep that in mind. When we start pushing that out into the world, we can't pretend like it's a high five fest back. If anything, it really hurts us. Ryan Rutan: Yeah. And I think it's interesting too, because this doesn't just come at the point where like you're posting pictures of the Lambo, or the new girlfriend, it's even, During the struggle of trying to succeed, all right, that this can happen, right? And I think that's where we run into some of the other foos, right? In my experience, these were people who were giving me advice, right? Sometimes he took their advice. Sometimes I didn't. Sometimes I pushed back. Sometimes I didn't. And in a lot of those cases, they want to be right. And what's crazy about that, and it is such a powerful emotion, right? That desire to to be right and to feed that ego. They gain [00:10:00] nothing from it, and yet, with their last breath, they'll be still like, he didn't make it, win. Okay, cool. And so I think that, there's so many who, Spike, to your point, sometimes they're very close. I was on on a call one on one session with a founder last week and he brought up this really sadly not uncommon scenario this was, this is one of the stronger that I'd seen where he really felt like his partner, life partner, not not business partner, life partner who had discouraged him from starting this thing in the beginning. And had doubts all along, had now started to see a little bit of success, and was actually feeling like this person was trying to sabotage that and downplay all of the success oh this doesn't really mean that, this won't continue, this won't and and when we got down to it and started to dig into it, It's because this person was a doubter from the beginning and they just want to be right, which is nuts because this person actually stands to [00:11:00] benefit from the success of this business directly. They're, it's a married couple, right? So 50 percent of this is this person's, right? It's just to some degree. But that's the part. Yeah. Yes. No, that's it. It's it's flabbergasting. Wil Schroter: It's the part where it's not just the incentive you would think. You would think that Oh, this person loves me or, Oh, this person will benefit financially. It's not even just that. It's an ego thing. And again, it keeps coming back to this and it's not insignificant. And I'll give you some examples of how we tend to see this with people that are close to us where we see it the worst. Okay. One example is if you have two people, let's take siblings, for example, that came from exactly the same place. They tend to compare each other all the time because their baselines are identical. The closer your baselines, which are often people close to you, the more this becomes so powerful and emotional, right? As you get away from having the same baselines, the same expectations, this isn't as much of an issue. I'll give you an example. When I look at LeBron James, I don't look at him like, screw you LeBron James, I could have been the [00:12:00] NBA. Yeah, Ryan Rutan: you don't get mad every time he hits a three point. Wil Schroter: Yeah no, I look at it and I'm like, that has nothing to do with me. My ego is not charged whatsoever because not for one second do I even think to myself like that that he I should have had what he has. Right now you take that from a different place. And you say, this is your brother, your sister, your cousins, someone who has your same baseline again and going back to the siblings as an example, could be classmates, it could be your next door neighbor, ex colleagues, all kinds of stuff, right? Co founder, right? We're co founder. You name it, right? Look at this way. I've mentioned these guys before, but when I look at somebody like Jamie Siminoff, who did who did Ring, my last business partner who doesn't subscribe. I look at that and I'm like, okay, would I have done that? Maybe. I didn't do it. He did. But I also look at it as hey, I've watched Jamie go through a handful of businesses, ones that he and I've created together. And not have had the same outcome. So I know how hard it is for him to get to what he's got. So I respect [00:13:00] the fact that he's done it. When I look at other folks who have who have had exponential outcomes, Sean Rad at Tinder, Tinder's valued at 10 billion, right? Real money. When I look at at Max from Instacart and I look at, they went public and what they've done, I look at it and I said, would have been cool if it was me, but I know our business enough to know it doesn't work like that as evidenced by the fact that almost none of us ever do it again. But I don't think most people have that context. Ryan Rutan: Yeah, I think not. And I think that it's, there's so many factors we've talked about this, like all the factors that play into that very specific type of startup success. And again, like this is, you nailed it at the beginning of the episode, which is to point to social media and the fact that we have all this visibility. This used to be a lot less of a problem because. People weren't up in your business. There wasn't that much to compare to. Or you were comparing to people who were much more like your actual peers, right? It's not, I just put, my, my ideas down on a cocktail napkin. I've been working on this thing for three months. And now I see somebody IPO [00:14:00] and man why is that not