PartRunner Was Not My First

A year before PartRunner, I was working on another idea. The idea was all I had known then. I had no idea about execution. Just the drive to do something of my own fueled the adrenaline. Having a business seemed exciting, so I gave it a try.

No market research. No perfect pitch deck. Just blind belief I was doing something right. I was driven more by what I didn’t want to do anymore.

Looking back, I did everything wrong. And obviously, for good reason, I failed. But there was one right thing I did and I would still call myself an “Entrepreneur”

I got STARTED. More important than most think. I came from an engineering background not computer science. I had pivoted my career into data science by then. I had no idea how websites or apps were built. That was an unknown world. The closest I had come to “Product” was using addictive social media platforms. To be honest, the word “Product” itself was so unknown and unrelatable. I remember back in the banking world, credit cards were called a Product, loans were called a Product, and it was very weird. 

Since I was so far off from reality, I thought building a website with a beautiful UI, one-liner statements, a good signup form, and an easy credit card payment would be enough. I was simply taking all the things I liked in my day-to-day usage, putting them together, and learning web development to create it. This went on and on until I felt satisfied enough to take this into the real world.

How Does Theory Hold Up in Real Business?

A few months after I jumped in, reality hit.

I had a product I thought was enough to get going. Then I stepped into the real world. I moved from theory to real business: sales, marketing, operations. The gap between what I thought I needed and what I needed showed up fast.

I tried everything:

• Door to door sales

• Cold calling from Google lists

• Getting a few introductions through my network

I knew this wasn’t going to be easy. I had a big gap in my skills.

What Does Your First Startup Teach You?

Research backs this up. First-time founders have only an 18% success rate. Second-time founders? The success rate jumps to 30%.

The first start teaches you three critical things about yourself:

• Are you interested in this work?

• What are you good at?

• How badly do you want this?

No one is perfect. Nothing brings you closer to self-awareness than starting. You learn what kind of partner you need. You become familiar with business terminology and operations.

The self-awareness part beats everything else.

You’ll read every startup book. You’ll analyze every case study. You won’t know if you like door to door sales until you knock on doors. You won’t know if you handle rejection until you get rejected 50 times in a week.

Bottom line: Books and case studies teach you about business. Starting teaches you about yourself. The second lesson matters more.

What Do All Entrepreneurs Share?

Every entrepreneur shares one common starting point. Someone decided to begin.

After that decision, trajectories diverge completely:

• Some startups scale fast. Others grind for years.

• Some pivot once. Others pivot five times.

• Some raise millions. Others bootstrap.

All of them started.

The act of starting is more critical than any predictive metric for future success. You won’t predict entrepreneurial outcomes with traditional indicators. Company size and valuations are snapshots. They don’t guarantee anything.

Creating environments that encourage starting is more valuable than trying to pre-select promising entrepreneurs based on limited data.

You only learn what matters by starting.

Bottom line: The decision to start is the only universal prerequisite for entrepreneurial success. Everything else is variable.

How to Break Analysis Paralysis

If you’re stuck in analysis paralysis, set a deadline. Give yourself two weeks/two months to prepare, then start.

You’ll learn more in two months of doing than two years of planning.

The grind is hard. The uncertainty is real. You’ll make avoidable mistakes.

You’ll also discover:

• What you’re good at

• What you’re interested in

• How badly you want this

You won’t get this self-awareness any other way.