I’ve been a part of quite a few startups with varying degrees of involvement. I’ve been a part of them, studied them, worked for them, observed my friends involved in them, heck, even started them. I’ve watched them grow, watched them plateau, watched them die. If I had to distill my entire experience with start-ups into one rule of thumb, it is that start-up life is a roller coaster. A manic-depressive roller coaster.

No seriously. You are not ready.

Paul Graham writes:

One minute you’re going to take over the world, and the next you’re doomed. The problem with feeling you’re doomed is not just that it makes you unhappy, but that it makes you stop working

This cliche metaphor about roller-coasters is not news for anyone who’s read anything about the scene – it pretty much goes in one ear and out the other for the entrepreneur. However, I find it only really hits people hard when they get a taste of the roller-coaster of emotions first-hand.

I’ll be the first to admit that I had very little understanding of just what this roller-coaster feels like. When I was 17, I had my first experience at “entrepreneurship” building a small Windows application that was simple music production tool. In retrospect, it didn’t stand a chance, but I was young.

At the time, it was project of love. I didn’t necessarily want it to become a business – I just wanted people to like it. But, I think somewhere along the way, ambition snuck-in and turned it into more than just fun. I would devote time every day to working on my code. I would scour the internet seeking best-practice advice from peers twice my age. I would dream about features to be added in between classes. I would gather feedback from close friends – all in a very self-assuring feedback loop. Being young, every line of code, every keystroke, was fueled with “what ifs” – tell-tale signs of foolhardy ambition.

What-ifs are always escalating. What if my friends really love my app? What if it gets the attention of a small group of people? What if garners the adoration of hundreds of users? Thousands? Tens of thousands? What if people like it so much, I’d be able to pay for college just on software sales? Maybe even make a living off of it? Maybe it’ll make it big and I’ll strike it rich? Ah, the possibilities. The upwards roller-coaster was in full effect.

The way down is a lot less fun. It sucks. You begin doubting things. You begin to doubt your creativity, your reasoning, your abilities. You start to wonder if all that hard work you put in was worthless. The proverbial cloud is draped all over you for a long time and you begin to do more second-guessing than hacking.

… And then something good happens. Either some new development arises or you’ve got a great new idea. Either way, you’re back on the roller-coaster.

Looking back on that experience (and the many between then and now), the greatest thing that came out of it was my growth as a person. I learned to appreciate the art of programming – setting me up for a future in computer science and software engineering. I learned to appreciate balancing personal life, with project life, with school life, and what eventually became career life. I learned that the rewards for writing software can be at a personal level – almost spiritual. I learned that the roller-coaster ride is tough. These learnings are constant; they’re everlasting. Good lessons are roller-coaster free.

The reality is, your wildest imaginations about the possibilities for your projects never come true. This is especially true in the current Silicon-Valley start-up climate. Everyone thinks that with a few lines of code, they’re going to be the next Big Thing. Dream on. If you’re thinking you’ve got some secret sauce that will take you to the top in one shot, you are just waiting for that roller-coast drop to bite you in the ass.

Instead, get real. Get realistic. The best way to avoid the fall is to never let your head get in the clouds. Start projects on small ideas with the realization that the most you can ask of it is that you’ll enjoy working on it, that you’ll learn a lot about your craft and your own abilities, and that you have a very good shot creating something great for like-minded individuals. The greatest success will eventually come from a series of small steps. But that takes the realization that sometimes, the greatest success is not financial, but personal as well.

In an oft-quoted blog entry, Chris Wanstrath of GitHub writes:

I didn’t just walk out of high school, pick up a Ruby book, meet Tom and PJ, then launch the site GitHub.  Before GitHub came, in chronological order, Spyc, Ozimodo, my ozmm.org tumblelog, ftpd.rb, Choice, Err the Blog, acts_as_textiled, Cheat!, acts_as_cached, Mofo, Subtlety, cache_fu, Sexy Migrations, Gibberish, nginx_config_generator, fixture scenarios builder, Sake, Ambition, and Facebox.  And that’s just the stuff I released.

In About Us, I described that “we want to do something small, something important, and something really well”. That describes Ronin as a culmination of the ideas I’ve described. Ronin is not a roller-coaster ride. Ronin is a labor of love – not a shot at a billion dollar business. I only ask that it provide me with more learnings, more experiences, and good people to work with. I hope that idea resonates with both the people who enjoy Ronin as a product and the people who read this blog entry with ideas for projects of their own.