me? Cause you haven't done any of the stuff yet, but even if you do all the stuff, it doesn't mean you're going to get there. Those are like onesies and twosies of outcomes out of tens of thousands of businesses that start every year. And we're comparing the wrong things and we're contrasting ourselves in ways that just don't make any sense. But because that's what we see, that's what we attach our egos to. And this is what creates these, this angst and this anxiety around other people doing things that I'm not doing. Or conversely. Other people thinking that about, why did Ryan and Will get to sit around on podcasts, talk about fun stuff, and have lots of fun, and I don't get to do that? Cause we did different shit than you did up until this point in life. Wil Schroter: Something that's really funny about everything we talk about here is that none of it is new. Everything you're dealing with right now has been done a thousand times before you. Which means the answer already exists, you may just not know it. But that's okay. That's what we're here to do. We talk about this stuff on the show, but we actually solve these problems all day long at groups. [00:15:00] startups. com. So if any of this sounds familiar, stop guessing about what to do. Let us just give you the answers to the test and be done with it. And that's the thing. I've yet to see somebody get a free pass on this. In other words, we've talked about founders here. I've yet to meet a founder. Who's done exponentially well and has just gotten universal praise, right? Like it just, in fact, it always confounds me when I think about a lot of these founders and how incredibly kind they are and how giving they are and then hear people should talk them. And I'm man, there's really nothing they could have done differently. to get to a different outcome, right? It just does not matter. The hater population is so strong. It's so real. It's everywhere. In a world where there are Ryan Rutan: people who don't like Michael J. Fox, right? Who's safe? Who's safe at this point, right? Probably the nicest human that's ever existed from what I know. I don't know him that well. We don't hang out on a regular basis. But just like, there's gonna be somebody thrown a vitriol no matter what you do. [00:16:00] I think the surprising part isn't that there are haters, there's Is it, there are a lot less lovers, like, why are there so few of them? All we need is a little love, right? We don't need it all. And yet it does seem increasingly hard to get to that point where it's just yeah, I do feel truly and well supported. And part of that, so part of that, just this was, we're clear on it. Part of that is a mistake on the company that you keep right now. We did say that the closer you get to your own baseline the more dangerous it can get. But if I have to say, like if I were to pick one population and say, where could I go to find other people who will probably get what I do and maybe celebrate me, it would be other founders, right? Because they do understand it. Now, it doesn't mean that there won't be some throw and shade your way, there's going to be, but in terms of the concentration of the people who are most likely to support you in your mission, it's probably the founders, and we, routinely, you and I just see we talk to new founders all the time, and we're like, how many other founders are in your inner circle? How many people do you have who are founders who are really close? You're like there was a guy that I went to school with back in the early 90s who now also [00:17:00] has a startup. Oh, sweet, so you guys hang out every weekend? You're like, I haven't talked to him since we graduated. Like, All right. Where's your circle? Wil Schroter: Yeah. Yeah. We're frequently devoid of peers. I had a good friend of mine come over this weekend and he isn't a founder but I've known him for a long time and he's had just a number of really incredible companies that he's worked for that he has helped IPO, et cetera. And it just built up this amazing portfolio of stock. He's still in his forties. And probably just never has to work again. And so he and his family are over we're bullshitting, catching up, and he's telling me about this giant new yacht that he bought. And I'm thinking to myself as he's saying it everyone you say this to is going to hate you. And it killed me. I totally look better in a captain's hat than that asshole. I'm just thinking to myself, I'm like it kills me to think that anybody he's going to share this information with. Yeah. He's going to say, fuck you. Their inherent reaction is going to be that. And all I can think is, and he and I got into this, I was like, What it took you, and I've known him for a long time, and [00:18:00] what you had to sacrifice to be able to make that purchase is extraordinary and no one will ever understand it, and so be it. However, you now get the other side of it, where you should be getting the high fives, and instead, everyone's gonna look for a way to cut you down. Everyone's gonna look for a way that you don't deserve it, or can't wait till you lose it, and I'm like, Yeah, that's a lot of pressure in a way you never expected. I wonder, Ryan Rutan: sadly, the number of times he's heard congratulations is probably less than 10 percent of the times he's heard people say, Oh, your favorite, the only