The Trough

First-time founders tune in! Paul Graham's "Trough of Sorrow" or "The Trough" has been written about ad nauseam over the past few years. The trough of Sorrow refers to the period of struggle a startup faces after a setback. Following the initial excitement of starting a company is the challenge to find product-market fit. All startups will experience some variation of this. Finding that fit requires relentless persistence. My intentions here are to help fellow founders navigate the various stages of The Trough.

1. TechCrunch of Initiation: These big PR moments (being featured in TechCrunch, Forbes, Inc, etc...) are really cool and help get the word out, user acquisition and initial client interactions BUT don't be blinded by the inevitable rose-colored glasses. You ain't nothing but a memory the next day... Keep pushing forward as if the article was never published and fight like hell!
2. Wearing Off of Novelty: If you are wearing the aforementioned rose-colored glasses the ride to The Trough will appear to be fun and exhilarating! You will be invited to events, parties, people will want to talk to you, more press will follow and ... the ride to The Trough will get longer while the novelty wears off. The smart ones will ignore the vanity and FOCUS ON THE MISSION. The smart ones will likely ride a shorter "Wearing off of the Novelty" stage. The focus will allow you to respond to needed adjustments in things like product, messaging and personnel BEFORE the inevitable Trough. Ride the wave of PR but understand this soon shall pass.
3. The Trough of Sorrow: Every founder will reach this point. No matter how quickly you scaled your business, no matter how much traction you have, this will be the defining period of time that makes or breaks many founders. In fact, 30% of all entrepreneurs experience depression, according to a study by Dr. Michael Freeman, a clinical professor at the University of California, San Francisco. These ups and downs of startup life can be radical. One day you might end up on a Forbes list, millions of investment dollars are flowing in; the next, you are dealing with the lows of a combination of small missteps you ignored because of those damned rose-colored glasses. YOU CAN BREAK THROUGH THIS! It requires focus and the ability to make hard decisions quickly. One of the easiest things you can do is examine what is working and most importantly ... WHY. Why did a strategy work and more importantly, why did it fail? Sometimes the model was never going to work. Product/market fit was an illusion seen through the rose-colored glasses. Sometimes the model just needs a few small tweaks to make the business scale at unicorn velocity. Being honest with yourself and accepting feedback from your advisors helps. This support system is vital to a founder's success in navigating choppy waters. One thing to note! This advice needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Not all of this advice and feedback is going to be a magic bullet. In fact, there is no magic bullet! Make adjustments and monitor them closely. If the data is foggy and your gut is telling you you need to change course. CHANGE COURSE, keep pushing forward and fight like hell!
4. Releases of Improvements: If you have been living in the trough for months, cash is dwindling and you are just now realizing you need to make adjustments or improvements to your product ... it is probably too late. DO NOT FORCE A BIG PIVOT. Sometimes an aspect of your business can create a new business altogether ... this is rare. Make calculated adjustments and improvements. Your ability to make it through these improvements, reduce burn and surface an influx of cash without going insolvent is going to feel impossible. If the word "no" or "impossible" mean anything to you, throw in the towel now.
5. Crash of Ineptitude: Your funding fell through, your most important employee quit, your biggest customer is suing you, your friends and family are telling you to quit, your mom is sick, your dog died, etc... You aren't cut out for this. Go get a job and be someone else's indentured servant. "Hard" is simply an opinion. If you think this is hard ... fuck off. You signed up for this. Keep pushing forward and fight like hell!
6. Wiggles of False Hope: You are pushing through, you got a bridge or maybe you were one of the smart ones that refused to be duped by the rose-colored glasses and had enough in the tank to navigate The Trough. Kudos to you! You are making so many adjustments; not all of them, are going to work. There is ALWAYS a way. Leverage the data. Leverage the advice and DO NOT IGNORE YOUR GUT! Keep wiggling, AND FIGHT LIKE HELL.
7. The Promised Land: You were able to forge a path. You are a professional pathfinder. Maybe just a damned good wiggler... Either way, the adjustments you made generated enough data to demonstrate your ability to navigate out of The Trough. Don't let those rose-colored glasses come back into the picture. They will inevitably appear. You will want to put them on. Don't. Keep fighting as if these changes were merely wiggles of false hope. You still have a ways to go.
8. Acquisition of Liquidity: This can mean a number of things occurred. In my own personal recounts, this was our ability to secure more funding after navigating The Trough. Take a deep breath of fresh air. Savor the moment and keep AND KEEP FIGHTING LIKE HELL.
9. Upside of Buyer: This is the stage where your copious amounts of confidence and the mountain of data show you know what you are doing. Real competitors will emerge and ride the coattails of all of your hard work. Be aware but don't get distracted by what they are doing. When Steve Jobs was asked if he was worried about its new iPod competitor, Zune, he responded with the following:

"In a word, no. I’ve seen the demonstrations on the Internet about how you can find another person using a Zune and give them a song they can play three times. It takes forever. By the time you’ve gone through all that, the girl’s got up and left! You’re much better off to take one of your earbuds out and put it in her ear. Then you’re connected with about two feet of headphone cable."

Keep doing and KEEP FIGHTING LIKE HELL and don't release products like Zune :)

If you are a founder and have a Trough story. Please share in the comments below!