Startups as MMOGs

December 12, 2020

Doing a startup is the funniest massive multiplayer online game you can play. You spawn somewhere, with an idea, team, and limited resources. You build, ship, raise, and repeat.

Bootstrapped, venture-funded, mixed. No matter what's your path, there is no easy mode.

It's a strategy game, where you deploy your limited resources to build, grow, capture. Trying to keep sight of the macro while obsessing over the micro.

It's a counterintuitive game. You try something and it does not work. Try something else, a failure again. You stop. The thing that works is one iteration away, and you will never know.

It's a tiring game. Burn out will happen. When not if. Right idea, a team of friends, you are playing all day and loving it. It's consuming you and you don't even realize it.

It's a game that can be learned. You get better at it, you start to see patterns, you develop your taste, and learn what's good.

It's the game I've decided to play.