two days that you're happy about having a boat is the day you buy it and the day you sell it. Cool. Thanks. Fuck off. It's, you know what though? It's, I want to hold on this for just a second. Because I want to talk about. Why this friend is talking about that yacht, right? Are they really proud of the yacht? Do they want you to like the yacht? No! It doesn't have anything to do with the yacht, right? The yacht is a metaphor for, I suffered, I did a bunch of shit that other people weren't willing to do, [00:19:00] I, against all odds, managed to make something out of it, and it worked out. I'm relieved, right? Not even I'm super excited I'm pumped, high five me I made it, right? Like I'm on the other side of it now, I can take a little bit of a breather, right? And I think that's the thing that we have to like remind ourselves is we're looking at other people and we're looking at things that they're throwing out there and you know what, I'm, how am I supposed to react to this? How am I supposed to react to your abs or your yacht or whatever the hell it is that you're throwing out there? That's not the thing, right? The thing isn't the thing. The thing that they really want recognition around. Is that they escaped with skin at all, right? Like I don't care about the abs. Look, I came out alive, right? That's what we want to celebrate. And it's so tough. Cause there's again, like, where do you go? How do you do it? Cause you can't ask for that directly because nobody really gets it. We use these metaphors that end up just backfiring because people are like, all he wants to talk about is his dumb boat. That's actually the last thing he wants to talk about. What he wants to talk about is all the struggle, strife, horror that he went through to get to the point where that boat existed. I Wil Schroter: want to hear that. There is [00:20:00] a, when you were in town last time, did I show you that guy who built that mega mansion across the street from me? It looks like a hotel. Yes, I was going to say, you mean the hotel? Yeah. Yeah. This guy this is just such a good example of this, right? This guy sold his company for a billion dollars, a company you've never heard of, right? And and builds essentially like a 40, 000 square foot house. That's just the house. There's a barn that's as big that holds his insane car collection. And it's hilarious because it's around a bunch of other houses that are like 10 percent of the size, right? It looks so out of place, but whatever. It's a beautiful house, right? It's like you said, a dollhouse next Ryan Rutan: to a Monopoly hotel, right? It's Wil Schroter: It's incredible! My point is this. Every single person that I've talked to that has brought up that house has talked about it in a negative light. What a month city and all these other things right and so a couple years ago. This is just total coincidence I have been working on a gym next to me with a local of the founder [00:21:00] and He happens to know the Sun comes over nicest guy in the world And I asked him about the whole story, about how his dad did it, and he just gives me the coolest came from nothing, built it over 50 years kind of story, right? This isn't the overnight success. You start to fall in love with this guy, right? It's amazing. Yeah, it's incredible. It what blows me away, though, is that's not what, it's not how Rudy processes any of this, right? Every single person I've talked to about this house, it's, again, impossible not to notice. It's fuck that guy, right? And I'm like, I think to myself, you don't even know who this guy is. Right? Why is there so many things happening? Ryan Rutan: Yeah, you have no idea who this guy is, why he did this, right? And he's like, All I did was bring your house property value up, right? That's exactly it, right? No, you brought your ego value way down. He's the only reason I built this house so big was to capture all of your angry little egos inside it, right? That was, Wil Schroter: Yeah, I know, and again, it comes back to, this guy hasn't done anything wrong, right? Hasn't done [00:22:00] anything wrong. No, he's done a lot right, apparently. Yeah, exactly, right? And yet, there's all this vitriol against him just because, now, get this, that guy buys the house next to him the 3, 000 square foot house, just does the same thing he was going to do every single day, no one cares. Oh, he is the nicest guy in the world keeps his lawn up really nice, right. Salt of the earth, right? Salt of the earth, great guy, right? As soon as his success becomes a reflection Of other people's not lack thereof, but like comparison all of a sudden relatively speaking. Yeah. Yeah All of a sudden he's this manufactured devil and it just cracks me up because realistically you got two paths here and obviously some versions in between one path is you never talk about it You stay real quiet about it for that reason you don't want to invite that and usually what from my experience by the time you get there You It's because you had to be there. In other words you've had bad things that have happened that have made you have to curl [00:23:00] up and go clandestine about your wealth or your image, okay? The other end is, again, you are all over Instagram posting this shit non stop because you need that ego feed, right? And to be fair, you get what you pay for. You get exactly