“There are no safe paths… Remember you are over the Edge of the Wild now” (Tolkien)

This quote from The Hobbit so beautifully encapsulates venture-backed startups.

Here’s a bunch of reasons “there are no safe paths…”

• For your startup to be venture backable, we need to believe it could change the planet. Finding the words to convince people you’re building a planet-changing startup isn’t likely to feel ‘safe’
• Founding a venture-backed startup can feel terribly lonely. It can also feel exhilarating. Founders ride the emotional ‘big dipper’
• At the beginning, everything might hang in the balance with one or two customers. It doesn’t take much for a change in their financial position, their management or even just a change of heart to monumentally make or crush the prospects of your business
• You’ll be going so fast you’re about to trip up and, at the same time, you’re likely to feel you’re not going quickly enough
• The moment you raise capital you’re on a clock to achieve a bunch of near impossible milestones so that you can raise the next capital. It’s unending.

The simple truth is that staying on the safe path goes against the very nature of a venture backable startup. Letting go of trying to feel safe is a tough emotional setting to achieve, excruciating even sometimes, but if you really want to build a successful venture-backed business, journeying over the “Edge of the Wild” is perhaps the only way.