that back in return. The world will hate you. It's how it Ryan Rutan: works. All right. So in, in a world where most people want us to fail for a good reason or for bad, mostly for bad. So without a reason at all who wants us to succeed? Where Wil Schroter: are these unicorns hiding? It's not that many people. That's the messed up thing, right? It's generally people who have something to gain that outstrips their ego, right? So if we're building Airbnb. And we're about to go public. There are a lot of people, let's say Brian Chesky in this case, the founder of Airbnb. There's a lot of people in the org that of course are going to have, be a little bit of haters. Oh, why does he get so much money and I get less. They also aren't so dumb as to think if he gets more money, that means I get more money, so [00:24:00] wins all around. By definition, one of those categories of folks that support you are people that have something to gain by that, right? Your spouse is, unless they had some some bet against you. Your spouse is likely to be pretty cool with things because they directly benefit. Oh, you know what? It's so funny. I'm going to give you one counterpoint. I just Ryan Rutan: talked to the counterpoint last week, right? And now they're not at a point where there's IPO ing, but it's becoming increasingly obvious that the answer is, I don't want you to succeed because I told you wouldn't. Super sad. Wil Schroter: For sure. The other side I've seen and again I'm painting this as men versus women for a second. Are men whose wives are wildly successful their, business lives are wildly successful. And it's such a male thing. I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying I see it a lot. And they're like, of course they're happy that their wife succeeded, he's again, found her wife, but they also feel like less of a man, because, they're not the one bringing, bringing the bacon, so to speak. And and I find that to be an interesting dynamic. [00:25:00] Also, I'm like, dude if, I love my wife, she can do whatever she wants. But if she had founded whatever company and I got to sit home and play Xbox all day that sounds awesome. I'm kidding, I'm sure my ego would be completely destroyed. But I do see that counterexample. Where someone does benefit, but their ego is so beaten, by that contrast. I find that unusual but it's Ryan Rutan: usually the collective ego of their community too. Like I have a couple of cases like this where actually, I have several and in every one of those cases I can say that by and large the husband seems to be very okay with this. You know who's not okay with this? All of his guy friends, right? They're the ones that actually have the issues with it, right? Yeah. And you hear them teasing him, but what I'm hearing is this makes me insecure, right? Yeah, 100%. They're the person who's teasing. That's all it is, right? I read this somewhere recently where it's anger at other people or the things that we hate about other people are the things that we haven't accepted within ourselves that we've [00:26:00] stuffed down so much that we've forgotten that they exist within us. That sounds pretty accurate. Probably Brene Brown, but yeah, somebody along those lines. Wil Schroter: For some reason, whenever I think about that hey, I'm angry at somebody else, but it's really about something that that I'm angry about. For some reason Naval from AngelList comes up. I remember him giving this interview years ago. And I just thought it was such an odd thing to say, but it was so incredibly honest that I couldn't lose it. He said, I'll see this guy, and I'll be upset about him, I'll be angry at him, and I'll rail at him for something about his business, but you know what it really is? He has all his hair, and I'm losing mine. And I thought that was, that is so incredibly honest, but he's that's actually where it's coming from. And I thought, man, if he's being that petty shit with the rest of us are screwed. Yeah. And but let's go back to who wants to succeed and more importantly, why, because I think we need to, as founders, we need to understand these mechanics because they all happen for a reason just because people should [00:27:00] like us because they should want us to succeed doesn't mean that they do. And if we're like screw them, they're just not cool people. And guess what? That's the way the world works, right? And you have to work within it. Other people that want us to succeed, generally, are parents. For a litany of reasons. But that's actually one group that I see most consistently. Support. The most recent example I can give you was at the BFTX trial when SBF was getting his sentencing, and his parents, were obviously at all the trials, etc. MOM and DAD. Yeah. Yeah, they're all of this acronym. And I remember thinking, that's awesome. Because the way they looked at it, they said, our son didn't try to do the wrong thing. And they're parents, they're going to rationalize, whatever. But even in the moment where they would have been the most ashamed, the moment where they would have been the most disappointed, whatever, they just loved their kid so much, right? Which as a parent, you and I can respect. Ryan Rutan: Yeah, 100%. Yeah, it's funny because that actually is, so if you think about [00:28:00] all the populations, the biggest. They're the ones who also typically feel the most fear, the most concern the most worry around like why are you doing this as opposed to just doing the easy normal thing and just going to get a job or whatever. So they're often, I don't want to call them detractors in the early stage or even doubters really. They're just worriers, right? They carry a ton of anxiety. around this because it's something they don't understand and they don't have any control over, and they can't really, they don't have a lot of ways that they can make positive impact, except for this one and I think that given that we just talked about what a rare and finite resource that level of support is, It's far more important than they might imagine. Wil Schroter: Yeah, I agree. I, it reminded you of a story when I'd gone through college, even though I dropped out. I was like the first kid in my immediate family to, to go to college. And my grandmother was super surprised about it. Super. They made it to college, but she was still proud of me for the first time. And I'll never forget driving back to Connecticut where I grew up and going to see my grandmother and be like, Grandma, I started an internet company, and it's going great, right? [00:29:00] First off, no one knew what the internet was, so it was impossible, she had no context whatsoever. And she was like, that's great, how's college? And I'm like, Grandma, do you hear what I just this whole story? Internet company, going great, whatever. She's wait, does this mean you're not in college? Yeah, Grandma, I made it out. Yeah, I don't know. And it was amazing where that's all she saw. To your point of it is, at that moment, I've never seen a human be more disappointed in another human. And this is her to me. She was so disappointed that I dropped out of college that the rest of it did not matter. And I remember thinking to myself there's really nothing I could do here to fix this. She will go to her grave where I am a massive disappointment to her. But when we talk about hey, here are the people who are supposed to be on our side, there are certain people who preferred we did another path. There are founders that have done extraordinarily well, and their parents are still like, you were supposed to be a doctor, right? There are those hardcorded paths. You could have been Ryan Rutan: healing people instead of sailing the world in that silly yacht. [00:30:00] Wil Schroter: Right? Now, if we look at people who, also generally will support us. I this one fascinating other founders, specifically other founders whose egos are not bruised by it. It looks something like this. This is a little hierarchy that I've seen over the years. Let's say a founder does reasonably well, Ryan, let's say that a founder sells their business for a million dollars. Any other founder who has sold it for more, their egos are not bruised. And so they generally have positive things to say, oh, the opposite, they're stroked because they did better. You bet. And they're like, man, so happy for that guy. Such a winner, blah, blah, blah. Love it. Always positive with almost nothing negative to say. Ah, Ryan Rutan: there they there, there is. Sometimes they slip the jab, right? Which is not the biggest exit, really good for him. Like you do hear that like people slide it's again, it's like the backhanded compliment, the subtle backhanded compliment, right? It's not the smallest exit I've seen this year Wil Schroter: either. Yeah. Actually, you know who I see that doing [00:31:00] more often than not? Our investors. Just because they are so conditioned to think about orders of magnitudes of investments and stuff. Oh, that sounds like a base hit. And they see other Ryan Rutan: inve and they see lots of them, right? So they actually have something to compare it to. Wil Schroter: Yeah, exactly. Ah, it's great that he sold it for 50 million. And it's that'll change his life in generations forever, right? Again, relative to where they would have participated and how much they make on one of those exits. I get the nuance, but not cool. Good outcome for a lifestyle business. Let me get back to mine, right? But here's the thing. When I see someone who has done well, right? Done well. And then I see that, I see an exit where somebody has done better. Yeah, that's when the jabs come in, right? It's this really interesting dynamic. It's let's say I'm just making these numbers up. The actual numbers don't matter. Let's say I sold my business for 10 million, but this person we're talking about just sold it for a hundred million, right? Yeah, instead of saying that's [00:32:00] amazing. That's great. I'm gonna say yeah, the good thing they sold it You know before they were about to go under, you really pulled a rabbit out of hat on that one And it's yeah, so did you. Ryan Rutan: Yeah. You just pulled a smaller rabbit. Yeah. And the other one I like is where it's like they make some sort of like character judgment and you're like, just goes to show you can sell your soul for a price. It's what? I'm not sure that there was any of that involved here, but again, there's gotta be some justification, right? There was a deal with the devil. There was something that went on that clearly I wasn't willing to do. And that's why my exit was smaller. But more noble. Congratulations, your honor, Wil Schroter: but it's interesting because you still see You know, that level, right? That, that kind of that, that bruising, if you will that protection that here's what I rarely see. And I'm actually surprised about this. Haven't been doing this for a while. I rarely see founders that are genuinely happy for other people's outcomes. Despite how it [00:33:00] affects or compares to their own. I rarely see it. And when I do, I honestly think those are the coolest people in the world. It's a rare human Ryan Rutan: at any level. Yeah. Wil Schroter: Yeah, no it's incredible. One of the things that, that I tend to do when a friend of mine says something like, Hey, you just bought this, super expensive yacht or something like that or just, just bought a house. I a friend of mine Josh, sold his business a few years back for 80 million and bought this like massive house, and I always go out of my way to say the same thing, which is, you earned every square foot of that house. Every square foot of that house. Every Ryan Rutan: square foot of that house. Yeah. Wil Schroter: And all the maintenance that comes Ryan Rutan: with it. Wil Schroter: Yeah. And the maintenance. But my point is, and I want to make this clear, and I always stop to make sure it's the point isn't lost. It's you didn't hit the lottery and if you did, congratulations, right? Yeah. But you earned it, right? This is this, my buddy's got his new yacht. Because he worked harder, more hours, better outcomes than almost everybody else, right? That's why he has it. And so I try to isolate [00:34:00] and point that out. Dude, you earned it, right? Congratulations, and I always use the term well earned. Because I wanna separate my congratulations from everybody else's, like in an absolute show of respect, regardless of how it affects me. Let me stick to the part now where how it affects me, okay, just being very personal about it. At some point, I started to learn that other people's success does not affect me. Ryan Rutan: It sure Wil Schroter: doesn't. Right? Because I've been around long enough, Ryan, where I've seen people make exponential amounts of money, but I've also seen them lose exponential amounts of money. Ryan Rutan: Yeah. Wil Schroter: And guess what? My life didn't change whatsoever. Ryan Rutan: It didn't go down when they went up, it didn't go up when they went down, right? Yeah. It's not, there's, that's the, that's, I think that's the thing that I find so disturbing about the entire thing is that people will take these stances and they gain nothing from it. They gain absolutely nothing from taking this fundamental stance against the success of the founder. It, we're not talking about like your closest competitor, right? We're talking about somebody who, you know, [00:35:00] regardless of what they do. It will not change a minute of your actual life other than the amount of time that you spent talking shit about them, right? And that's it. And that's it. And yet, people will hold on to these things and look, I'm not innocent of this either. Now I will say, I do celebrate the hell out of a lot of founders, as do you, but in recent history, there's been a couple of times where I looked at somebody and was like, why them? Like, why them? I, to be fair, I wasn't necessarily thinking, why not me? Yeah. But I remember thinking, why? There's founders that I've had some wranglings with in the past, didn't appreciate the treatment, didn't like the treatment of other people. You see them become successful and you go but why them? Yeah. And the answer is because they, for whatever they did wrong, they also did a lot of shit. Do they deserve my my, my shit talking? Probably not. Did it change their life in any way? Also probably not. Did it change my life in any way? Definitely not. Wil Schroter: And here's the way I look at it. No matter what you do, if you do well. You are going to invite the anxiety of everyone else. It's just how the world works. There's no version where you can [00:36:00] say no one should feel that way. You don't get that luxury agreed. And yet not the case, right? So I think from our own standpoint, it's not that we have to, be super quiet about it. I really wish people would stop posting ab photos in their success tracks. I'm going to have one someday, not an app photo, just an ab. Yeah. But I'm just saying that I get it. You're successful. Congratulations. Let's move on. But I think from our standpoint as founders, if we're going to bring on success, we have to understand that there is a deliberate cost that comes with it. That is an unintentional attack on everyone else's ego. And if we don't actually understand that happens, then we're never going to be at a point where we can't understand people's reactions. If we don't understand what we're doing or putting out in the world, we'll never understand where we're getting back. And I would say the same thing with great success comes a shit ton of anxiety, not just the world we live in. Ryan Rutan: Overthinking your startup because you're going it alone? You don't have to. And honestly, you shouldn't. Because instead, you can learn directly from peers who've been in your shoes. Connect [00:37:00] with bootstrap founders and the advisors helping them win in the Startups. com community. Check out the Startups. com community at www. startups. com to see if it's for you. Could be just the thing you need. I hope to see you inside.